''Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.''
That quote is attributed to Jack Paar, who was a TV host back when I was a child. Other people have repeated it since then, and it seems to be the actual belief of many Americans.
But is immigration flattery? Is it really a tribute to our attractiveness or virtue?
Many Americans seem to think immigrants come here because they admire us, want to be 'us', want to be part of our family, and adopt our way of life. Is it true?
And if it were, would we want it to be true?
Would we want to add just anybody and everybody to our 'real' blood family, if they admired us and want to be like us? Would they be able to fit in, even if they liked us and tried to emulate us?
Many Americans suffer from the need to be admired and liked. Most Americans are immensely flattered, seemingly, when they believe an individual immigrant came here out of admiration for us and a desire to adopt our ways.
I think of an episode from the old Andy Griffith Show, called Stranger In Town
in which a stranger arrives in Mayberry, and proceeds to act and speak as though he has always lived there, and knows everyone by name. At first, people are suspicious -- even those open-hearted Mayberry folks are 'xenophobic' -- but as they learn his 'touching' story, decide that they want to make him part of the Mayberry family. He was a lonely, rootless individual longing to be part of the Mayberry he came to 'know' via reading the hometown paper, and hearing of the town from his Army buddy. He had found his 'home', and was accepted. Is this the story of the millions who come here to live in our hometowns every year?
I doubt it. Most have little interest in, or regard for, us.
But the American need to be flattered by thinking that the huddled masses immigrate here because they long to be among us and to be part of us, is an almost pathological need in many cases Much more is it true now, than at earlier times, at least in my own personal recollection.
I remember reading a news story, back in the 1980s, I think, about a Russian immigrant coming to a small town in the Northwest. This was at a time when immigration to such towns, especially from so enigmatic a place as Russia was then, was a rarity, a real curiosity. Back then, the cold war had still not ended, though the end was drawing near, and because of the Cold War, the media had been full of stories about the poor Russians, mostly Jews, seeking to get out of the Soviet Union and come to the 'freedom' and opportunity of the West. We were encouraged to idealize, even idolize Russian dissenters, probably for narcissistic reasons: obviously these dissenters were smart people who recognized the superiority of our 'free market system',capitalism and the American people, and therefore we should cheer their escaping the USSR and coming to live among us. And the fact that Russians wanted to come here was a confirmation of the superiority of our system, so people thought.
This heralded Russian immigrant, given the star treatment by the small-town weekly paper, was inundated with offers of help. He was given a rent-free place to live, a free car, a job, and was the recipient of the largesse of the townspeople generally. He even made the daily newspaper of a nearby big city. All because he was from Russia and had a story that tugged at the heartstrings, or at least played on our desire to be flattered and liked by foreign people.
I wondered bitterly at the time -- liberal though I was -- whether the townsfolk had ever offered such generous help to one of their lifelong neighbors or acquaintances who had fallen on hard times. I concluded that they would not go to such lengths for one of their own hometown folk. They might even resent him as a deadbeat, a shiftless moocher, or a feckless no-good, but as the feted immigrant was exotic and a novelty, he was gold.
I wonder what became of him years after all the attention. Does he speak English now? Has he Americanized? Has he moved on to greener pastures after his exotic-ness wore off? I picture him living in a Russian-speaking enclave with more recent arrivals, among them, probably his parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, and the rest.
Russians are not so exotic these days. In our neck of the woods, small town though we are, we have quite a few, and a nearby town is dominated by Russian immigrants, and has a high level of, ahem, social dysfunction. Drugs, crime, the usual.
But the same Americans who love to be liked and flattered by immigrants have now turned their attentions to the even more exotic: Somalis, Southeast Asians, Haitians, as well as the commonplace Central Americans. The love affair has not worn off for many Americans, even though more of the less sentimental people are becoming outspoken in their ire about the influx.
It appears to be something innate in Americans, this puppy-dog desire to be liked by everyone, and conversely, to like and to fawn on everyone. Is this a display of insecurity on the part of such people? Are we so in need of outsiders' validation of our 'specialness' and superiority that we need to bring the whole world here to confirm it for ourselves?
The 'conservative' mainstream type is often guilty of this excessive dependence on the opinion of others; they are the ones who are hyped up on the idea of 'American exceptionalism' and the idea that America has the market on 'freedom and opportunity' cornered. And since we have it all locked up here in America, how dare we even think of closing the door to the rest of the world, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free? How dare we deny them their share of our own special sauce, our secret stash of 'freedom'? It's our duty, not only to wage wars abroad to deliver a shipment of freedom to the poor moslem world, but to open the doors to everybody so as to give them their handouts of freedom. After all, it can only be had here. We own it and have the patent on it.
And we get the gratification of being the Santa Claus to the world, and to receive praise and thanks for it, so that we can feel good about ourselves, and to congratulate us, ourselves on our great generosity and open-handedness. The Republican faithful eat this kind of thing up.
Apparently these same people fail to notice that we are not thanked and praised for anything we do; we are treated with contempt by many of those to whom we've extended largesse, abroad and here at home. We are seen as fools, gullible chumps, and worse. Yet few seem to notice.
And it's ever more obvious that those who come in ever-growing numbers do not respect us, much less admire or seek to emulate us; they treat us as a convenience to be used, and they see our generosity as no more than their due. They feel entitled. It's clear that they will show no largesse or generosity of spirit to us when we are outnumbered and under their domination. So far, this has not sunk in for many of the Welcome Wagon Americans. I was talking to one today, and it certainly has not sunk in for that person, despite all the events of the last year or so: assaults, mob violence of the ugliest sort, and the usual list of woes: bankrupted hospitals, whole states on the verge of insolvency, overcrowded schools and jails, the ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and even whole towns.
A few years ago, 'worse is better' was the catchphrase for many ethnonationalists. I'm still waiting for the 'better' part.
But as for the witty saying which is the title to this post, no, it is not immigration but imitation that is the sincerest form of flattery. And few immigrants are imitating our American ways. And perhaps they can't; there is no magic assimilation dust that can transform people into something different.
So be it; never the twain shall meet -- even though in our multicultural paradise, we are living side by side at the moment, we are still distinct from one another.
