Wiscon Day 1, Part 1

[bcholmes]

I made it to two panels on the first day. The first was:

Immigration, Fictional and Non-Fictional

People have moved around this planet since there's been people and since there's been a plant. However, since this newfangled "nation-state" invention, it's gotten a little more complicated. Come talk about both fictional and nonfictional examples of people emigrating from one nation-state to another nation-state, remembering that immigrants aren't an abstract construct, but real people.

Mary Anne Mohanraj, Ay-leen the Peacemaker, Suzanne Alles Blom, Amal El-Mohar

There were snippets of really good stuff in this panel, but I kept imagining all the things that the panel could be, and getting a bit wistful about that. badgerbag has posted a bit about this panel -- mostly, she was annoyed about the metric ton of manslaining that was taking place. And, yeah, there was that. I'm especially annoyed at the (immigrant) guy who maintained that immigrants did have a debt to the great country of America that let them in, and opposed the bad guys in their homelands and is making the world a better place for all humanity.

The stuff I did like about the panel involved discussion about the nature of nation states (Mary Anne recommended Imaginary Communities). I also enjoyed hearing Mary Anne's introductory story about how she finally got her American citizenship because if she were ever convicted of a crime, new laws in the PATRIOT Act would see her immediately deported.

I was also glad to hear some non-American framing -- Amal was Canadian, and talked about interesting topics such as official languages and how unwilling Canadians are to learn "the other" language. Amal also talked about a series of ads currently running in Canada (I haven't seen them: no TV) promoting the idea of recognizing foreign training for, e.g., doctors, etc. The cause is reasonable, but frames the conversation in terms of the immigrant's usefulness to us.

I appreciated one comment from the audience about how the term assimilation seems to come with built-in blame. And a binary choice: you assimilate or don't. If other members of the community made a different choice, they're somehow wrong. She says that this stuff breaks up families, etc.

We briefly -- briefly -- touched on the language issue of "illegal" immigrants versus "undocumented" immigrants. But what I wished could have been discussed were the more radical questions: must we have immigration? Why can't we let people move to wherever they want? Why does that idea challenge so many people?

Fictional immigrants got short shrift in the conversation. Amal suggested two stories from Strange Horizons: "The Red Bride" and "Household Spirits".

Mary Anne also recommended the non-fictional Leaving India.