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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: May 2, 2004
Latest Update: May 2, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Let's Talk About the Schizophrenia

Based on Doctors Aren't Border Agents By Steve Lopez. Los Angeles Times. Sunday, May 16, 2004. Steve Lopez puts into plain English some of the inconsistencies and inadequacies of our immigration policies.

Discussion Questions

1. How does this piece illustrate unstated assumptions?

   Consider that in our daily transactions we make the unstated assumption that all people are legal. Imagine the humiliation of asking someone who works for you if he/she is legal because you heard him/her speaking Spanish, or because you think he/she looks like an immigrant. We call that profiling in the real world. Are we asking everyone in our communities to check immigration status by profiling those with whom we interact? Want to consider how that relates to democracy?

2. Can you see a parallel here with the problems with the don't ask, don't tell policy with gays and lesbians?

   Consider that you have to make some kind of unstated assumptions to prompt the asking of the question in the first place?

3. What's the agenda the Congressman ascribes to his fellow legislators?

   "they're owned by corporate titans and wealthy Americans who want cheap labor." OK. He gets it. But maybe shouldn't we worry more about whether or not that cheap labor they want is exploited?

4. Why did we call it schizophrenic?

   We define the immigrant as the cause of all doom and disaster when it is convenient to do so, and then define him/her as esential to our daily lives, when it is convenient to do so. Same as the craziness of calling the American Indian "the noble savage" or the "wild Indian" according to our agenda of the moment.

   Try also inappropriate affect, one of the descriptions of schizophrenic behavior. Too much emotion, aimed at each other, non-productive. Need for some practice in the direction of mental health for all of us.