Trumpism and Immigration 1

We have long talked about the USA being at the doorway of fascism, of totalitarianism. Now we joke bitterly that in the face of Trump, Bush doesn’t seem so bad.  And now, sadly, finally we have arrived and are stepping over the threshold to the end of this nation as we know it, always marred but at least still holding up some morals, standing for some freedom.

Mr. Trump’s first actions were to raise mortgage rates through the FHA (for many of the very people who put him in power) and let states choose to ignore any parts of the Affordable Care Act that they felt, for any reason, were onerous. (Negatively impacting many of the people who put him in power.) His closest advisor Steve Bannon has told the press to shut up and Trump considers a free press an adversary.

There is a serious effort to overturn an amendment that separates church and state, not allowing churches to financially support or campaign for elected officials, and to allow individuals with a religious bias to not rent to, employ or serve individuals whose lifestyles fly in the belief of their own religious practice, be it homosexuality, or an unmarried woman being sexually active and/or buying contraceptives.

The fact that Russia, as his own cabinet official said “messed around” with the election of Trump, is not even a continuing news story.   With the ban on citizens without visas from Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen entering the US, and the detention and possible deportation of those with valid visas the USA has taken a nose-dive. Yes it has been temporarily put on hold, but with a reshaped Supreme Court who knows what the outcome will be. Will Trump try and take down Emma Lazarus’ 1883 Statue of Liberty poem and replace it with:

Give me your Aryans, your bigots, your Neo-Nazis longing to deceive

All the haters and oppressors of your teeming shores.

Send these destroyers, weapon laden to me

Let them bow heads and salute then enter my Whites-and-Christians-only door.

Now we really are at the gateway of some terrible times if we do not increase the actions against this regime and convince more of the current law makers to put country and principles, morals and truth before power and politics.

Immigration is personal to me. The story goes that my grandfather, born in 1898,  had rowed rum laden boats to Florida shores during the Prohibition era, and decided one day to get off the boat and walk, first to Virginia where some family had already immigrated and then to New York.  He never had official papers, like my Jamaican born grandmother.  But he raised three sons, bought a home, paid taxes and worked, even though the Depression, a point of pride to never ask for public assistance.  Trump would call him an illegal alien.  Truth be told my grandfather never lost his accent and until the day he died called the Bahamas home, but he supported America and American values and left this nation a little bit better, a little bit stronger.

As for religion, my family is broad.  Some Christian, others Muslim, Wicca is in the house and spiritual but not institutional-religion bound.  We have no problems loving and respecting each other and our diverse understandings of cosmology and blessings.

Mahnaz Badihian

That said I offer a poem from my poet friend Mahnaz Badihian who penned an excellent response to trump’s latest abomination. Mahnaz Badihian is a Poet, Painter, Translator and active member of San Francisco’s Revolutionary Poets Brigade.

THIS IS MY COUNTRY TOO

 This is my country too,

Mr.Trump
I buried my pomegranate tree

Here
my mother died

here
this country opened its bosoms

to us
Mother liberty called for children
of other lands to gather

here
this country needed

the children of Rumi, Hafiz and Adonis

needed to enchant its land with the children

who grew to be
Walt Whitman and Maya Angelou

Where were you when we came
with baskets of basil and poems,
with biblical fruits as a gift?

This is our country too
we did not build hotels but
gave you our

brightest brains
paved your soul with our

art and culture

Fortunately the universe is our home

the city of Isfahan
and the city of San Francisco too
I can call Isla Negra my home
where I visited Pablo Neruda’s grave
next to the resting place of Matilda

Because human hope
art and poetry is universal
because we are all children of this planet
With or without hotels

I could not be happier than
to see all hands united
In celebrating freedom and peace

I am the daughter of Zoroaster
daughter of Moses and Mohammad
daughter of poplar trees everywhere,

no matter where

But I care to be a human being
to feel others’ pain
to share my loaf of bread
to wipe tears from tearful eyes

You call me Moslem or Jew
you name me black or white
but I like to be called a member
of the human race

Mr. Trump you can move me away

from the garden I watered

for decades in this land
you can scare us with your new orders
but flower gardens are

everywhere
the sun shines

everywhere
the moon belongs to

everyone,
with or without hotels

We will take our roses to the other side

of the river
to other continents
but you have one home only
the inflamed bigotry in your own golden prison

Mahnaz Badihian

Please visit her website and read more of her poetry , read her translation and have a wonderful visit.