Joe
Paul GoodellDuring much of 2007, illegal immigration became an issue of tremendous importance in America. Ordinary citizens rose up en masse to reject the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill in June; the Republican presidential candidates talked about the need for border security and argued about how we should handle the millions of illegal immigrants living there. Lately, the subject of immigration has moved into the background a little bit in the midst of gearing up for the general election this fall. That doesn’t mean, however, that the issue itself has gone away or that we’ve managed to somehow deal with it.
I thought another allegory was in order to get people thinking about this issue again. I also wanted to express how important the I believe the issue of illegal immigration is for America — why it must be dealt with quickly before it threatens to overwhelm us — as well as how badly I think we have handled it so far. My challenge to anyone reading this is to try to answer the question at the end of the story.
Joe
When John and his wife Jane got home from vacation, Joe was already there. They never did figure out how he got into their house (though John thought it might have been through the bay window that faced south), but it seemed inhumane to just throw him out. It was strange for them at first, living with an uninvited guest, but they had a really big house. Plus, Joe worked really hard and kept mostly to himself in the spare room in the basement. John and Jane hardly knew he was there.
It was a few years before they learned that Joe had brought his wife and brothers into the basement to live with him.
“Oh,” said Jane when she found out. “Well. I guess it’s not really much of an inconvenience. Just as long as they keep to themselves.”
“I suppose,” said John. “I still think they should have asked to come in, though.”
Joe assured them that they would never notice his family.
“No problem,” he said. “They’ll be no problem at all. Thank you so much for letting us stay in your house.”
Not long afterwards, Joe and his wife, Mary, started to have children. Jane saw Mary one day taking some food out of the refrigerator, a few weeks after she’d had her fourth baby, Michael.
“Congratulations,” said Jane.
“Thank you very much,” said Mary, carrying some food and milk to take downstairs. “James and Robert moved back into the spare room to make room for their new little brother.”
“What do you mean?” said Jane, slightly flummoxed. “I thought you all lived in the spare room.”
“Oh no, ma’am,” laughed Mary. “We couldn’t fit thirty of us in that one room.”
“Thirty?” Jane exclaimed. “When did all these other people move into our basement?”
As it turned out, Joe’s brothers, Jon and Paul, had moved their wives and children in downstairs with them. Their wives, in turn, had moved their parents and siblings in with them.
“You really don’t want their families to be separated, do you?” Mary asked Jane.
“Well, I – ah,” stammered Jane. “I …I guess not. I suppose. That’s … that’s probably not good for the children, is it?”
“What’s this?” said John, who had just walked into the room.
“Oh, nothing dear,” said Jane. “We have some more guests downstairs, is all.”
“More guests? Did you invite them?”
“No, but they’re Joe’s family. I’m sure they’ll be okay,” said Jane.
“Why don’t they just ask us to come in?” said John, sounding very irritated. “This is our house, after all.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” said Mary. “They won’t be a problem. No problem at all. Thank you very much. This house is very nice. We like the basement a lot. It’s a much nicer place than we were before.”
Things were pretty quiet for a while after that. Life went on. A few years later, John and Jane had twins. All seventy people in Joe’s family came upstairs for the party to congratulate them.
From time to time, Mary or Joe would come upstairs to take food, diapers, or medicine back down with them. John’s brother came to live with him after he was diagnosed with leukemia, and moved into a room on the second floor. Jane’s best friend and her children came to live with them after her husband left her, and took two rooms on the first floor. And still, less than half of the first and second floor bedrooms were taken. It was, after all, a very big house.
Then one day, Joe came upstairs and announced that his family was moving into some of the empty first floor rooms.
“You can’t do that,” said John.
“Can’t do it?” said Joe, looking like he’d been doused in ice water. “Why not? There are over two hundred of us downstairs, now. It’s much too crowded and uncomfortable, and you’re not even using these three empty rooms here.”
“Yes, but they’re our rooms, not your– wait. Did you say you have two hundred people downstairs?”
“Yeah.”
“Two hundred people?”
“Yes.”
“How in the world did you get a hundred people down there, let alone two? How’s that possible, for crying out loud? You people breed like rabbits.”
“You people? What’s that supposed to mean? You have your friends and family here, same as me. You have your children. You’re no different than me, but you don’t see me insulting you.”
“That’s totally different! My brother Barry has leukemia. Plus, there’s only one of him, not two hundred. And he didn’t just sneak in, either. I don’t even know why I’m arguing with you about this. This is my house, not yours.”
“Your house?” said Joe, the color in his face rising with his voice. “I’ve lived here for over ten years. My children were born here. This is as much my house as it is yours.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?” yelled John. “This is not your house. It’s mine. It’s Jane’s. We never asked you to come in: you broke in while we were away. I should have kicked your trespassing ass out on the street when we first found you!”
“Oh! Now the truth comes out! I always knew you hated me. Now you want to kick me out just like your family did before.”
“What?” said John, slightly nonplussed and still very angry. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t even try to tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. Your family stole this house from my family.”
“That’s ridiculous! This house has been in my family for almost ten generations. Your family never lived here, you liar!”
“Ten generations ago we did!” screamed Joe.
The noise of their fight brought Jane rushing into the room.
“What is all this?” she cried. “What are you fighting about?”
“This lying idiot wants to move his whole shantytown family into the first floor rooms,” said John, pointing menacingly at Joe.
“What?” said Jane. “Wha– Joe, why do you need so much space?”
“I’m not trying to cause any trouble here, Jane,” said Joe, in a more subdued tone. “Really. There are just way too many of us down there. It’s not a healthy environment for anyone, especially the children.”
“Yes, but … I thought there were only seventy people downstairs,” said Jane.
John gave a derisive laugh. “Yeah, right. You expect them to stay at seventy? They didn’t stay at thirty.”
Jane threw an exasperated look at her husband. “How many people are there downstairs now, Joe?” she asked.
“Now?” said Joe, furrowing his brow. “There are two hundred … ten? No. Two hundred twelve.”
“Two hundred twelve?” yelped Jane. “Joe – how did so many people get down there?”
Joe spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s hard to turn down family or friends in need, Jane. I mean, surely you, of all people can understand that.”
“Well … I, I guess,” said Jane, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. “Still, I don’t know. That’s a lot of people.”
“I can understand why you’d think that, Jane,” said Joe. “But you have to remember that you have a huge house here. And we’re only asking for a few rooms that you’re not even using. Plus, you have more empty rooms upstairs, right?”
“I … suppose,” started Jane.
“You what?” said John in a strangled voice.
“It’s not too much to ask, I think,” said Joe. “In light of the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” said Jane.
“Well, the family histories, of course. Surely John’s told you?”
“Told me what?” said Jane. She turned to John. “Told me what John?”
“Nothing!” said John. “I don’t know what this lunatic’s talking about.”
“Oh please,” spat Joe. “Don’t play coy with me, John. Nearly two hundred years ago my family was cheated out of this mansion by a Mr. Jonathan Quentin Public and his lawyer friends. The people in the neighborhood didn’t want my family there anymore. Mr Public and his friends got the bank to foreclose on my family’s house – this house. My family tried to fight the foreclosure, but the local militia showed up and removed everyone from the house. Then Mr. Public bought it for a song at public auction and moved in here with his family. They became the center of the community. My family left town in disgrace.”
John was silent. He remembered hearing something once about a shady land deal involving this house a long time ago, but he hadn’t given it much thought until now. Jane looked stricken. She turned to her husband.
“It’s not true,” she said. “It’s not, is it? Tell me it’s not true, John.”
John studied a spot at the bottom of the wall in front of him. He passed furtive glances around the room for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally said.
“I think you do,” said Joe very quietly, his voice contrasting with the intense look on his face. “We’ve lived here for more than ten years now. This is our house, and these should be our rooms. It’s the least you can do.”
His last sentence didn’t sound like an appeal.
Jane silently nodded in agreement, looking at the ground.
“No, no Jane,” said John, shaking his head as if in a daze. “Wait. I don’t care what my family might have done to his family two hundred years ago. I didn’t do anything to them and neither did you. All we’ve done was raise our family here. This place isn’t his, I don’t care what he sa–”
“No,” said Jane. Her voice was soft, but it cut John’s words like a whip. “He’s right. If your family did do this to him, then we need to try to make things right. His family deserves to live in those rooms. It’s the least we can do.”
John stood with his mouth open, ready to form a response that wouldn’t come. After a few moments, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He nodded.
Joe’s face softened. “That’s very kind of you two. Very kind. We really appreciate it.”
He opened the basement door and called up his family and friends, who began to file up and out into the first floor rooms.
“Thank you very much,” said Joe. “We really want to live in this house with you together in peace. We don’t want any problems. No problems at all.”
Jane and John smiled weakly and nodded. Then they walked upstairs to their part of the house.
John’s head was swimming. His family had lived here for so many years. It was their house. Still, he thought, if what Joe said about our families’ histories was true … But even then, it’s still our house. Isn’t it?
But then he realized that it didn’t matter. Joe and his family were already there. It would be hard to throw them all out of the house now, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to try. There were babies and small children and pregnant women in that group. What would become of them if they couldn’t live in this house?
“Even if it really is our house,” John said to himself, “what can we do?”
June 10th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Here’s question. Let’s say Paul robs my entire fortune from me, and we live in a world of quasi-anarchy without a stable judicial figure to whom I can appeal. Paul takes said fortune and invests it wisely into various business enterprises that net him greater wealth, which is inherited by his children’s children. My family, though, spends two generations learning how to kick Paul’s kids’ collective ass, and upon Paul & I’s passings, my grandkids come collecting.
In light of the case that circumstances were not fair at the time of Paul’s robbery — the whole anarchy thing — do my grandkids have a legit beef?
June 11th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I would like to add a preface to this story which might make it a bit more accurate. John and Jane did not take out a mortgage or even pay for their home. Their great-great-great grandmother, Ms. Emma Grant, one day simply appeared in the home (perhaps through that damn south facing bay window) much to the suprise of the former occupants, Mr. and Mrs. N. Dian. The Dians, being gracious to a fault, let Emma Grant live in the basement and even helped her paint and lay some carpet. However, one day Emma Grant decided she wanted the whole house and threw the Dians out. She told the Dians they could live in a tiny patch of the backyard over by the fence where no grass grows. Generations later, the Dians’ relatives are still out in the backyard (although they have been relegated to a quarter of the patch for twice as many people- John and Jane wanted to put in a garden) and Emma Grant’s descendants, John and Jane, still live in the home that they did not pay for and did nothing to earn.
There…..that’s better.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Well Big Mike (that’s a great handle, by the way), I’ll grant you that John and Jane didn’t pay for their home in any way. That’s hardly their fault, however, since the house was long paid for by the time they came around to inherit it. (It had been in John’s family for generations, after all. A similar critique could be leveled at any child whose parents own the house in which he lives.) I’ll also Grant you the change of family history (pun intended — although it’s taking liberties with my story, but I’m an understanding fellow), although I doubt that the Grants ever lived in the basement. They weren’t as consciously under-the-radar as Joe is. They probably occupied a wing of the first floor when they showed up. I also don’t think they left the Dians to the backyard. There are several houses down the street that the Dians moved into after they were forced out. It’s just that none of them is as nice as the house they lost.
I think you even understated your case a bit, Mike. You could have added that the Grants kicked out the Dians in part because the Dians wouldn’t let them continue to sell crack out of their wing of the house. (Of course, a generation after the Grants/Publics kicked out the Dians there was a huge intra-family fight over the family business, which led to the Publics stopping selling crack for good.) So there’s that bit of shadiness to add to the whole situation.
I have one question for you, however. So what?
Lest we forget, of course, that the Dians themselves are no more than the descendants of mobsters. Mr. Dian’s maternal ancestors were ruthless gangsters who invaded and terrorized the neighborhood, killing anyone who wouldn’t give them their property to control. They did very little real work for themselves — they forced others to take care of them so they could live in luxury. Their huge mansion was financed mostly on ill-gotten wealth, after all. The only reason they weren’t still in control was that Mr. Dian’s great-great-great-great paternal grandfather’s family had come from out of town and broken the strength of the Dians’ ancestors. (They then proceeded to create illegal mining and money-laundering operations, of course.) After a little while, the families merged, but the out-of-towners retained most of the influence. Well, until the Grants/Publics moved into town and eventually kicked them out. The same way the Dians had kicked out others beforehand.
There … that’s even better than before.
And, after all that explanation, the same question remains: so what?
Neither party has a better claim to the land or the house than the other does, but possession counts for a lot. The Dians didn’t legitimately possess the land: their ancestors stole it (first) from their neighbors and (later) from each other. They had the right of possession until it was taken from them; now they no longer have that. If either of them could have been said to have legitimately come into possession of the land, there could be a claim of genuine Right (as opposed to right), but such is not the case. Therefore, all that exists is the right of possession, which the Public family has every right to defend. The Dians can try to take back the house, but the Publics have no obligation whatsoever to help them in any way, and every right (as opposed to Right) to stop them. If the Dians fail they can’t complain. They lived by the sword for a while; then they died by it. If nothing else, the Dians can take comfort in the possibility that the same thing may also happen to the Publics, someday (especially since many in the Public family seem to be actively encouraging such an outcome, but that’s a discussion for a different essay).
June 13th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I think your analogy’s a bit flawed at the end, Tom. Your grandchildren haven’t spent their time learning how to kick my grandchildren’s asses. They’ve spent their time learning how to mow my grandchildren’s lawns and clean their houses. Very little of any collecting that takes place will do so because your grandchildren take anything by force. Rather, it will happen because my grandchildren allow themselves to be robbed. In that case, your grandchildren will be at fault for stealing, but mine will be at an even greater fault for not keeping what they were legitimately given.
June 16th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Paul
So what indeed - my point exactly. You don’t cry for the Dians (in fact, the slander is somewhat startling). Likewise, I don’t cry for John and Jane. The Dians or their ancestors lived by the sword (or so you say). John and Jane and their ancestors perhaps lived by the gun. Joe and his ancestors lives by stealth and taking advantage of a U.S. Government that is ambivalent on the issue of immigration. Why should we feel sorry for any of them? What goes around comes around.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I don’t know why the so-called slander is startling. The Aztecs practiced mass-human sacrifice and ripped the hearts out of their POWs (among others). They lived off of conquests like a nation of locusts, relying on their captured slaves to do their work and run their society. They did some amazing things (like building Tenochticlan, which was an engineering marvel), but I don’t feel bad comparing them to gangsters. I make no apologies for the Spaniards (or, to a lesser extent, Polk and Taylor et al.), but at worst their brutality barely reached the savage depths of the Aztecs’.
As for your last two sentences, I guess I don’t understand the point of your critique. I apologize if I’m misreading you, but it seems that you’re implying that the US should roll over and play dead and not defend itself. The point of my story is that we should not do that, that we should in fact kick the interlopers out of our house. To take issue with that position, especially in the context of your criticism seems a lot different than to just have no sympathy for the plight of the legitimate (some would say “rightful”) residents.
Are you simply saying that the US, if it does nothing, is only getting what it deserves, or are you arguing that the US should do nothing to defend itself, because the new invaders have some right of karma to throw down their former conquerors? I disagree with the first position, although it seems to be a legitimate argument. The second position seems completely untenable.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
The point I’m making goes back to the old saying about the difference between a developer and a conservationist. The difference between the two is that the developer wants to live in the woods and the conservationist already does. Now that John and Jane have successfully gained control of the house and kicked out the former inhabitants, of course they want to be territorial. As long as you’re one of the huddled masses, yearning to be free, then its fine to believe in the American dream. As soon as you’re already in, then let’s bar the door. That’s human nature I guess.
June 18th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Well, I agree with you that it’s human nature. The question is, can it be legitimate or not?
For example, Samuel Adams, on hearing about Shay’s Rebellion, was asked what people should do with the revolutionaries. To the surprise of many, Adams said that the rebels should be lined up against a wall and shot; America had already had its revolution, and it didn’t need another one. One can look on his comments as reflecting an “I’ve got mine” kind of attitude, I suppose. But such a criticism implies that there is no such thing as a legitimate result of a process like a revolution. If such a thing can exist, however, than it’s possible for a revolutionary like Sam Adams to wholeheartedly support independence from Britain and the USA and wholeheartedly condemn any attempt to destroy the USA through further revolution. The two aren’t contradictory.
Similarly, unless it’s impossible for one people’s possession of the land to entitle them to say who should and shouldn’t be allowed into their country (since, as has been established, no previous possessor had a pure, or objectively legitimate claim to the land), then there’s no problem with John and Jane telling Joe he has to go. If that is impossible, however, then it follows that the whole idea of countries itself is a sham. If no one people is entitled to tell another people that they can’t live in their territory, then it’s ludicrous to say that the any group has any claim on the territory at all — and hence, that the idea of settled boundaries or areas is all a bunch of nonsense. The “French” can’t tell the “Germans” not to come in. The “Ukrainians” can’t tell the “Russians” to go away. “Iraqis” have no legitimate beef with “Americans” coming into “their” country.
(Who are the “French”, the “Germans”, the “Ukrainians”, the “Russians”, “Iraqis”, or “Americans” anyway? Those are a just a bunch of names of people who threw out other people who used to live on that land a long time ago. What real right do they have to stop other people from going wherever they want to on God’s green earth?)
Of course, if this train of thought is not true, if it’s possible for one group to have the right to tell another group to not enter its territory, then it follows that John and Jane are probably justified in telling Joe to get lost. Accepting the huddled masses is very good, but there’s no obligation to do so.
And besides, when John and Jane’s grandparents accepted earlier huddled masses, those huddled masses made it a point to fit into the way the house worked. And when it looked like there were so many of the huddled masses that they wouldn’t change themselves to accommodate how the house worked, what did John and Jane’s grandparents do? They stopped accepting the huddled masses for a generation, to make sure that their family had enough time to assimilate the people who’d already come in. (This was the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, which remained in force for 40 years, until Congress countermanded it under LBJ.) We’ve done it before. Doing it again is as simple as asserting our own right to defend the culture of the land we were born in. The question, as John asked at the end of the story, is do we have the will to do so?