melting pot

I watched an episode from season 5 of The Sopranos tonight that kinda got to me. In this season, Tony Soprano's cousin, Tony B. (played by Steve Buscemi), is let out of prison and tells Soprano that he wants to go straight. He did some thinking in the pen and decided to learn a traded instead of reentering the family business. Soprano's a bit upset by this, wanting things to back as they were, but supports his cousin in his new endeavor and goes as far as to set him up with a legit job while he studies to become a state-certified masseur. Tony B.'s job is with Mr. Kim, a Korean immigrant who owns and operates a laundry business. Kim doesn't like having Tony B. around, but knows he needs Soprano's union connections to survive. In this episode, Tony B. is out on the job and while he's loading the back of the truck, it gets stolen. Kim initially blames Tony, because of his previous record, but after finding out it was the work of two kids looking for a joyride, apologizes and offers Tony a deal. Kim says that he found out that Tony is studying to better himself, and given the long hours he's working at the laundry service, Kim admires Tony's work ethic. He tells Tony that as soon as he's board-certified, Kim will let him use an old storefront he owns as an office. The two will be partners, and Kim's directionless daughter (who's smoking hot by the way) will help out as well.

Tony is elated. He's teary eyed when telling the rest of the guys and says "Getting out of prison is a lot like being an immigrant." Tony gets his certification and begins work on fixing the office while splitting time working the laundry business. One night, Tony's sharing the story of his good fortune with his girlfriend when a car comes zipping around the block and tosses a bag out the window. Tony goes over to investigate and it's full of drugs and money, $12K. He tosses the drugs and keeps the money. He says he's going to buy his girl a ring, but she advises that he should invest that money back into the business. He ends up spending it on alcohol and gambling and living the good life he was accustomed to before he went to prison. However, this time around he's still busting his ass at his two legit enterprises. It gets to be too much for Tony. The scene that got me was, after a long night of drinking and gambling, Tony was painting at the office and gets a call from his girlfriend. She tells him the massage tables were sent to his grandmother's address (the wrong place) and he snaps at her; she snaps back. He hangs up on her when Kim walks in. He says the place is looking nice and asks about the tables. Tony snaps at him and goes back to painting. Kim is in a good mood, because he's looking forward to the new venture, but Tony is bent over and angry. Kim is unbothered by the snippy remark and continues with the conversation, but Tony only becomes more agitated and makes fun of Kim's thick accent. Kim again remains positive, though he's obviously hurt by the remark and says, "So, partner, we open in three days!" To which Tony punches him hard in the nose. It was a very violent scene and very troubling to watch.

My grandparents were immigrants, obviously, because I'm a white person. My family wasn't brought here in chains or nudged out of their homes. Still, I'm sure my grandparents suffered some measure of discrimination or prejudice when they got here, which they in turn levied on to the next group that arrived. The door to the country was open, but I don't think there was a welcome mat. I haven't followed it all that much, and I don't understand a lot of the measures whatnot that Congress keeps voting on in regards to immigration. I'm not a big follower of politics, but it weirded me out when I heard that a measure to build a giant fence across the US-Mexico border was passed by an overwhelming majority. It almost seems like something out of a movie, like Escape from New York or something. Really? A fence? A giant fence? It's the message it sends out more than anything that bothers me. I mean, even I can scale a fence, and if they were going to throw all this money at something to keep Mexicans out of the country, I figured they'd put it toward something that might actually work. I always figured the more the merrier. I've driven across the country a couple times and I was surprised to see that there wasn't anything there. Just tons of empty space. I dunno, now maybe it's a good thing they build a fence so people can't get in. That way they won't find out that the American dream is rapidly turning to shit.

In that article I linked to a Republican senator from Alabama, Jeff Sessions, said that The Great Wall of Texas would be "a signal that open-border days are over." He then butchered a quote from one of my favorite poets, Robert Frost, "Good fences make good neighbors, fences don't make bad neighbors."

Of course, if Jeff Sessions had read the poem, he may have realized the irony in that statement.

Mending Wall
By Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."