We were sitting at a table in our local diner owned by a Greek family, eating lunch and discussing the latest headlines from the Sunday morning news shows about Donald Trump. His position on immigration had just been posted on his website and I was already stuck on the first of his three core principals: “A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.” Not to be contrary or sarcastic, but has anybody thought about Canada lately? If the issue is safety and security, it would seem that we’d want to protect ourselves on all fronts. But that’s not what a wall is really about.
As the conversation took its course, I began to wonder out loud if putting up a barrier to keep people out might also have the unanticipated effect of keeping people contained. Thoughts of the authorities, in the middle of the night, rounding up families who’ve lived here for decades, whose children were born within these borders and are protected under the Constitution, made me think of the politics and tactics of Germany and the Soviet Union. Their wall was called the Iron Curtain, and the government suspended liberties; jailed dissenters; banned books, music, and art; crawled into isolationism; and created a society with a teensy-weensy segment of the population who lived in luxury and privilege, while the majority toiled in poverty.
About to go off on a long tangential rant, my friend stopped me and asked, “Do you know that song about walls on Anais Mitchell’s album Hadestown? It’s a duet with Greg Brown. Check it out, because I think there might be a thread there for you to pull at.”
And so I did. And so there was.
Why do we build the wall?
My children, my children
Why do we build the wall?Why do we build the wall?
We build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free
Both of my parent’s parents came to America from Eastern Europe sometime around the turn of the last century. When my father died, we heard a story from an older relative who would seemingly know such things that my paternal grandfather escaped from extreme poverty and political oppression in Russia by using falsified documents for his entry through Ellis Island. I imagine it was probably his parents who you could blame for this act of illegal immigration, as he was only four or five at the time. When he turned 18 he enlisted in the U.S. Army and went off into battle during the first world war — the one they called “The War to End All Wars.”
How does the wall keep us free?
My children, my children
How does the wall keep us free?How does the wall keep us free?
The wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free
After my grandfather was discharged from the service, he hung wallpaper for a living and married a woman who worked in a clothing factory for long hours, short breaks, no benefits, and low wages. She later became a union organizer. My father was born, a sister followed, and when the Great Depression arrived, they lived in a small, two-bedroom house in South Philadelphia. Having a roof over their heads made them pretty lucky, and their good fortune was shared by other relatives. A total of three families that included grandparents, husbands, wives, and lots of children lived together in that little house. Over the years, the family assimilated and thrived, and to my knowledge, none of them were sent to prison or ended up on welfare, and there was not a rapist or murderer in the bunch.
Who do we call the enemy?
My children, my children
Who do we call the enemy?Who do we call the enemy?
The enemy is poverty
And the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free
My folks were married just as this country entered the second world war and my dad enlisted in the Air Force. After he completed his service, he used his veteran’s benefits to go to night school and earn a degree in engineering. They saved for years to buy a house in the suburbs using a government-backed mortgage, and with my mom also in the work force, they always took care of our needs, paid their bills on time, felt it a duty and honor to be able to vote or be called to serve on a jury. They were good citizens. Beyond just patriotism, they were grateful to have been born and raised in this country. Their generation, these children of immigrants, called it the American Dream.
Because we have and they have not!
My children, my children
Because they want what we have got!Because we have and they have not!
Because they want what we have got!
The enemy is poverty
And the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free
José Palazón captured that image I used at the top of this column. Those are African migrants sitting on top of a border fence between Morocco and Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla. I believe it to be a strong visual image as to why and to what lengths economic inequalities force people to move geographically, just as my parent’s parents did.
As I stare at that photo and listen to the words of men like Donald Trump who urge us to build walls and deport our own brown-skinned immigrant neighbors, I detest this rhetoric of fear and the media manipulation that fans the fires of hatred. We’re in another political season, and those with large egos and loud voices eclipse our values, sense of reason, and fairness. If you want to make America great, don’t make America hate. Our country and our people deserve better.
“Why We Build This Wall” was written by Anais Mitchell, and performed this past June by Billy Bragg. If anyone is looking for a musical antidote for these times, this might be it.
Anais Mitchell posted these words on her website about Hadestown and “Why We Build This Wall”:
“To me the essence of ‘Why We Build the Wall’ is, it’s meant to provoke the question. Take global warming to its terrifying logical conclusion and imagine part of the world becomes uninhabitable and there are masses of hungry poor people looking for higher ground. then imagine you are lucky enough to live in relative wealth and security, though maybe you’ve sacrificed some freedoms to live that way. When the hordes are at the door, who among us would not be behind a big fence? These conditions exist already, but most of us don’t have to acknowledge them in a real way. I really and truly had no specific place in mind when I wrote ‘Why We Build the Wall.’ People often say, ‘Oh, that’s just like Israel/Palestine, or that’s just like the US/Mexico border,’ and maybe it is, but the song was written more archetypally.”
This was originally published by No Depression, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.