An immigrant’s America: two chapters and a long interlude

Back in mid-1960s, I loved everything American. This mindset developed after reading whatever American material I could lay my hands on—that included ‘Old Man and the Sea’ on one end and dozens of Earl Stanley Gardner mysteries on the other. Sunday morning shows of Hollywood movies of all genre couldn’t be missed. The menagerie included Ben Hur, Roman Holiday, Who is afraid of Virginia Wolf, Guns of Navarone, The Great Escape, and a lot many other classics.   

To me, America was synonymous with modernity, spirit of inquiry, technological development and the ultimate destination for those who had a reasonable chance to get there. After my engineering degree, getting into a US Graduate School was the extent to which I allowed myself to look into future. Nothing else mattered.

It happened. I was accepted at a great college in America’s southeast—cloud nine and all that. After a month of orientation with the new environs, I ventured out a bit. On a blind date, sought by me, I drew up a girl in her late teens who hadn’t till then been to a movie alone or with her friends. I learned she had graduated from a church-affiliated high school, and that date with me was her first attempt at breaking free from the moral straitjacket she had till then lived with. Next quarter of an hour was even more enlightening vis-à-vis her moral compass. In all politeness, conviction written all over her face, she told me that if one wasn’t a Christian, they were a heathen. I took it sitting down, for taking an umbrage would have meant an opportunity lost. Curiosity was taking hold of me for this was an altogether unexpected face of an American. I learned further that upon getting wedded, a husband was to love his wife as Christ loved the church. Husband had the god-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. And, feminists such as Gloria Steinem be blown, a wife was to submit herself graciously to servant under the leadership of her husband as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. This thing about husband being next to Christ in the pecking order, I realized was exactly what orthodox middle class Indian families drilled into their young girls. This! In America?

She was raised in a culture that equated woman’s worth to her sexual purity. “Premarital sex contaminates a woman beyond restoration,” she had said.

It was obvious that the date wasn’t going anywhere beyond handholding. Yet, I felt important, for it was plain to see that the evening she was spending with me was some kind of a milestone for her. I mean, she allowed herself to share that pitcher of her first ever draft beer with me. I couldn’t help but feel honored. I was a prop, if not the lead character, in that act of her some kind of breaking free. 

Was it religious orthodoxy that went under the label of conservatism? Or was it the other way around? Within that one year and a half at the grad school, I learned what right and left meant, and what exactly was liberal and conservative in US politics. At that age, to all I would venture, radical ideas hold greater appeal. In keeping with that I evolved into a Democrat at heart. After earning my degree in 1972 I worked for Prudential in Jersey City on the east coast. Presidential election of 1972 loomed large. It was an exciting time for me. I chose to volunteer with the local office of Democratic candidate, Senator McGovern. I am certain I pasted more ‘McGovern for President’ bumper stickers than any of my co-volunteers. For no fault of mine, however, McGovern was roundly drubbed by the Republican Richard Nixon.

Liberals roundly beaten, Conservatives seemed like harvesting what the Republican Senator, Barry Goldwater sowed in his run for presidency in 1964. “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue,” he had thundered. Liberals of all ilk were shocked. The party they had controlled for so long had fallen into the hands of extremists.

I didn’t get another opportunity to visit the US for nearly three decades thereafter. However, when my reconnect began it assumed a frequency of spending at least a couple of months every year. I realized that conservative values of a near-extreme variety had somewhat mellowed. Times had changed so much that even some evangelists were writing pieces denunciating sexual purity.   

In more recent times, however, there were many in America who saw Obama and the Democratic Congress as a threat to the American way of life. They were getting concerned about what they saw as a new avatar of multi-culturalism creeping up on what America meant to them. They were right wingers—not all bigoted white supremacists—but there were large groups who believed they have been shortchanged by the dominance of liberal politics in the United States. 

Under the presidency of Donald Trump, this lot feels a bit relieved, though religious right is peeved that he doesn’t appear to have anything to do with evangelicalism. The pessimism of some years ago seems to have thawed somewhat. To many who haven’t seen real wages increase in a decade, the ‘good old American way of life’ seems like a place that can be returned to. No immigrants, no trade agreements where America supposedly gets short end of the stick, bringing jobs to Americans, etc. seem like good moves. So what is it then? Is it conservatism sans religious orthodoxy? I don’t know.

At the other end of the spectrum, some are desperate that a change towards a more open America is being dissed. A Starbucks coffee addict that I am, I find it a good place to engage with any willing American to speak with me for some minutes. In one such interaction a senior citizen lamented, “I don’t think anybody trusts Congress any more. Nobody trusts politicians. Nobody trusts Wall Street. Media cannot be relied upon either. Nobody trusts anything.” America is getting more polarized, many say.

But then polarized into which two or more thought systems?

‘Red’ for Republicans and ‘blue’ for Democrats have been a given since distant memory. The way those fifty states are painted in these two colors and the way the TV channels present their analyses, one tends to think of a great divide. It is a gross simplification, I observe. The reality is that only some states can be assigned one of those two colors; the rest ought to be painted purple.

Four Republican states, including very red states of Louisiana and North Carolina, have Democratic governors. And at least the same number of Democratic states, including Maine and Massachusetts, have Republican governors. In 2016 presidential election there were six states where the winners’ margin of victory was less than 2%. So there.

But then polarization may not only about the stated and assumed ideological differences between Republicans and Democrats. It could be along some other socioeconomic lines. What are those? Multi-culturalism and racial nationalism? Globalization and isolationism? Tolerance and intolerance? Or, simply, rich and poor-rich getting richer and poor getting poorer? On each of those pairs, there can be endless debates. The fact remains though that none of those are binaries. No one way is the right way. One has to fine tune a certain calibrated move in one direction. And when that seems like disturbing the equilibrium, you move in the other direction. It is these switches that instill uncertainty and fear; any will inevitably be there.     

The talk of a fearful collapse of all what America has stood for and labeling it as some kind of oh-so-feared-polarization is just that: Talk.