alien (un)intelligence

I’m not making this up. This happened last week:

I take my truck to the dealer for some work. After handing over my keys I walk into the small “customer waiting area” - a small room complete with a pot of coffee, a bunch of lame magazines, and a television on the wall blaring CNN. I walk past the only other waiting customer, a woman with her head literally buried in a fast food bag.

I brought a book with me. I’m reading Teacher Man, a memoir by the Irishman Frank McCort. In the chapter I’m reading he is describing an ongoing struggle: He was born in America but raised in Ireland. When he returns to work in New York he is considered an Irish immigrant. When he returns to study in Dublin he is labeled a Yankee. He is a a foreigner in both the land of his birth as well as the land of his roots.

As I try to focus on the story over the sound of the news, a few more customers make their way in and sit down around me: A very old man in an old cap and oversized sunglasses, and a well-to-do couple who look like they are close to retirement.

After a few minutes they start the small talk. Then a story on the news laments the every increasing price of gas. The woman who is now done with her fast food feeding makes the observation that it is crazy that the cost of gas won’t stop going up every day.

The husband of the couple agrees with her, and then makes the comment that the culprit is the ever increasing demand for gas versus the supply.

Then she drops the bomb:

“Well you know, the main reason for the high supply is all the foreigners who live in this country. They come over here and they all drive their cars and use up all the gas. Get rid of the foreigners and you get rid of half the demand right there!”

My reading freezes in the middle of a sentence, but I don’t look up. Without a moment of thought, the husband agrees. I wonder for a short moment if they are really talking about all foreigners, or just jumping on the anti-illegal-immigrant band wagon.

But in his next breath the husband clears up any confusion:

“And then of course there are also the illegal foreigners who come here. They want to work? Okay... fine. Put ‘em in a uniform and ship ‘em off to Iraq and that’ll put ‘em to work.”

Then something is said about how that will keep ‘em from wanting to come over here or something. But my brain locks up for a second in shock and I miss it. Besides, now they are talking about immigrants, oil, and war in the Middle East.  So I probably shouldn't say anything about my father being an immigrant petroleum engineer from Iraq.  It probably won’t be until I am driving away an hour later when I will think of something clever I should have said.

So instead I grip the edges of my book a little tighter, and this son of an immigrant re-reads the chapter about an immigrant while sitting in a room full of people who don’t like immigrants.