Diasporic Blues
blah blah blah part V
When I was in high school, my boyfriend told me I wasn’t Iranian and I wasn’t Mexican, I was American. At the time I was appalled. We started dating when we were 16, mere babies, and as we spent those years together I was surprised to see how we differed in perspective by the time the 2016 election came around. I think back to this conversation a lot, one of many we had in his truck. Although I’ve always considered it an ignorant comment, I’m wondering more and more lately if perhaps there was some truth in it.
Whatever feelings I have about what’s going on in both Mexico and Iran, the main thing I consider is that I pay my taxes to the perpetrators. I am part of the villainous population. These are my cultures and ostensibly my people, but at the end of the day my people are the ones causing mass destruction and upending lives and enabling genocide again and again and again and again.
To be an ambiguously non-white American is kind of an odd experience: I’m not subjected to the same interactions as Black Americans or first gen diaspora, but still I am asked if I have an immigration appointment outside of my workplace. Still, I wonder if some disrespect I receive is due to these identities or if I misread the situation (and that ambiguity is in and of itself some sort of strange privilege: the cause is not obvious). People harass me on the street to ask what my ethnicity is. Like what the hell is that about. And yet, it really could be much worse.
I disagree with the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. From the American settler perspective, the one with the guns and the bombs, I disagree with the idea that intervention is necessary; it is neither our job nor helpful to blow up a country, and especially on this case there is no good or decent motivation. That the ayatollah is gone now is a coincidence; I don’t think the current Iranian regime is good either (and honestly whose freaking fault is that). I don’t think a cartel system is ever good and yet I am distrustful that the tip as to where the leader was came from US intelligence. Even today Tr*mp has decided we’re taking military action in Latin America against the cartels. I guess the empire is desperate.
I think the biggest hurdle in the American diaspora challenge is not making international conflict about you. Yes, the critique about despairing from an apartment in the country starting the wars is true. If it’s about me, an Iranian-woman, it’s because I pay American taxes. I vote in American elections. I feel very sad and very angry. Angry for people I don’t know but might bear some familiarity to me. Angry I sit at my desk job every day and we are killing people. I didn’t choose this and yet it happens. What am I supposed to do besides internal revolt. I wouldn’t speak for the Iranian people and I think this war is a bad, evil, depraved thing. Any change anywhere should come from inside; tell me when external removal of another oppressive regime really helped anyone. I also think a large part of fascism and violence is destruction of history, of the truth. We are suffering now in our confusion, and I want it on the record that I do not support this war, my friends do not support this war, and the truth of the matter is that these violent episodes are a product of nihilistic capitalism and pure selfish delusion of old white people.
My friend greeted me very somberly on the day the US started attacking Iran, expressing empathy for “my homeland”. I thought this was very sweet and kind of strange. Unfortunately the land that I have a home in is the aggressor. I don’t really know what else to do or say. I’m just sad and angry and being an American is embarrassing but something we must contend with. What is there to do besides disagree with war and adapt. To indulge in my cultural heritage unashamedly. I am Iranian and I am Mexican and I am American, and I think right now the call is to force change internally, within our reach. Stand up Fight back.
Here are some good readings I’ve found, probably more emotionally tempered than I have written: