American Chronicle
April 15 2006

Gringo, Go Back to England!

David Kessel
April 15, 2006

Somehow, no hateful outburst in America is complete without telling
somebody to go back to `their’ country or continent. I have seen many
such events happen and heard the same thing from people who have been
victimized by such volunteer `travel advisors’ more than once: there
is always some bozo who tells someone to leave America and return to
his or her homeland. I wish these clowns would provide visas and
ticket money every time they attempt to send others on such a trip.
How about a job waiting for them there? Can they set one up, too?

This `travel order’ sooner or later affects quite a big variety of
people in the US. Some years back, I have seen an African-American
lady was involved in a traffic accident with a Hispanic female in LA.
Both ladies faced off and started advising each other to begin
traveling to all these exciting places, the Hispanic lady was told to
go back to Mexico, and the Black lady was, as you would expect, told
by the Hispanic lady to go back to Africa.

On another occasion, another African American fellow who was sitting
in a Korean fast food place suddenly started telling the Korean cook
there to `go back to China’. When the Korean cook protested that he
was not Chinese, the `travel counselor’ proceeded to tell him to go
back to Japan. Ouch! Japan wreaked havoc on Korea for so long and now
he must go `back `there?

Iranian Americans were told to go back to Arabia and Armenians were
probably told to go back to Russia. Only that Russia does not like
Armenians nowadays. But that is beside the point. It’s just another
day in LA’s model multi-ethnic community.

White Americans are just as guilty of giving people orders to leave
America for all these exotic destinations as anybody else. Many Asian
people in the US, many of whom are US citizens, are routinely advised
by some white bigots to go back to Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Japan and
a few other Asian countries. Usually, they would get the country
wrong and ask a Vietnamese-American to go back to Taiwan. Boat people
have tried doing it, but Taiwan does not give political asylum to
those as a rule.

As a red-blooded naturalized US citizen, I have been told to go back
to my country a few times only that at the time, I simply couldn’t.
The country was closed and I would not qualify to get a visa there.
Now I could go, but I would be treated as a foreigner, have to apply
for a tourist visa and pay for extensions. If I overstay, I will be
fined and kicked out. They will send me `back to the US’. Too bad the
person who told me to go there that did not know about it.

But seriously, when I read about the new slogan of `Gringo, go back
to England!’ being proposed as the new war cry of illegal alien
marchers in California, it was so funny I had to sit down and laugh
long and hard. Somehow, it had a deeper philosophical meaning- it
showed how fragile everyone was and how insecure. How everyone in
America probably wanted to be friends with everyone else, but felt
that they couldn’t. It was the last desperate plea, a childish,
kindergarten attempt to fight back what they viewed as the last
remaining oppressor- the Gringo. Send the Gringo back to England and
everything will be fine.

My Slavic mother, who grew up in Uzbek orphanages, and who starved
during WWII, and fainted from being hungry so many times when she was
growing up that she almost died, was called a `gringa’ on our last
journey to Mexico in 2001. To an average Mexican, I guess, she was of
exactly the same race and nationality as the Yankee blue-bloods of
the New England aristocracy and the cowgirls of Texas. How wonderful!
And now my mom needs to go back to England, of all places, I guess.
Wow! Now the last thing we need is an authorization from England to
take us in. Last time I went there I only got six months at the
airport. How about if these illegal demonstrators go to the UK
consulate and start marching there asking Her Majesty to accept us?
That is where they should be protesting. I would love to live in
England.

The American prejudice has finally gone around full circle. It was
probably the first time that Gringos were being told to go back to
England. First it was the Gringos telling the Blacks to go back to
Africa, then those Blacks who were bigoted against Asians and
Hispanics would tell them to go back to Asia and Mexico respectively,
and now you have all these people now marching in California telling
the `original’ US settlers to go back to England. Somehow the cycle
has been completed. We are back where we had started. And now we even
have a new weapon phrase against white racists, `Gringo, go back to
England!’ Funny as heck, if you ask me. Somehow, even in the trying
times of the Civil Rights movement, African American activists did
not stoop as low as telling the white racists to `go back to
England’. I always wondered why. Maybe the idea seemed too wacky to
them.

In most cases though, American citizens cannot go back to England,
Africa, Germany, etc. There are some countries that recognize dual
nationality, but in the case of the UK, asking them to take it
hundreds of millions of `bloody Yanks’ now will be more than
preposterous. It will be a legal impossibility in most cases. The
same thing with lots and lots of Blacks who were told to go back to
Africa. Which country do you want to send them to? Gabon? Cameroon,
Senegal? How about Nigeria? How many of these would accept these
Americans?

There are people of dual nationality in the US, but by and large,
most Gringos do not have it and most will not qualify for it and;
therefore, will not be able to `go back to England’. And if they go
as tourists and their visa lapses, the UK Immigration Panel will
throw them out. Unless they have a job there, or something.

But I will look into it. Maybe there are some visa programs, and I
too, could `go back’ to England. After all, I am a Gringo now. At
least, according to the people who were marching in LA on that
auspicious day.