Why can't they at least learn the language?

(I'd love to link this, but the original Hartford Courant link is dead.)

Why Can't These Pale Pilgrims Learn The Language?
Colin McEnroe - The Hartford Courant

We've been having quite a debate about immigration lately. I was chatting with some guys right after a Wampanoag medicine circle last week, and I was surprised at how many people favor immediate deportation of everybody who has come here without proper authorization from our government - which is pretty much everybody who has come here.

"How are we going to do that?" I asked a guy named Tinsin. "We don't ever know how many of them there are. They're impossible to keep track of. How are we going to round them all up and send them back to England or Holland or wherever?"

"They're easy to find," a guy named Masshantamaine chimed in. "They smell bad. And they never do anything or go anywhere. They're very lazy. And they drink that alcohol stuff all the time."

"And they bring diseases," said Tinsin. "They're dirty and sneaky. And they refuse to learn the language."

They had a point. I'm pretty liberal on the immigration question, but I do think they should learn the language. Half the time they're babbling away in English, like we're supposed to understand them. We've set up Wampanoag as a Second Language evening classes down at the community wetu, but hardly any of them show up.

So I say to the pale immigrants, "How do you think you are going to make it here in this country, in this Shining Land of the First Light, if you don't speak the language?"

I learned enough English to say this to them, but that only encourages them. They want us - just for example - to do our signs in Wampanoag and English. How practical is that?

I feel sorry for them. They're obviously scared. They have this crazy religion that scares them instead of making them brave. Their religion tells them they are evil and broken and nothing can save them except their One God's son, whom they killed by mistake quite a few years ago, so he's in no mood to save them. So they spend a lot of time on their knees whimpering about how horrible this world is and worrying that they're going somewhere even worse after they die. Great religion, huh?

Sometimes, I say to them,"Toughen up! Everything is a God. The bear is a God. And the moose is a God. So is the wind and the fire. The river is a God. And the trout. And it's all good. It will make you brave to know these Gods, so you can get revenge against your enemies and 1 ive a great life and die a good death."

And they just start waving bunches of papers around and whimpering some more about what John Calvin said at the Synod of Dort or something.

So no wonder everybody says they're drain on our economy.

"Look," I said the other day. "They come from these really crappy countries where they are apparently right at the bottom of the river bed. They are not even allowed to practice their miserable religion of Oops, We Killed God's Son and Now He Hates Us."

"I thought God hated them because they ate something off one of his trees," said Hoken.

"That's ridiculous. A tree is a God," said Masshantamaine. "These people are morons. Make them go home."

"I'm concerned that this has become a racial thing," I said. "Would we be talking this way if they were not pale? If they were like us?"

"This has nothing to do with skin color. It has to do with following the rules," said Tetannett. "Did they petition the council of chiefs? Did they bring us five deer? I am totally about process not skin color and these people do not go through the process. They show up on their boats and immediately they want us to bring them squash and corn and turkey, because they lack the basic tools to fend for themselves, so they're starving and cold and sick. We have people who are here legally who do not get free corn and squash and turkey."

"Still, if we work with them, maybe they can become productive members of the Shining Land of the First Light," I said.

Boy, you would have thought I was the lead act at Clever Fox Comedy lief Jam Powwow Night, the way they laughed at that one.

So anyway, we've been trying to come up with some kind of plan that balances everybody's interests. For example, some of the people in the beaver skin field really like these immigrants, because they're just a tremendous market for beaver skins. They're always cold.

We're kicking around some kind of point system. They'd get a point, for example, if they had fishing skills or knew our language. They'd have to go back across the ocean and apply for a Special Otter Permit, then they could come back and work under the otter program for eight seasons, accumulating more points. Then they would be hawks.

Eventually, after 40 seasons, if they didn't break any of our laws or excessively get on our nerves, we would make them human beings.

That's the framework, so to speak, but people keep trying to make changes. There's a surprisingly large contingent that wants to add a "They Have to Not Smell So Bad" rule. I admit, the pale ones smell really bad, but you get used to it.

A lot of people just want to work on tightening our borders, and there's a big project down by the beach to cut down frees and float them out in the water and tie them together so the boats can't get through.

"It's not going to work. People will just get through, because it's so great here, so they'll find a way. They just want what we have," I told a bunch of them.

"Yes," they said, "but we were here first."

What I'm proposing is amnesty for the ones who are already here, but they have to carry a piece of bark explaining who they are. We'll tell them they need it to get a canoe license.

"There's no such thing as a canoe license," Tetannett objected.
"They don't know that," I answered.

Part of the compromise is that the bark things will carry the message, "Hello. I smell bad and am probably carrying some kind of pestilence. I am also too stupid and lazy to learn the language this is written in."

Because, after all, what's the point of having immigrants if you can't pick on them?