I Know Why Delusional Rural Populations Hate My Immigrant Family

A tip today would be awesome! Thanks in advance: Upgrade at 30% offI remember when my wife first came to this country from Peru. I hadn't seen anyone from my family for many years, so I made the effort to reconnect.It's always me making the effort.It turned out to be a mistake.“Do they have cars in your village?” my aunt asked.Hearing this question momentarily stole my words. My wife and I sat staring at her unable to recognize if she was making a joke, being deliberately rude, or if she really was that ignorant.Eventually we concluded that it must be the last.My wife is a professional. She's used to dealing with uncomfortable work situations. Still, she turned to me as if to say, “Is this really happening?”Welcome to the United States.This aunt had spent her whole life in a town with a population of less than two thousand people. My wife is from Lima, Peru which is one of the biggest cities in the world. It's bigger than New York.“Do you have cars? Do people wear shoes in your town? Have you ever seen a television set before?”My aunt felt entitled to ask these questions because she was a “born and bred” American. She felt that made her better than anyone born anywhere else in the world. She didn't have to say the words, “I think I'm better than you,” for us to recognize that's what she thought.This is an embarrassment. It served as a reminder that a respectful and responsible adult never goes through life assuming that they are better than anyone else. That sense of entitlement rises off you like a stench, and it's repugnant.My aunt's behavior represents the kind of casual racism that the United States cultivates. The population doesn't even think of it as racism. They call it patriotism, and they never fully recognize how embarrassing this attitude is for the rest of humanity.It's always interesting to perceive how people treat you when they assume they have power over you. My wife didn't object to what my aunt said. She didn't try to educate her. She didn't protest. She just sat and recorded the moment.She's very good at believing people when they show her who they are.“Your aunt is an ignorant racist,” she said later.I agreed. We resolved not to let people like that around our children. We discovered that eliminating racists is how you end up with kind, confident, and capable children.I'm sure my relatives would be appalled to hear these criticisms, but that's half the problem. We're not allowed to have these conversations. If I'd said something, she'd have snorted, waved her hands, and declared, “You're blowing this out of proportion.” Denial is one of the fundamental attributes of the American citizen.“I didn't vote for that.”The thing is, we shouldn't have to tell adults how to behave appropriately. Everybody should take it upon themselves not to be an ignorant racist. But that's not the culture of the United States. Instead, this is a nation of racism entitlement.“I refuse to recognize history that makes me feel uncomfortable.”Growth is always uncomfortable, but it's not as uncomfortable as stagnation.Needless to say, my attempt at reconnection died on the vine.Upon meeting my wife, my family smelled blood in the water, but it was a mistake to assume weakness. Whenever anyone migrates to another country, there is a period of vulnerability. People sense it and they treat you differently. Some are kind and try to help out. Others try to take advantage of you. They try to establish a brutal hierarchy from which you can never escape.These are the bosses who refuse to promote you because you're doing all the work.These are the parents who refuse to support you because they don't want you to leave home.Sadly, there are lots of examples.It's interesting to watch how controlling people test your boundaries. They send out feelers and see how you react. They gauge how open you might be to abuse, and proceed accordingly. I did my best to protect my wife from these abuses, but if you keep your partner completely sheltered, the abuser is likely you. I've never attempted to infringe upon my wife's freedom to venture forth and confront the world.I'm proud to say that she's well equipped to handle ignorant, small town Americans. She can manage the type of spiteful personalities who are willing to support con artists and criminals who tell lies and blame immigrants for everything.You can't survive in the United States unless you develop those skills.In our early days, we met a religious family that tried to bring us into their fold. They even invited us over to dinner once. On the surface, it seemed normal enough, but we both got the sense that something was off. There wasn't anything specific we could point to, there was simply a feeling of disquiet. Every now and then you'd catch a furtive glance from a parent to one of the children. We recognized these glances as silent rebukes.Eventually the religious family gave up. I ran into the wife at the grocery store and said hello and she was cold. It was as if she'd figured out they couldn't con us, so they lost all interest. Maybe they recognized we had more power than was apparent at first blush. They realized they couldn't play with us the way they'd hoped.I didn't realize all these dynamics were in play when I made the decision to bring my wife back to the states. I was young. I was naive. I'd listened to many of the lies my teachers and neighbors and people of my small town community had taught me.But my wife hadn't been brainwashed with those lies.Reflecting on my conversation with my aunt, I realized that she operated on the assumption that we would fail. After all, all her boys had failed. They were white, they were American, they spoke English without an accent, and even they couldn't get work.What chance did we have? With all the wisdom of a woman who had lived her whole life in a farm town of two thousand people, she simply assumed a foreign born woman from a city larger than New York couldn't possibly possess skills that would translate to this country.My aunt was wrong.My wife is a professional. She went to the local school and worked as a volunteer. Then they made her a bilingual family services facilitator.Along the way, she ran into more ignorant small town Americans who tried to block her path. They tried to bully her. But she grew up in a city. When you come to an immovable object, you go over, under, or around. There's no wall that can stop an industrious soul.My wife earned her teacher certification. She earned a Master's degree. She found the allies within the system and together they built a network to dismantle exploitation.Ignorant, racist people scream, “Foul!” because they believe they deserve all the accolades that are being earned by better people.It's interesting to reflect on how far we've come in the context of how we were treated in the initial days.“Why is your family so disrespectful?” she asked.“It's based on their low assessment of me,” I said. “They've assumed I'm a loser, so by extension I must attract losers.” I didn't meant this as a justification, it was simply a statement of fact. I'd cut them off before when I felt they were deliberately acting to sabotage me. I cut them off again. People who disrespect my wife and kids aren't allowed in my life.Over the years, I've seen it again and again. People with the small-town, rural American attitude of ignorance and entitlement become enraged to witness an immigrant succeed.“How dare she?”But they can't comprehend that literally everything in this country is tilted to favor white, natural born, racists. If they'd just get over their own sense of superiority and cultivate a work ethic, they too could succeed. But they don't. Instead, they wallow in a cesspool of ignorance and grievance.The most overt racists no longer try to approach us. The period of obvious uncertainty and vulnerability has passed. Malicious forces no longer try to muscle into our lives with false guidance that's really a barely concealed form of exploitation.“The only way you can prosper is if you follow my wisdom, but first you have to take me out to dinner. You need to thank me in advance. You need to grovel for my approval.”Instead, they look at us from afar, their eyes seething with impotent jealousy. In their quiet moments, when they think nobody is looking, they vote for genocide against people who look like my wife and my children. But if you call them out on their deplorable actions, they clutch their pearls and claim that's not what they wanted.“No! We're good people! We're kind people! We're only thinking of you! Try to see things from my point of view!”I do know how they think. I grew up with them. They pressured me throughout all my decades of youthful vulnerability. Rather than help me rise, they held me down. In their minds, we've taken something from them. We've taken something they feel they deserve without having to work for.But we didn't take anything. The main difference between us and them is that we're willing to work, we're willing to be respectful, we don't spend every second of our lives insisting that we are better than everyone and that we're owed the world.We don't lie. We don't cheat. We don't steal.That's what makes us the opposite of the majority of rural Americans. That's why they hate us.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe