Reply #47: HOLY CRAP! For a second I thought my mother-in-law joined DU!!

[grace0418]

My mother-in-law, a woman who emigrated here in her 30s from SE Asia, said something very similar to the title of this thread to me recently.

My husband was out of town on business so I was attending a family birthday party (his family) on my own. It was the day after 100,000 immigrants (mostly Mexican, but not exclusively) protested in downtown Chicago. I was sitting at a table full of my husband's aunties, trying to make small talk. This is not easy because I have nothing in common with these women and English is *definitely* their second language, but I was trying my best. Suddenly, my mother-in-law launches into this diatribe about how "the Mexicans want to take over this country and they expect to be able to come and go as they please. Isn't that GROSS?!"

I was completely horrified and all the other women didn't say a word.

I will admit that I haven't been following this issue very closely (it gets hard to keep up with everything these days), but I was reasonably certain things weren't as black and white as my m-i-l was declaring. And I definitely didn't agree with her outright bigotry. But not having actual facts at hand, I had little with which to refute her bile. I simply said "Well, I don't understand what's gross about wanting to come to America and work for a better life. And I think the situation is a bit more complicated than you might have been lead to believe."

"No, that's what is happening! They said it on the news!" she replied. :eyes:

Trying to remain calm and patient (and not cause a scene), I said "Well the newscasters always say things in a way that sounds the most sensational and extreme. It's really best to take what they say with a grain of salt until you can read further into the situation." I then immediately changed the subject because I could tell the other women were getting really uncomfortable. In my husband's culture, it's not so good for a daughter-in-law to be "talking back" to her m-i-l.

Things were going along fine until someone brought up Mayor Daley. My m-i-l made the most tenuous connection between Daley and the protests and she was off and running again.

I finally interrupted her by saying "Well, as the granddaughter of immigrants myself, I don't feel it's my place to turn around and close the door behind me. Who am I to decide that America should no longer welcome immigrants when my family immigrated here? I'd feel like a giant hypocrite." I was *hoping* that she would see how hypocritical she was being considering her own relatively recent immigration to this country. I don't think she caught on, but at least I got her to shut up. God, people are so freaking clueless. It depresses the shit out of me.