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AUDIENCE: So first of all,
thank you for being here.
We've talked about
immigration in the past.
And with regard to
the Haitian refugees,
I think it also applies.
And one of the
themes we studied,
I believe with
Professor Tormund was,
what's the actual reason that
people do not want immigrants
in the country versus the
reasons that they state?
So for example, one of the
reasons that people would state
would be that immigrants
are ruining the economy.
But if you look at--
NOAM CHOMSKY: One of the
reasons why people stay?
AUDIENCE: Oh, sorry.
One of the reasons that
people state that they don't
want immigrants in the country.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Oh,
state that they--
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Is because they
say that immigrants
will ruin the economy.
But then, Professor Tormund
pointed out the fact
that Mayor Bloomberg
of New York,
or the former Mayor
Bloomberg of New York,
said that New York could
not run without immigrants.
So what do you think are the
actual reasons that people
do not want immigrants
in the country?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, first of
all, it's not a new phenomenon.
And it's not the United States.
So for example, in
Europe, a majority
of the population
of Europe, majority,
thinks that Europe should not
permit any Muslim immigrants.
Europe has a certain history.
It's called crematoria,
for example.
That's part of the background.
And that's part of the
immigration background
here, too.
I can talk about it from a
very personal point of view.
My father happened to be able
to come to the United States
before fleeing from
Czarist Russia.
Horrible conditions,
especially for Jews.
He made it before the
Immigration Act of 1924.
In 1924, Immigration Act for
the first time barred Europeans.
Prior to that, there were
racist immigration acts,
like it kept out Orientals.
But Europeans were admitted.
And there was a very
simple reason for that.
We were exterminating the
indigenous population.
So there was a
lot of open space.
That's what you see
glorified in stories
about covered wagons going
to the West-- the pioneers.
Of course, they were
displacing some people
who happened to live there,
but it's another story.
Anyway, there was an open--
the continent was
open after you've
exterminated the population.
And you want the right
kind of people to come in.
And if you go back, the question
of the right kind of people
was quite delicate.
So for example,
Benjamin Franklin,
who was the leading figure of
the Enlightenment in the United
States, he thought we should
have discriminatory immigration
rules to keep out the
wrong kind of people.
People who were too dark.
And the people who were too
dark were Swedes and Germans.
That's Benjamin Franklin.
So we got to watch out.
Keep out Germans and Swedes.
They're too siwrly.
But that was finally relaxed.
Anyway, they needed
Europeans to come in.
By the beginning of
the 20th century,
they didn't need immigrants
any longer to fill the country.
And the constant racism emerged.
So the 1924 Act was--
in reality, it was based
against Jews and Italians.
What they said is East
and Southern Europeans.
But that meant
Jews and Italians.
Well, OK.
What happened to
the Jews who were
unable to come until the 1960s?
They ended up in concentration
camps and crematoria.
So it's a serious issue.
That's most of my
family, incidentally.
The ones who didn't make it.
So the story goes way back.
It's not something new.
And it's not just
the United States.
Western society generally is
infected by very deep racism.
And it's even more extreme
in many ways in Europe
than in the United States.
In fact, in Europe, it's
even more frightening
than the United States.
So take this
morning's newspaper,
if you happened to look at it.
The government of Austria--
there was a
coalition government,
but it wasn't able to
have an agreement, so they
have to have an election.
And the concern is that the
most popular figure in Austria
might win the election.
He happens to be a neo-Nazi.
That's Austria.
There's a little bit
of history in Austria.
Well, that's scary.
And it's happening all over.
Here, it has a special character
because of white supremacy.
White supremacy is very deeply
rooted in the United States.
There are comparative
studies of white supremacy.
The major ones by
George Fredrickson,
a good sociologist who
did a comparative study
of white supremacy
in many countries.
It's more extreme in the
United States than any country
that he studied, including
South Africa under apartheid.
And you see it all
over the place.
I mean, when the Nazis
in the early '30s
were trying to find models
for the Nuremberg laws,
the racist laws, they
looked around the world.
And the only country where
they could find good models
was the United States.
They took US models.
The US had miscegenation rules--
rules against
interracial marriage--
which lasted, in fact,
until they were finally
struck down in the 1960s.
The Nazis didn't
entirely take the US laws
because they regarded
the US laws as too harsh.
So the US laws were based on the
concept of one drop of blood.
None of this means anything
from a biological point of view.
It's all totally meaningless.
But these are socially
constructed categories.
And one drop of
blood meant if you--
by whatever category
was concocted,
you had one drop of Negro
blood, you're black.
And then, you can't
marry a white.
Those were laws that were
not struck down, I think,
until 1967.
And you see it all over
the place right now.
I mean, it's right in
front of us all over.
In fact, if you look at
Afro American history
in the United States,
it's pretty remarkable.
In fact, that's something
that really should be studied.
The two topics that
should be studied
are, what happened to
the native population
and what happened to
the black population?
Anything else is secondary
for the United States.
Without going
through the details--
I presume you know them.
But the first slaves
were brought here
in Massachusetts 400 years ago.
That's 400 years.
You look over those
400 years, there
have been literally
a few decades.
Maybe 30 years scattered in
which African Americans had
kind of a small opportunity
to enter the general society.
That's quite a record.
And, of course,
it has a residue.
The residue shows in things
like mortality, wealth.
The wealth of African American
families is virtually zero.
What there was, was pretty
much destroyed by the crash.
It shows up in, why are
there murders in ghettos
in Chicago and Baltimore?
It's not the genes.
Everywhere you look, you see it.
And it shows up.
Going back to your
question, it shows up
in the racist immigration
laws, which are bad enough now.
But the ones that
were enacted in 1924
and maintained right
through the Holocaust,
those were pretty serious.
In fact, you probably
know the stories.
But ships were turned
away bringing refugees
who thought they could make it.
There's some strange
stories if you look at it.
They're kind of suppressed.
But one quite
interesting story--
it's worth looking at if
you're interested-- has
to do with Japan.
The Japanese fascists
were kind of--
only had limited understanding
of the Western world.
Japan had been pretty isolated.
So the fascist leaders, the
generals in Japan in the 1930s,
were pretty much
influenced by Germany.
And they read German
propaganda, Nazi propaganda,
about how Jews are
running the world.
And they were very eager to get
the Americans off their back.
They didn't want a conflict
with the United States.
So they concluded
that the way to get
the Americans off
their back is by doing
something nice for the Jews.
And this, in fact, fit
with Japanese history.
Because in the early
part of the 20th century,
there was a Russo-Japanese war.
And wealthy Jews who
were very anti-Russian--
because Russia was
very anti-Semitic--
were funding and
supporting the Japanese.
Jacob Schiff and others.
Japan considered that that
was part of the reason why
they were able to win the war.
So they had their
own connections
with the international
Jewish conspiracy
that runs the world that
they were picking up
from Nazi propaganda.
So they concluded that the way
to mollify the United States
was to bring Jews from
Eastern Europe to Japan.
And there was a period
of the Nazi Russian pact
where people could move.
And in fact, there was
a considerable number
of Polish Jews, very
orthodox Polish Jews.
The kind you see with
black hats and white shirts
and you know, all of this.
They were brought
from Poland to Japan,
which was a feudal society.
The cultural contact
was incredible.
There's all sorts of
interesting stories about it.
But the point here
is that the Japanese
assumed that if they brought
Polish Jews to Japan,
the American Jewish community
would welcome them here.
They didn't want them to
stay in Japan, of course.
They thought they'd go
on to the United States.
They stayed in Japan.
Nobody wanted them here,
including the Jewish community.
And there's plenty
of stories like that.
As soon as you start to
lift the veil very slightly,
you find it everywhere.
