Prompt 6

    Sweat has many xenophobic and nativist moments, most originating from my favorite uneducated white person, Tracey, and the apple that doesn't fall far from the tree, Jason. Their feelings towards "guys coming over here" (49) with "an apartment filled with seventeen relatives that gotta eat" (100) are clearly resentful and, despite Tracey's denial, filled with scornful prejudice. A conceited sense of irony leads them to believe that because they were born in America of German immigrant descent instead of being born in America of Columbian descent, they have a head-start on some kind of "history" (101) that grants Jason and Tracey the right to belittle, disrespect, and beat a man who is literally doing the most American thing there is: looking for a better job to climb the social ladder. Interestingly enough, this kind of scenario is even more patriotic. After all, what is more American than hypocrisy? 

    Even this 'diverse nation's' leaders are demeaning. Presidents use words such as criminal, drug dealer, rapist, gang member, and murderer to describe all immigrants coming into the U.S., and the masses cheer as if they're Native Americans, the only Americans of non-immigrant descent. Immigrants are labeled dangerous, and American politicians put the blame on all other countries but their own as if they don't know that America is the only country with loose to no gun laws in the Americas. Still, somehow it's immigrants who are to blame for America's overall safety. What is a recent example of this? Take what happened with the coronavirus pandemic. All of a sudden, all Chinese immigrants were being blamed for a sickness most likely spread by the same ignorant nincompoops who refused to wear a mask after their cruise trip to Italy and were bamboozled to find out that the deadly virus that had killed millions of people was actually real and not a lie made up by the government. Everyone but beloved U.S. citizens was to blame for the deaths of those affected.

    America makes big talk about 'We The People' and being a 'united front," about the American dream and being a land of opportunity, about the 'self-made man' and honest labor, but ultimately America has always been about 'us' vs. 'them.' Communities are still divided by competition for labor and shortcuts instead of partnership and trust. Americans are so focused on bringing down the people being exploited that they don't realize they can do something about the people who are exploiting them. For a country made up of so many immigrants, Sweat is an accurate depiction of how difficult it is to shake that 

label off.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk. (p.s. I hate strongly dislike Tracey, Why is she such an instigator?)