Let’s all ‘Go back where we came from’
One of the uglier expressions making the rounds these days is someone telling another to ,“Go back where they came from.” Although it is associated with the numerous [so-called] “Karens” captured on social media – white women shouting slurs at people of color – it’s popping up elsewhere as well. No doubt, some Taoseños would prefer if other ethnicities would go back where they came from so the town can go back to some mythical good old days that no longer exist anywhere on the planet. The notion that some belong here and others don’t is the sort of toxic “Us versus Them” mentality that does a disservice to the current Taos community.
If someone were to tell me to go back where I came from, I’d be in a bit of a pickle. How far back do I go until I arrive at my original starting point? First off, I’d have to go back to Massachusetts where I lived for 44 years. Although my son and the majority of my friends live there, I don’t desire to join them because the weather stinks most of the time – gray and gloomy in winter, hot and humid in the summer. New Englanders, as a rule, are a reserved bunch and shun the intimate interactions we Taoseños take for granted. Even the peace activists are grumpy and severe. More importantly, since the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, I no longer live or die with their fate.
The next stop back is New York City where I was born and raised. That won’t work because the city has been priced out of existence. For what a nice casita costs in Taos, you can buy a bedbug-infested walk-up in the Bronx. After living rurally for the past 50 years, residing in a city would drive me crazy, even though New York has the best pizza in the world. Growing up in the 1950s, my old neighborhood on the upper West Side was a funky vibrant place populated with mom-and-pop stores. Now it’s gentrified and all the locally owned emporiums have been replaced by soulless chains.
Moving back to my ancestral homes, I would now have to divide myself in half and return to both Slovenia and Belarus. When my Jewish grandparents were living there, those countries were known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Czarist Russia. My paternal grandparents lived only a few whistle-stops down from the Auschwitz death camp and my maternal grandfather fled Russia at the age of 16. At the time, Czarist Russia was the most anti-Semitic nation on earth and even today, I would pull out my fingernails before returning to anywhere near that backwards land. For a Jew to live in Europe in general was like being a foster kid in an abusive home. I’ll pass.
Speaking of being Jewish, the next destination for going back where I came from is obviously Israel, or “West Asia” as my DNA test results call it. That, of course, presents a dilemma because once there, the Palestinians would tell me to go back where I came from which would boomerang me back to Taos. I’d spend the remainder of my life as a ping pong ball bouncing for eternity between New Mexico and the Holy Land. I’ve twice been to Israel and it is perhaps the most contentious country on earth, even without it becoming depressingly Americanized. Where to next? According to the Old Testament, the ancient Hebrews migrated out of Sumeria, now known as Iraq. Off to settle in Baghdad? No, thank you.
I’m still not back where I came from. Time to consult my DNA. Apparently, from Sumeria to about 60,000 years ago, my ancestors were galumphing about the Middle East, hunting and gathering in small clannish groups. Where to go next?
70,000 years ago, they were in East Africa, the nexus from which all us sapiens emerged. Creation myths aside, every human being alive today, whatever their race, religion, ethnicity, gender preference or dietary needs can trace their ancestry back to the region now encompassing Tanzania, Kenya; Southern Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. This is irrefutable scientific fact. Whether we like it or not, we are all, in fact, related.
Therefore, I suggest that, once COVID-19 is gone, the entire human race should go back where it came from and have one big family reunion. Eastern Africa in late summer and early autumn is supposed to be dry and pleasant.
I’ll bring the Corona – beer, not virus.