WEBVTT 00:00:01.501 --> 00:00:03.870 The following content is provided under a Creative 00:00:03.870 --> 00:00:05.238 Commons license. 00:00:05.238 --> 00:00:07.474 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 00:00:07.474 --> 00:00:11.544 continue to offer high-quality educational resources for free. 00:00:11.544 --> 00:00:14.080 To make a donation, or to view additional materials 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:18.051 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 00:00:18.051 --> 00:00:25.225 at ocw.mit.edu. 00:00:25.225 --> 00:00:27.394 AUDIENCE: So first of all, thank you for being here. 00:00:27.394 --> 00:00:29.195 We've talked about immigration in the past. 00:00:29.195 --> 00:00:30.897 And with regard to the Haitian refugees, 00:00:30.897 --> 00:00:31.831 I think it also applies. 00:00:31.831 --> 00:00:33.206 And one of the themes we studied, 00:00:33.206 --> 00:00:36.047 I believe with Professor Tormund was, 00:00:36.047 --> 00:00:38.505 what's the actual reason that people do not want immigrants 00:00:38.505 --> 00:00:40.607 in the country versus the reasons that they state? 00:00:40.607 --> 00:00:44.144 So for example, one of the reasons that people would state 00:00:44.144 --> 00:00:46.479 would be that immigrants are ruining the economy. 00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:47.614 But if you look at-- 00:00:47.614 --> 00:00:49.655 NOAM CHOMSKY: One of the reasons why people stay? 00:00:49.655 --> 00:00:50.583 AUDIENCE: Oh, sorry. 00:00:50.583 --> 00:00:51.684 One of the reasons that people state that they don't 00:00:51.684 --> 00:00:52.919 want immigrants in the country. 00:00:52.919 --> 00:00:53.653 NOAM CHOMSKY: Oh, state that they-- 00:00:53.653 --> 00:00:54.278 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 00:00:54.278 --> 00:00:55.736 Is because they say that immigrants 00:00:55.736 --> 00:00:56.790 will ruin the economy. 00:00:56.790 --> 00:00:59.059 But then, Professor Tormund pointed out the fact 00:00:59.059 --> 00:01:00.693 that Mayor Bloomberg of New York, 00:01:00.693 --> 00:01:02.829 or the former Mayor Bloomberg of New York, 00:01:02.829 --> 00:01:04.998 said that New York could not run without immigrants. 00:01:04.998 --> 00:01:08.168 So what do you think are the actual reasons that people 00:01:08.168 --> 00:01:10.370 do not want immigrants in the country? 00:01:10.370 --> 00:01:13.640 NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, first of all, it's not a new phenomenon. 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:16.209 And it's not the United States. 00:01:16.209 --> 00:01:19.512 So for example, in Europe, a majority 00:01:19.512 --> 00:01:22.382 of the population of Europe, majority, 00:01:22.382 --> 00:01:28.388 thinks that Europe should not permit any Muslim immigrants. 00:01:28.388 --> 00:01:31.758 Europe has a certain history. 00:01:31.758 --> 00:01:34.961 It's called crematoria, for example. 00:01:34.961 --> 00:01:36.763 That's part of the background. 00:01:36.763 --> 00:01:38.997 And that's part of the immigration background 00:01:38.997 --> 00:01:40.467 here, too. 00:01:40.467 --> 00:01:43.902 I can talk about it from a very personal point of view. 00:01:43.902 --> 00:01:50.310 My father happened to be able to come to the United States 00:01:50.310 --> 00:01:54.447 before fleeing from Czarist Russia. 00:01:54.447 --> 00:01:58.718 Horrible conditions, especially for Jews. 00:01:58.718 --> 00:02:03.356 He made it before the Immigration Act of 1924. 00:02:03.356 --> 00:02:09.762 In 1924, Immigration Act for the first time barred Europeans. 00:02:09.762 --> 00:02:13.333 Prior to that, there were racist immigration acts, 00:02:13.333 --> 00:02:16.102 like it kept out Orientals. 00:02:16.102 --> 00:02:18.872 But Europeans were admitted. 00:02:18.872 --> 00:02:21.241 And there was a very simple reason for that. 00:02:21.241 --> 00:02:24.544 We were exterminating the indigenous population. 00:02:24.544 --> 00:02:26.646 So there was a lot of open space. 00:02:26.646 --> 00:02:30.550 That's what you see glorified in stories 00:02:30.550 --> 00:02:33.820 about covered wagons going to the West-- the pioneers. 00:02:33.820 --> 00:02:37.090 Of course, they were displacing some people 00:02:37.090 --> 00:02:39.859 who happened to live there, but it's another story. 00:02:39.859 --> 00:02:43.329 Anyway, there was an open-- the continent was open after you've 00:02:43.329 --> 00:02:45.565 exterminated the population. 00:02:45.565 --> 00:02:48.334 And you want the right kind of people to come in. 00:02:48.334 --> 00:02:51.271 And if you go back, the question of the right kind of people 00:02:51.271 --> 00:02:53.139 was quite delicate. 00:02:53.139 --> 00:02:55.275 So for example, Benjamin Franklin, 00:02:55.275 --> 00:02:59.679 who was the leading figure of the Enlightenment in the United 00:02:59.679 --> 00:03:04.817 States, he thought we should have discriminatory immigration 00:03:04.817 --> 00:03:07.620 rules to keep out the wrong kind of people. 00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:09.789 People who were too dark. 00:03:09.789 --> 00:03:14.494 And the people who were too dark were Swedes and Germans. 00:03:14.494 --> 00:03:16.496 That's Benjamin Franklin. 00:03:16.496 --> 00:03:17.564 So we got to watch out. 00:03:17.564 --> 00:03:19.566 Keep out Germans and Swedes. 00:03:19.566 --> 00:03:21.067 They're too siwrly. 00:03:21.067 --> 00:03:22.969 But that was finally relaxed. 00:03:22.969 --> 00:03:26.105 Anyway, they needed Europeans to come in. 00:03:26.105 --> 00:03:29.676 By the beginning of the 20th century, 00:03:29.676 --> 00:03:34.079 they didn't need immigrants any longer to fill the country. 00:03:34.079 --> 00:03:39.252 And the constant racism emerged. 00:03:39.252 --> 00:03:45.421 So the 1924 Act was-- in reality, 00:03:45.421 --> 00:03:48.428 it was based against Jews and Italians. 00:03:48.428 --> 00:03:51.197 What they said is East and Southern Europeans. 00:03:51.197 --> 00:03:53.800 But that meant Jews and Italians. 00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:55.335 Well, OK. 00:03:55.335 --> 00:03:59.005 What happened to the Jews who were 00:03:59.005 --> 00:04:02.175 unable to come until the 1960s? 00:04:02.175 --> 00:04:06.212 They ended up in concentration camps and crematoria. 00:04:06.212 --> 00:04:07.947 So it's a serious issue. 00:04:07.947 --> 00:04:11.551 That's most of my family, incidentally. 00:04:11.551 --> 00:04:14.853 The ones who didn't make it. 00:04:14.853 --> 00:04:16.522 So the story goes way back. 00:04:16.522 --> 00:04:18.224 It's not something new. 00:04:18.224 --> 00:04:22.729 And it's not just the United States. 00:04:22.729 --> 00:04:27.867 Western society generally is infected by very deep racism. 00:04:27.867 --> 00:04:31.237 And it's even more extreme in many ways in Europe 00:04:31.237 --> 00:04:33.172 than in the United States. 00:04:33.172 --> 00:04:35.341 In fact, in Europe, it's even more frightening 00:04:35.341 --> 00:04:37.110 than the United States. 00:04:37.110 --> 00:04:38.511 So take this morning's newspaper, 00:04:38.511 --> 00:04:41.381 if you happened to look at it. 00:04:41.381 --> 00:04:45.210 The government of Austria-- there 00:04:45.210 --> 00:04:46.899 was a coalition government, but it 00:04:46.899 --> 00:04:48.655 wasn't able to have an agreement, so they 00:04:48.655 --> 00:04:50.623 have to have an election. 00:04:50.623 --> 00:04:54.727 And the concern is that the most popular figure in Austria 00:04:54.727 --> 00:04:57.130 might win the election. 00:04:57.130 --> 00:04:59.299 He happens to be a neo-Nazi. 00:04:59.299 --> 00:05:01.100 That's Austria. 00:05:01.100 --> 00:05:04.771 There's a little bit of history in Austria. 00:05:04.771 --> 00:05:07.440 Well, that's scary. 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:10.777 And it's happening all over. 00:05:10.777 --> 00:05:18.184 Here, it has a special character because of white supremacy. 00:05:18.184 --> 00:05:22.622 White supremacy is very deeply rooted in the United States. 00:05:22.622 --> 00:05:25.758 There are comparative studies of white supremacy. 00:05:25.758 --> 00:05:29.662 The major ones by George Fredrickson, 00:05:29.662 --> 00:05:33.700 a good sociologist who did a comparative study 00:05:33.700 --> 00:05:36.569 of white supremacy in many countries. 00:05:36.569 --> 00:05:39.339 It's more extreme in the United States than any country 00:05:39.339 --> 00:05:43.209 that he studied, including South Africa under apartheid. 00:05:43.209 --> 00:05:45.845 And you see it all over the place. 00:05:45.845 --> 00:05:50.149 I mean, when the Nazis in the early '30s 00:05:50.149 --> 00:05:54.420 were trying to find models for the Nuremberg laws, 00:05:54.420 --> 00:05:57.390 the racist laws, they looked around the world. 00:05:57.390 --> 00:05:59.692 And the only country where they could find good models 00:05:59.692 --> 00:06:02.028 was the United States. 00:06:02.028 --> 00:06:03.830 They took US models. 00:06:03.830 --> 00:06:07.933 The US had miscegenation rules-- rules 00:06:07.933 --> 00:06:10.603 against interracial marriage-- which 00:06:10.603 --> 00:06:12.572 lasted, in fact, until they were finally 00:06:12.572 --> 00:06:15.975 struck down in the 1960s. 00:06:15.975 --> 00:06:20.046 The Nazis didn't entirely take the US laws 00:06:20.046 --> 00:06:23.316 because they regarded the US laws as too harsh. 00:06:23.316 --> 00:06:30.089 So the US laws were based on the concept of one drop of blood. 00:06:30.089 --> 00:06:33.926 None of this means anything from a biological point of view. 00:06:33.926 --> 00:06:35.428 It's all totally meaningless. 00:06:35.428 --> 00:06:40.433 But these are socially constructed categories. 00:06:40.433 --> 00:06:46.112 And one drop of blood meant if you-- by whatever category 00:06:46.112 --> 00:06:52.245 was concocted, you had one drop of Negro blood, you're black. 00:06:52.245 --> 00:06:54.447 And then, you can't marry a white. 00:06:54.447 --> 00:06:57.850 Those were laws that were not struck down, I think, 00:06:57.850 --> 00:07:01.587 until 1967. 00:07:01.587 --> 00:07:05.958 And you see it all over the place right now. 00:07:05.958 --> 00:07:09.328 I mean, it's right in front of us all over. 00:07:09.328 --> 00:07:14.700 In fact, if you look at Afro American history 00:07:14.700 --> 00:07:17.270 in the United States, it's pretty remarkable. 00:07:17.270 --> 00:07:21.174 In fact, that's something that really should be studied. 00:07:21.174 --> 00:07:24.043 The two topics that should be studied 00:07:24.043 --> 00:07:26.879 are, what happened to the native population 00:07:26.879 --> 00:07:29.549 and what happened to the black population? 00:07:29.549 --> 00:07:33.553 Anything else is secondary for the United States. 00:07:33.553 --> 00:07:35.021 Without going through the details-- 00:07:35.021 --> 00:07:36.489 I presume you know them. 00:07:36.489 --> 00:07:39.292 But the first slaves were brought here 00:07:39.292 --> 00:07:42.695 in Massachusetts 400 years ago. 00:07:42.695 --> 00:07:44.530 That's 400 years. 00:07:44.530 --> 00:07:46.466 You look over those 400 years, there 00:07:46.466 --> 00:07:50.069 have been literally a few decades. 00:07:50.069 --> 00:07:56.509 Maybe 30 years scattered in which African Americans had 00:07:56.509 --> 00:08:00.446 kind of a small opportunity to enter the general society. 00:08:00.446 --> 00:08:02.081 That's quite a record. 00:08:02.081 --> 00:08:04.217 And, of course, it has a residue. 00:08:04.217 --> 00:08:09.889 The residue shows in things like mortality, wealth. 00:08:09.889 --> 00:08:14.193 The wealth of African American families is virtually zero. 00:08:14.193 --> 00:08:17.964 What there was, was pretty much destroyed by the crash. 00:08:17.964 --> 00:08:23.135 It shows up in, why are there murders in ghettos 00:08:23.135 --> 00:08:26.005 in Chicago and Baltimore? 00:08:26.005 --> 00:08:29.809 It's not the genes. 00:08:29.809 --> 00:08:32.378 Everywhere you look, you see it. 00:08:32.378 --> 00:08:34.013 And it shows up. 00:08:34.013 --> 00:08:36.048 Going back to your question, it shows up 00:08:36.048 --> 00:08:41.287 in the racist immigration laws, which are bad enough now. 00:08:41.287 --> 00:08:44.056 But the ones that were enacted in 1924 00:08:44.056 --> 00:08:47.326 and maintained right through the Holocaust, 00:08:47.326 --> 00:08:51.063 those were pretty serious. 00:08:51.063 --> 00:08:53.399 In fact, you probably know the stories. 00:08:53.399 --> 00:08:58.704 But ships were turned away bringing refugees 00:08:58.704 --> 00:09:01.207 who thought they could make it. 00:09:01.207 --> 00:09:03.676 There's some strange stories if you look at it. 00:09:03.676 --> 00:09:04.911 They're kind of suppressed. 00:09:04.911 --> 00:09:10.283 But one quite interesting story-- 00:09:10.283 --> 00:09:12.209 it's worth looking at if you're interested-- 00:09:12.209 --> 00:09:14.554 has to do with Japan. 00:09:14.554 --> 00:09:22.749 The Japanese fascists were kind of-- only 00:09:22.749 --> 00:09:26.032 had limited understanding of the Western world. 00:09:26.032 --> 00:09:28.200 Japan had been pretty isolated. 00:09:28.200 --> 00:09:33.472 So the fascist leaders, the generals in Japan in the 1930s, 00:09:33.472 --> 00:09:36.242 were pretty much influenced by Germany. 00:09:36.242 --> 00:09:41.747 And they read German propaganda, Nazi propaganda, 00:09:41.747 --> 00:09:44.550 about how Jews are running the world. 00:09:44.550 --> 00:09:48.487 And they were very eager to get the Americans off their back. 00:09:48.487 --> 00:09:51.490 They didn't want a conflict with the United States. 00:09:51.490 --> 00:09:53.326 So they concluded that the way to get 00:09:53.326 --> 00:09:55.461 the Americans off their back is by doing 00:09:55.461 --> 00:09:57.597 something nice for the Jews. 00:09:57.597 --> 00:10:01.934 And this, in fact, fit with Japanese history. 00:10:01.934 --> 00:10:05.004 Because in the early part of the 20th century, 00:10:05.004 --> 00:10:07.740 there was a Russo-Japanese war. 00:10:07.740 --> 00:10:12.631 And wealthy Jews who were very anti-Russian-- because Russia 00:10:12.631 --> 00:10:16.037 was very anti-Semitic-- were funding and supporting 00:10:16.037 --> 00:10:17.149 the Japanese. 00:10:17.149 --> 00:10:20.620 Jacob Schiff and others. 00:10:20.620 --> 00:10:23.489 Japan considered that that was part of the reason why 00:10:23.489 --> 00:10:25.291 they were able to win the war. 00:10:25.291 --> 00:10:27.059 So they had their own connections 00:10:27.059 --> 00:10:29.395 with the international Jewish conspiracy 00:10:29.395 --> 00:10:31.764 that runs the world that they were picking up 00:10:31.764 --> 00:10:33.699 from Nazi propaganda. 00:10:33.699 --> 00:10:37.970 So they concluded that the way to mollify the United States 00:10:37.970 --> 00:10:44.276 was to bring Jews from Eastern Europe to Japan. 00:10:44.276 --> 00:10:49.015 And there was a period of the Nazi Russian pact 00:10:49.015 --> 00:10:50.883 where people could move. 00:10:50.883 --> 00:10:53.319 And in fact, there was a considerable number 00:10:53.319 --> 00:10:58.124 of Polish Jews, very orthodox Polish Jews. 00:10:58.124 --> 00:11:04.363 The kind you see with black hats and white shirts 00:11:04.363 --> 00:11:06.298 and you know, all of this. 00:11:06.298 --> 00:11:10.870 They were brought from Poland to Japan, 00:11:10.870 --> 00:11:13.172 which was a feudal society. 00:11:13.172 --> 00:11:15.808 The cultural contact was incredible. 00:11:15.808 --> 00:11:18.477 There's all sorts of interesting stories about it. 00:11:18.477 --> 00:11:21.147 But the point here is that the Japanese 00:11:21.147 --> 00:11:25.418 assumed that if they brought Polish Jews to Japan, 00:11:25.418 --> 00:11:28.988 the American Jewish community would welcome them here. 00:11:28.988 --> 00:11:31.457 They didn't want them to stay in Japan, of course. 00:11:31.457 --> 00:11:33.893 They thought they'd go on to the United States. 00:11:33.893 --> 00:11:35.861 They stayed in Japan. 00:11:35.861 --> 00:11:39.532 Nobody wanted them here, including the Jewish community. 00:11:39.532 --> 00:11:41.767 And there's plenty of stories like that. 00:11:41.767 --> 00:11:47.039 As soon as you start to lift the veil very slightly, 00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:49.315 you find it everywhere.