I promised you an interesting story and here it is. It is a little long for one post, so I'll finish it up in the comments section. In early 1953 my parents sat me down and made an announcement. We were going to move to Canada. They tried to make it sound like it would be a wonderful adventure, but I could tell that they were unhappy and worried. I was just 10 years old and they kept so much from me, but here is what I knew at the time. It is about what can happen to people who were a little too naive and trusting of the government….of course, it couldn’t happen now….yeah, right!
My mother was born in Canada and moved to Chicago as a young girl. Because her father was a naturalized American citizen she always assumed that she was a citizen too. When she was old enough, she voted...Democrat, of course! Being from a long line of community activists, she, along with her brothers and sister, was involved in liberal labor organizations in the late 1930's. There was nothing illegal about the clubs and groups that she was interested in. Later on, in about 1950, after they were living in California both Mom and her sister found out from their brother who had been in the Navy, that they were actually not American citizens. They wanted to correct this and applied for citizenship.
As you may remember, there was something else going on in the United States at this time. The Senate Committee on Government Operations, headed by that lovable dickens, Senator Joseph McCarthy, was in full swing. The Congress was equally busy with the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Now we can look back in amazement (or not..Hang ‘em WM!) that McCarthy in the Senate, and his associates on the House committee, subpoenaed hundreds of people and, on threat of loosing their jobs or being imprisoned, they were questioned about whether or not they associated with anyone who was a Communist AND they were required to name names. It was a frightening time and many people turned against their friends and neighbors to protect themselves.
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To continue -
How, you may ask, did this affect our family? Well, here it is. When Mom applied for citizenship, she filled out the applications as honestly and thoroughly as she could. The officials conducted a background check to see if she was sufficiently loyal and a good decent person. One of the inquiries was about a labor organization whose meetings she had attended a few times when she was a young woman. The organization had never been illegal, but later during the McCarthy era, it was reported to have had ties with the Communist party. This showed up on her background check as well as an interview with an ex-neighbor in Chicago who told the government interviewer that "strange" packages were delivered to the house. (The packages were boxes of envelopes that my grandmother was receiving as part of a home “envelope addressing” business, she was working for to make a little extra money.)
As a side note, my aunt’s citizenship application went through without a hitch because she had filed it in a different county and even though they had had exactly the same youthful interests, no one bothered to check on the labor organization meetings they had attended.
Insane? Yes. Not only was Mom's citizenship application turned down, she was arrested and was told that she could be deported to Canada as an "subversive person". Nothing could have been more ridiculous. It was a horrible shock to both my parents. How could anyone think that my mother was other than a decent, totally honest loving mother and wife? But the fact was that somebody did think otherwise, and those somebodies controlled what was to happen to our lives.
Finishing up -
Mom went to Washington D.C. to try and get the whole mess straightened out, but was told by the California congressman that unless she had several thousand dollars to pursue a special Act of Congress, there was nothing he could do. It might as well have been a million dollars. They didn't have it.
So she came back to California, not quite sure what to do. Although Mom and Dad did not really have a choice and were being totally uprooted, they felt it was more honorable to leave voluntarily, rather than waiting for the possibility of her being deported. And with the climate of the times, it was a very real possibility. So she applied to the Canadian government for visas for her family to accompany her and, bless those sweet Canadian hearts, her husband, 10 year old daughter and one year old daughter were accepted. I guess the Canadian government wasn’t worried about a housewife, her husband and her cute kids.
As I recall it was June of 1953. It is to their credit that my parents never spoke harshly about my mother's experience within my hearing when I was a child. I never heard them quarrel about it or speak of moving to Canada in anything other than positive terms. I didn't even learn the whole story until I was totally grown-up.
My father suffered a heart attack in 1957 (probably stress related) and in 1958 my parents were wondering if it might be possible for them to return to the U.S. where the rest of our families lived. By 1954 McCarthy had been disgraced and censured by the Senate, and by 1959 the House committee was being denounced by former President Harry Truman. The United States government had other bigger fish than my mother to fry. With very little red tape, her application for a residency visa was granted and we all returned to California to take up our lives as best we could.
CA...This is an amazing story. This is the first time that I have ever heard a story from someone I "know" about the results of McCarthyism...it is like touching a piece of history and gaining a better understanding of how people's lives were actually affected by this kind of hate mongering. I have read about it, seen PBS documentaries on that period of history and how things got so out of control and too much power was put into the wrong hands...
It so sad that your family had no choice but to move...how difficult to leave your home for another country. It sounds like your parents handled it as well as they could. I think that this kind of situation where you are essentially being asked to leave as opposed to leaving for a job or just a change is entirely different. It was wrong then and continues to be when people in power can do so much wrong, and have the power to destroy the lives of so many. A lesson in prevention, that hasn't, historically, ever truly been learned. Power...greed,..abuse...evil...the connection continues around the world.
Americans generally hold themselves in high esteem for our supposed adherence to the "law of the land"...and always take such a high moral stance, when in truth we have a history of abusive behavior to those around us. The indians, the slaves, then freed slaves, the Chinese during the gold rush and after, the Irish and most waves of immigrants even today, the Japanese internment camps, the Mcarthyism/Red Scare...and too many to mention. We hope that each time we pass through one of these times of moral degeneration that we will learn from it. But we seemed doomed to keep repeating ourselves.
I think this is part of the current concern with the blatent abuse of power and distain for the laws of this country and of international treaties that were overridden with the terribly lame excuse that they were "protecting the people of this country"...When what they were really trying to do was torture someone into admitting a connection between Al-Queda and Iraq to help sell the idea, which was already put in motion before Sept 11, and authorize our right to illegally invade another country. The idea that we can sweep this under the rug is appalling and to say that we won't ever, ever do it again is hogwash. Until people are prosecuted and we can show the world that we can also walk the walk, we haven't learned anything...do what we say...not what we do. Move along and try not to notice the wreck that this country has legally become because really, we don't have plans to shift to the Dark Side ever, ever again.
Seriously...this is just amazing...I hope it is something that you have written down elsewhere as a family history and reminder of what has happened and could, with the wrong people( sometimes even the "right people") in power, occur again.
Side note...it is 7 pm and I haven't heard back from the Art League lady...so I am assuming that I am fee to paint tomorrow instead of hanging a show. I am just a bit relieved as this was being slammed at me so fast. I had avoided this program initially because I didn't have time to go through the jurying and to run around hanging shows. The phone call pushed me into action and I was flattered that they wanted my work for the presentation...So...really, I'm quite ok with not having to run around tomorrow...*Sigh of relief*...this is how art stuff goes...up and down.
PMT...hope things are coming together for the trip...are you getting excited about it? How many of those leather teddies are you actually packing...or maybe leather cargo pants... you know you are missed at the xword blog.
WH...cute reference in your post today...Hang 'em high...I am so glad that you have been asked to continue posting even sans puzzle at the moment...you add a richness and sense of humor there...
WM, These posts were rather difficult for me. It has been over 50 years, but it is still amazingly fresh. I felt that it was time to share this particular story with people I have come to like and trust.
I'm glad to hear that you are OK with the Art League and are satisfied to paint for the time being. Your paintings will always find a venue to be shown and it should be at your time and your place.
Have a good evening.
CA...I thank you for sharing this...Like I say, it is an incredible story. Mostly I've heard and read about famous people whose lives were disrupted and in many cases ruined by this witch hunt. But to have a first person story to really bring home what happened to lovely and completely innocent families is enlightening and frightening...It is something that has shaped your life and I imagine it took a lot just to put this all down.
I am honored...truly, that you would share something of this importance with us.
ClearAyes:
As for the stupidity of 19 year-olds, it's relative. We make questionable moves all our lives, we just hope to reduce the frequency and the scope as we get older and hopefully learn something from the experience. My favorite strip from the defunct Calvin and Hobbes cartoon was the one where they rode the toy wagon down the hill and over a cliff. They were basically thrill-seeking, and one said to the other, "We don't want to learn anything from this.". My philosophy as a young man exactly, but eventually you learn in spite of yourself. Sad, but true.
As to the possible mid-day Goose-swilling yesterday, either the DFers were (as I was) being very circumspect, or they weren't paying attention. I LMAO.
To the main event: From now on, when you say you have an "interesting story", I will be all ears. I worked outside all day and was dog-tired when I read your story, intending to comment this morning. I thought a great deal about it, and my intended response was along much the same lines as Wolfmom's. It's hard to resist the Reaganesque Morning in America and City on a Hill bullshit, and in fact this is a wonderful country with high ideals and as much opportunity as exists in any culture, past or present. But we as a society have often, and probably more often than not, failed to live up to those ideals. But saying so publicly will get your barn ( and maybe your house) burned down. Any politician ( witness Michelle Obama's "proud of my country now" campaign statement) who acknowledges any honesty about our history is quickly excoriated and often destroyed politically. The Obamas made several deft recoveries; others have not been so fortunate.
There is a lot of sociological literature about the necessity as well as the efficacy of this herd mentality in forming a cohesive society. I would imagine that these would be of scant interest to the victims, such as your family, of the more extreme forms. To even apologize for past crimes against offended groups or individuals has been politically damaging.
There was some discussion on the other Corner recently about "things working out for the best" or misfortune being part of some divine plan for our lives. You know, of course, that my worldview is that things happen and we are left to make the best of them. I suspect that you share this view and that have made the best, as it were. I guess a corollary to that view is that if are content with your present circumstance, you can not have very serious regrets about the past, as any change in past events would very likely result in a change in the present. That's a micro view of the macro "the best of all possible worlds". Sometimes it's hard to escape the feeling of being a pawn on a cosmic chessboard.
It is an interesting story, and thank you for sharing it, and for sustaining us in the absence of our blogmeister.
It is strange that even after all they went through for that seven or eight years, they still seemed to think that America was the greatest place to live.
I think my father was even more affected than my mother. He felt that, as an American citizen who had volunteered to defend his country during the war, his country should have repaid him better than it did. He also thought it was a lousy deal that his/our country treated the mother of two American citizens so crappily. (The third sister didn't come along until we were already in Canada.) Of course, I didn't know any of this until I was fully grown and started to ask questions about that period in our lives.
I do know that although my mother lived in California for 45 years after returning from Canada, she never again applied for citizenship and remained a resident alien for the rest of her life.
My mother was a talented writer. She wrote dozens of stories about growing up in Chicago, to share with her grandchildren. Even though family members encouraged her to write a about book about the experience I've described here, she chose not to. She told me it was a painful memory that she didn't want to revisit in depth. A few years before she died, she wrote a six page description of what had happened to her. I retyped it and put it on disk. That along with the stories of her happier memories are with my sisters, grandkids and me.
Did it all work out for the best? Who knows, since we don't have an parallel universe (as far as we know) to check it out. I know my parents lived a good life after our return.
My "it is what it is" and "do the best with what you have to work with" attitude is definitely a legacy from my parents. My life was shaped by those years and I'm not sorry to be where I am now. So we go on.
CA...this is still resonationg with me on some different levels. We never know if the other path not taken would have made us better or happier or wealthier and as, I think, I have said before, we only know what we know and I always refuse to play the what if game. I am more more interested in the what could be game.
I would hope that at some level your father would have come to understand that his country as a whole didn't mistreat him but his sadness and estrangement was caused by a very few power-hungry, misguided and very scared people. It would, of course, only have been able to come to him after a long period of years I would think. I also find it understandable that your mother would never re-apply for citizenship to a country that so mis-treated her. I would imagine it was a wound that never entirely healed.
There is that old saying that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger and I believe that there is a grain of truth in that...I find that looking into my own past and poor relationship with my mother a case in point. But, if not for all the negative things in my life because of her, I don't know that I would have had the inner strength that I how have to deal with her once again. I used to use the concept when raising our girls to do the exact opposite of what my mother had done...on the whole it was a perfect way to raise our daughters...they are incredible people for which I can only take small credit. Perhaps the adversity that I grew up in made me a much better mom, if only for having a bad example to base my decisions on.
I also believe that a betrayal by your own country and in your mother's case a country she believed she was a citizen of had to be devastating and it must have made them feel so helpless against the idiocy and scare mongering of a few. I also believe that in the long run run it has helped to make you into the strong, thoughful, kind, humorous and caring person that you appear to be. I think we need to remember the things that formed us but also to leave them behind us as we move forward...I am very glad that you saved so much...it is a good legacy for your family. My mother, at least, managed to record the stories of her parents lives before they died...along with some old photo albums we can carry a sense of who they were and where they came from. They were very dear people who in a simple way led extraordinary lives...and I am glad that we have that information for future generations who might want that connection. I think it also helps us to understand who we each are and to learn from those that came before us.
I know that I will continue to ruminate on this truly stunning story for days to come. You are an amazing person and I am so happy to "know" you.
Buckeye, I know you're out there lurking. Why not stop by and tell a story of your own?
I second that emotion.
If you can't dazzle us with some brilliance,
You baffle us with some BS.
We're at loose ends without our PMT.
A farmer and two artists, we need a Border Collie.
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