It's June: the universities
to prove the sun can shine
are hanging their late bloomers
on the academic line…
The angry masses that the Republicans and Democrats have raked up in this hellish election are basically different crowds. The kids who felt the Bern are the about-to-be educated children of the middle class, sliding into college debt and reading Karl Marx’s Das Kapital about the rich eating the poor. The jobs they’re studying for are either taken or poorly paid, while CEOs are knocking down bonuses fit for a king, or even a football coach. Lacking their parents’ and grandparents’ instinctive revulsion to European Socialism, they flocked to Bernie, not least because what he says is — to quote PolitiFact — “Mostly True.” Of course, he didn’t explain how much it will cost, or the damage they might cause if they don’t join forces with Hillary Clinton. See Ralph Nader, 2000.
Those who Twitter with Trump, on the other hand, have found they’ve been simply crowded out of the boat; they haven’t been taught to swim in turbulent water, and people who don’t look like them are stroking smoothly by, grabbing the life preservers. Their situation seems like sink or swim: It’s not fair.
Life isn’t fair, never has been. America, however, has slipped backward, spending its vast wealth carelessly and heartlessly. But we have a chance to be fair (ish) again: With decent education, democracy can work. The Bernie supporters will have to support Clinton, who’ll help them get jobs, and pay for their college bills. The Trump supporters need work, too — but first, most of them need education, and help in getting back to school. No matter who wins, those manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back.
Within our own extended family, there’s general agreement about open and fair immigration, and free and fair education. Multiple countries have joined our family tree in just two generations — Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Pakistani, and others — and their stories bring credit to America. We’re a middle-class family with blue-collar beginnings (our grandparents sailed from Europe in the 19th century) that bet big on education; it seems obvious that the mix of sensible immigration and easy access to good schools is the best path ahead.
We have two brilliant daughters-in-law, Aya Aoki from Tokyo, and Wei Chu from Taipei. Wei’s story is typical. Born in Taiwan, the third of four children, she was just a child when her father died. When she was 17, the family followed relatives and moved to New York. The children had studied English, but studying English in Taiwan and speaking it when you’re thrown into a big American city are very different things. Nevertheless, although her SAT English scores were “modest,” she scored a perfect 800 on the math section. “Education was everything to us,” she told us, and this dedication was evident to savvy college admissions counselors, who could see that her English would come along — she understood those math questions! — and offered her financial aid to attend their schools.
For this, we feel proud of America. It’s the way our system should work. An immigrant arrives, works and studies hard, and is rewarded; which in turn makes America stronger. She wound up going to Johns Hopkins, through its college and med school; she’s now Dr. Wei Chu, married into the infamous Meinke clan.
“Education was everything to us” needs to catch on with Americans. The next president has to tackle our programs from pre-school to grad school. (So far, Clinton has a plan; Trump’s said zero.) We’ll have to bite the tax bullet, recognizing that our education, not our military, is primarily what will keep America great. And although I have some fun with this poem about my own studies, our motto should be No Drones in School.
I took our daughter Gretchen out
and our son whatsisname
I lost them in the stacks somehow
Home’s never been the same
Now I’m alone but free at last
to wander in the meadows
the world’s leading authority
on Thomas Lovell Beddoes
—Both quotes from “On Completing My PhD” by Peter Meinke, from Lucky Bones, U. of Pittsburgh Press, 2014.
This article appears in Aug 11-18, 2016.