The more I spoke with the people there, the more I realized it was not necessarily a contradiction for conservatives to be upset about the detention and looming deportation of their friendly restaurant-owning neighbor. As I wrote later in a reflection for the Huffington Post, “Think of the favorite themes of conservatism: hard work, small business ownership, suspicion of overbearing government, and support for family. Each one of those themes is at stake here, and each is insulted by the prospect of a person like Roberto being ripped away from his business, friends, wife and children, by a federal agency.” It was because, not in spite, of their conservatism that this room full of people felt the need to stand up for this undocumented immigrant they knew.
They also viewed his case differently because they actually knew him as a person, not as a stock character. Over time I’ve observed that we are more generous, supportive, and pleasant toward people we actually know than toward those we understand only as categories or groups. Humans can of course be cruel in person, too, but as a general rule we seem less likely to hate from up close. This explains the many people I have encountered who are noticeably racist in general but deeply supportive and protective of minority individuals they actually know personally. And it explains the sudden expansion of LGBT freedom in this country, as people began to realize that the vilified category in question applied to specific people they already knew and loved. This kind of empathy was on display at Eddie’s Steak Shed, as I looked at the dozens of signatures on a petition started by employees at the restaurant, titled “Bring Our Boss Home.” And I saw it in letters from people like the one who wrote, “I voted for President Trump because I believed he was promising to develop a process to remove the illegal immigrants that have done acts against the United States. I also believed that he was going to correct the red tape that blocks the immigrants from becoming a citizen that have been a positive contributor to the way of life here,” meaning immigrants like Roberto.
As the story gained increasing attention, including a feature on 60 Minutes, many responded judgmentally toward anyone, especially Helen, who could vote for Trump and then be surprised by this sort of outcome. But to do so is to assume that voting is about ideology and policy analysis, rather than identity and environment. For a hardwork ing and devoted woman like Helen with a small family business in a conservative Indiana community, most of the people she dealt with—neighbors, customers, and acquaintances—were people for whom voting Republican was simply a matter of course. If she was also a consumer of conservative news on television and social media, more liberal messages might never have reached her in the first place. We should not be so surprised that she was so surprised.
The outcome was as feared: Roberto was deported to Juárez and the family lost the restaurant. The news cycle moved on. But it’s hard for me to move beyond that singular moment at the restaurant as I prepared to leave, looking into Dimitri’s eyes and trying to think of something to tell him besides “You’ll get your father back” or “Everything will be okay,” which I could not say because I doubted it was true. Here was a kid—a very American kid—who wanted the most natural thing in the world: the company of his own father. And because of politics, he couldn’t have it. A law said that he and his father were not of the same country, and a series of decisions meant that they could not live together. This—not some trading of rhetorical points on CNN or electoral up-and-down—is where political choices hit home. Not at the polling place itself, or a campaign rally, or in the halls of Congress, but in the eyes of a bewildered and utterly innocent eight-year-old boy.
14
Dirt Sailor
“Sir,” I asked, “could you help me figure out how to answer this one on the form?”
Lieutenant Murray looked annoyed. He often looked annoyed, though over time I would learn that his deadpan style concealed a kind of gruff affection for rather clueless junior officers like myself, along with the enlisted people he oversaw, and the Navy overall.
It was time to fill in the annual “Reserve Screening Questionnaire,” or RSQ, not to be confused with the “Officer Qualification Questionnaire” (OQQ) or “Navy Reserve Qualification Questionnaire” (the NRQQ, of course). Service in the Reserve will always be one of the highlights of my life, but the price of admission was an ongoing flow of administrativia. A reservist needs to be as bureaucratically healthy as an active duty service member, but has only two days a month to take care of the various requirements. The result is that during the monthly drills that make up much of your service, half of your time on base consists of filling out forms, undergoing medical checkups, running physical fitness tests, and clicking through computer-based training on everything from sexual harassment to cybersecurity. Whatever time is left over goes to “production,” doing a job resembling what you would theoretically do if you were called up, which in my case meant analyzing intelligence for the European Command.
The sooner I could update this form, along with all the other ensigns and junior lieutenants seated in the carpeted and windowless room at Fort Sheridan, the sooner I could get in “the back,” that is, the area full of classified computers, to do some actual work. The hang-up was that there was a question on this particular form pertaining to whether I could readily be deployed—which, of course, is the whole point of having a Reserve. The question was short, but not simple: “Are you considered a ‘key’ employee” in your civilian workplace? I wasn’t sure what to say.
“This is mainly for firefighters and other first responders,” Lieutenant Murray said, eyeing me through his glasses. “Why? Where do you work?”
I said what I usually said around the base when conversation went to our civilian day jobs: “I work for the city.”
“All right. Can anyone else do your job?”
“Not exactly.”
“Are you the mayor?” he asked sarcastically.
“Um . . .”
IT TURNS OUT THAT THE ANSWER to the question of being a key employee, in my case, was no. The reason is that under Indiana law for a city our size, a deputy mayor can be assigned to perform a mayor’s duties if he (or she) gets called into active duty. There’s even a specific part of Indiana statute contemplating this situation, dating back to 1865, when perhaps lawmakers envisioned a mayor raising a volunteer regiment to go fight at the tail end of the Civil War. So, as far as the Navy was concerned, I was not indispensable back home and thus fair game for deployment orders.
This seemed reasonable to me. Every reservist leaves something important behind when called to active duty—not only a job, as I had, but often a spouse and children, which I did not. Checking the box “no” was a humbling reminder that national defense has little regard for peacetime civilian hierarchy, which in a way was refreshing as well.