Dear Canadian border guards,
I hardly ever have reason to complain about you, but today on my way home I was greeted at the Nexus lane with, “Have a great day, Steve!” Uhh … I don’t much like getting ‘Steve’ from cashiers and telemarketers, and you have no reason to assume I even go by that nickname. Sure, we’re a stereotypically friendly people, but you think that might be taking it just a step too far?
Cheers,
The Alien Commuter
To the very polite, friendly USCBP officer at the Nexus lane this morning:
I understand you’re upset, and I sympathize, that a relative of yours is having difficulty with an instructor here at Wayne State. I don’t doubt it’s true. However, it’s not a situation that involves me and my department in any way, and just like I don’t know Suzie from Canada, I don’t know Johnny from Wayne State either. It’s a big place. And, as for whatever my free advice is worth, don’t take it as gospel, because to be honest, I give the shortest fully truthful answers possible when at the border, including to you. Because, you see, while you are already at work, I’m not, and am looking to get there as quickly as possible.
Sincerely,
The Alien Commuter
Well, it’s election season here in Maple Detroit, and as usual, the two ridings (for you ‘Merkins, that’s the equivalent of a congressional district) are about as safe for the NDP (for you ‘Merkins, that’s like a party full of Bernie Sanders) as any in the country. Which is fine, whatever – this isn’t a political blog. But it is curious that the Liberals appear to have completely given up in Windsor West (our riding) – I see plenty of NDP and Conservative signs, but I have yet to see a single one for the Liberal candidate. Maybe I just live in the wrong part of the city, but it seems weird – this district belonged to Herb Gray for over 30 years and I can’t believe that Ignatieff is just abandoning it entirely. Sure, they’re not going to win, but neither are the Conservatives. It’s not even like there’s a risk of vote-splitting that would make a strategic agreement with the NDP worthwhile. Or are the Liberals just so broke that they are not even going to pretend to be competitive?
Has anyone out there experienced any mysterious rumblings? Better still, does anyone have an explanation? Mass delusion? Continental drift pulling us farther away from Detroit? Matty Moroun’s moneypile collapsing in on itself? Enquiring minds want to know.
I really don’t envy the border guards at the Ambassador Bridge. I mean, it’s the busiest crossing between Canada and the US, all day, every day, commuters and trucks, trucks and commuters. It’s the monotony that would get to me, and I see it getting to them too, everyone going shopping or going to work, all the same professions too, doctors, nurses, engineers, anthropologists …
Wait, anthropologists?
Inevitably, I end up conversing with the border guards, mostly on the US side, about my profession. Incidentally, I always say I am a ‘professor of anthropology’ rather than ‘anthropologist’ because it says I’m a professor (which I am) on my work visa, and I don’t want any confusion. And that’s when the fun begins.
Here’s what not to say:
“What do you do?”
“I’m a professor of anthropology.”
“Oh, you mean like stones and bones and stuff?”
“Well, actually, I’m a linguistic anthropologist whose research links mathematical cognition and culture.”
“…”
Here’s what to say:
“What do you do?”
“I’m a professor of anthropology.”
“Oh, you mean like stones and bones and stuff?”
“Yup.”
It’s best just to nod rather than try to stammer out an explanation of your research agenda. You are, after all, being interrogated by agents of the state, even though it’s hardly apparent. And they don’t really want a lengthy disquisition. But most of them actually are interested in what I do, at least to the degree that it doesn’t hold up the works if there’s a line of traffic behind me. The time that I was driving to a conference to talk about Paleolithic number concepts and could tell the guard, honestly, that I was going to talk about how Neanderthals counted, I think that really made his day. They may not know much, but we’re all agreed that we’re here for the same purpose, which is to facilitate the movement of me through the Maple Curtain, as long as I don’t say or do anything stupid. And if I can tell an interesting story and make someone’s day more interesting, well, consider it part of my service to the community. I’m not about to list it in my tenure file, but it’s a thing.
And yet, and yet, every so often, I am just floored by a question, and have absolutely no idea what to say, like the time last fall when I gave the standard answer and the guard looked at me and asked in all seriousness, “So, did you guys figure out what happened to Atlantis?”
When at work, the Alien Commuter wears the guise of an observer of the wild and arrogant Homo americanus in all its splendor, and is truly astonished at the sorts of things that go on ‘over there’ in the land of the Mighty Mitten. And indeed, this record will serve as an annal of many of those observations. But this alien is in fact … a double alien – an alien at home. This weird place called Windsor truly is alien to both Americans and Canadians alike, and as a resident only for three years, it is alien to me as well.
Today, in an opinion piece in the windsoriteDOTca blog, ‘The Identity Underneath Fingernails‘, Brendan Houghton writes, “Windsorites have often been considered the odd ones. Always different, we speak with a different accent than our American cousins, yet we identify with them more than our compatriots ever could. We are looked upon as too American by other Canadians and too Canadian by Americans.” There is some truth to that. I’ve spent most of my life in southern Ontario, and Windsor is different. I’m not sure how American it is, though: I think the truth of the matter is that it’s Michigan, not America as a whole, to which Windsor is pulled, with all the good and bad that that entails. And I also think you don’t have to scratch far below the surface to see a very different set of influences: French, of course, but also small-town Ontario of the sort that is eminently familiar to me, particularly out in the county.
We moved here in mid-2008, just as everything was falling to pieces economically, so many of our initial impressions of Windsor were affected by that experience. Since Windsor is changing so rapidly (again, for the better and worse, as almost everyone agrees), it will be interesting to see where we end up. For now, I remain, your correspondent, the (double) alien commuter.
A label on a hand dryer in a Wayne State bathroom:
Seems appropriate for this blog, don’t you think?
