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- [00:00]
Bill Gray
Hi there, it's Bill Gray from Hillsdale College. Before you skip ahead, can I ask you a question or two? If you could teach 50 million Americans one thing, what would it be? Would you teach our great American story that this nation is unique, founded on self government and individual liberty? Maybe you would teach the truth about free enterprise, how hard work and opportunity allow anyone to rise? Or would you teach the gospel and the Christian faith that helps us live good and meaningful lives? At Hillsdale College, we're doing exactly that. Teaching the best that's been thought and said. Through our free online courses, K12 programs, Imprimis, podcasts and more, we reach and teach millions every year with the principles of liberty that make America free. And with your help, we can reach even more. Your tax deductible gift today will help us teach millions more people to pursue truth and defend liberty. Just text the word give to 7 1844. You'll get a secure link to make your donation in seconds. That's give to 718 44. Thank you for standing with us. Now back to the show.
- [01:22]
Narrator
To celebrate 250 years of freedom, Hillsdale College's Matthew Spaulding along with professor From Hillsdale in D.C. sit down with Larry O' Connor of WMAL to discuss the truths that make this country great. This is Hillsdale on the Hill.
- [01:43]
Host
Tuesday is always a fun day to be here because every several Tuesdays we pick up our conversation on America's 250 that we're doing all year long with our partners in crime, Hillsdale College, specifically Hillsdale College's Washington D.C. campus. That's where the Van Andel Graduate School of Government is located, where they have a part time MA in Government degree for young professionals. And one of the professors that you will run into there at Hillsdale is our guest, Dr. David Azerrad, assistant professor and research fellow over there at Hillsdale D.C. good morning, David. Thanks for joining us.
- [02:19]
Dr. David Azerrad
Good morning, thank you for having me.
- [02:21]
Host
Well, we're gonna shift gears a little bit today and talk about America through the eyes of, well, a foreigner because you are an immigrant to this from the country that we frequently now refer to, probably inelegantly, as the evil empire, Canada. So 51st state. 51st. Kidding. But you know, it's easy for us to slip into various modes of perspective as Americans, whether you're second, third, fourth generation, whether you're come from the Mayflower era, but when you are born in a foreign country and you're looking at America and clearly, David, you had a pretty positive outlook on this nation because you went out of your way to move here legally and become an immigrant. So I'd love to hear from you, what America as a child, what did America represent to you, and what was that journey like?
- [03:12]
Dr. David Azerrad
So I was born and raised in Montreal and, you know, maybe 100 miles from the border, not even. And I think like many foreigners, but especially like Canadians, we all think we know America very well because we're so immersed in the culture. You know, you don't watch Canadian movies or Canadian TV shows. You don't very much listen to Canadian music. And even if it is like, how is Shania Twain Canadian? You know, she might as well be American. So when it comes to, say, Belgium or Switzerland or Togo, no one thinks that they know these countries unless they've studied them. America is different. I think it's particularly pronounced for Canadians. But I think that people from further away in the world will feel the same, that we all think we know it because we watch so much of the television. And to me, moving to America was a process of, I guess, discovering the large parts of the country, of the American ethos that do not get depicted on television. So I moved here in 2004 at the age of 26 to do a PhD in political theory in Dallas, Texas, at the University of Dallas. And I started, you know, discovering, I guess I don't want to say real America, because what you see on TV is an element of America, but the parts of America you don't see. So, for example, you realize that Americans are religious people you would never see on an American sitcom, someone saying grace before a meal or going to church, right? That is completely airbrushed out of the pop culture. And to the extent that there are references to Christianity in the news, it's always negative, right? It's. The Westboro Baptist Church is fundamentalist Christians. And you move here and you meet these absolutely wonderful people who are church going, who are welcoming, who are civic minded, who volunteer, who get involved in all sorts of causes. You then meet people who own guns. I mean, as a Canadian, that to me was probably one of the, you know, the biggest distance is to travel. Like guns are maybe for hunting in Canada. And you're taught that they're dangerous and that Americans are running around shooting each other. And then you meet people with guns and you start to understand the value of guns, right? The civic habits it fosters to teach citizens that they have a responsibility to protect their home. It's not entirely offloaded to the state, any case. I could go on and on, but I'd say I came to America with a generally positive view of the country, but I really fell in love with it. Well, really by getting to know Americans, which is not something you can do from television and brief vacations.
- [05:55]
Interviewer 2
And David, when you came here, were you expecting to start the citizenship process, or was it you coming here, being immersed in the culture, you decided? I think I want to move forward and become an American.
- [06:07]
Dr. David Azerrad
I really came here to study political philosophy. I had no real interest in American politics, but I stumbled into the political theory of America until a class on the founding and really became interested. And when I came here, I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I didn't know where I was going to live. And I would say it was a piecemeal process of falling in love with the country, discovering the country also, I should add, you know, traveling. So it's not just the people, it's not just the books, but it's the unbelievable natural wonders of America. Going to the national parks, going to Civil War battle sites. And I'd say it was. It was a piecemeal process of laying down roots here. You know, it also helps to have married an American. I mean that. To want to stay here. And then, you know, I really. It pains me to say this, but I think Canada is kind of finished. I don't really see a hope for Canada. I think the immigration situation, the repressions on liberty, it's not encouraging. I never had particularly deep ties to it because both of my parents were immigrants. So I think the decision to become an America happened to become an American. Part of me happened gradually. And I was finally naturalized in March of last year. So a little over a year ago, I finally swore the. Took the oath of citizenship and became an American.
- [07:34]
Interviewer 2
And I'm just curious on this, David. So you are falling in love with the country, obviously falling in love and getting married to American as well, at the same time that America is being torn down by the left in this country. And you've gone through the era of statues being torn down and our founding fathers not being looked up to and wanting to change the entire culture. And your path was the exact opposite of really where our news media has taken us and other elected officials. What does that process been like for you? The juxtaposition of the two is just an interesting one.
- [08:10]
Dr. David Azerrad
Yeah, but, you know, if only it started with the tearing down of the statues. I mean, you know, I do a lot of work on, on the political theories of the 1960s and what, what goes on there. I mean, I. The attempt to radically transform America, you know, at this point is almost a century old. Meaning you have the early progressives. The New Deal is not so much a cultural change. They don't go after, you know, statues and the Christian faith. But in terms of the understanding of the size, scope and reach of the government, it is a colossal transformation. But the 60s is really where you get the cultural transformation. And since then, then, you know, it's been a gradual unfolding of these radical ideas where I would say America today is a mixed regime. You know, to some extent, America is still connected to the founding. There is a clear line. You know, we still have a First Amendment. We are the only Western nation that has not criminalized so called hate speech. I say so called because you think someone saying malicious racial slurs or of course the way it's used in Europe and Canada is to silence political dissent. We still have a Second Amendment. We still have that American energy, right? The daring, the boldness. There's something that's still there. And yet we also have the sad, pernicious legacy of the 60s and the two are intertwined. But there's still, I think, plenty of hope because there's still plenty in America that is still good and connect it to what I would call the real America.
- [09:50]
Host
Hold that thought. David Azerrod. We're speaking of David Azerrod, assistant professor and research fellow at Hillsdale College's Van Andel Graduate School of Government, as we have our semi regular conversation here about America's 250, because the idea of an immigrant's view of America and immigration to America. It came out in a congressional hearing last week where a certain Democrat congressman from the area likened one of our founding fathers to an illegal immigrant. I want you to listen to that and then give us your perspective as a legal naturalized citizen to this country circa the 21st century.
- [10:22]
Democrat Congressman
Invoking Tom Paine, who was an undocumented immigrant who came to this land in 1774, two years before the Revolution and wrote Common Sense members said.
- [10:36]
Jim Jordan
I think his opening sentence was he said Thomas Paine was an illegal immigrant. My understanding was Mr. Paine was born in the UK, came to America, then a British colony in 1774. So I was just struggling to figure out how he was.
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Democrat Congressman
Oh, I didn't say he was an illegal immigrant. I said he was an undocumented immigrant. Just. Just like Thomas Jefferson's family was. Most of our ancestors did not arrive here with documents.
- [10:59]
Host
Okay, well, I love to do love Jim Jordan. Okay, dude. But yeah, you hear this all the time. If you go see Hamilton on Broadway, they talk about all. All through it, about how Alexander Hamilton was an immigrant because he came from a Caribbean island. He was, he was scared Scottish, born in a British colony, and he moved to another British colony before it was its own country. But even still, David, did our founding fathers consider themselves immigrants in the way that we would consider people immigrants here 250 years later?
- [11:30]
Dr. David Azerrad
No, they were settlers. They were maybe colonists. And more importantly, they would have never described America as a nation of immigrants. That phrase gained popularity with a short book that was ghostwritten for JFK in the 60s. And it has now become part of the national identity. And what it in effect teaches Americans is that to be an American is to believe in a set of ideas. And that you could be born in Ghana or Sri Lanka or Togo or Canada or Chile, and so long as you believe these ideas, you're already an American. Maybe you don't even need to be here already. And that we should be open to the whole world and that America doesn't really have any kind of cultural coherence. And that if you challenge any of this, you must be a white supremacist, you must be a racist. And I'll say two things in responses. Obviously, we have been open to immigration for, let's say, large part of our history. I will also say that, you know, we've had some pretty impressive success in assimilating immigrants. I think, you know, one way to tell the story of the Ellis island wave. The people who came from about 1880 to 1920 was these Italians, these Jews, these Poles. Today they're Americans. They're all intermarried. No one speaks Italian in America. No one speaks Yiddish anymore. They became American. That being said, since 1965, when we opened up the floodgates of immigration, we have had the largest wave of migration in recorded human history. And I think we need a pause to digest, to assimilate and to make them into Americans. And that it's too much, too quickly. And it's compounded by two facts. One is today, when you leave the home country, you still stay in touch with it because of WhatsApp, cheap air travel, the Internet. And second, we don't have the same self confidence we once did as a country. There was a time when people came to America and we demanded that they assimilate. Today because of multiculturalism, white guilt, the 60s, you name it, we as Americans don't have that self confidence. And so the combination of the size of the immigration wave, the provenance, multiculturalism I think, is too much. And again, if you push back against this, you get called a racist or you get these idiotic stories that Thomas Jefferson is the equivalent to someone who crosses the border illegally from El Salvador.
- [14:10]
Interviewer 2
Well, David, I'm curious about your process of becoming a citizen. I know it's very common for those on the right, like myself, to say, we want people to do it the right way. We want people to do it like legally. I then will hear people say that the process is very costly, time consuming, cumbersome, broken. Immigration broken. From your perspective, what was it like to go through the process? And I know you naturally assimilated just based on who you are, but is there assimilation? Is that taught as part of the legal immigration process?
- [14:44]
Dr. David Azerrad
No. I got to tell you, I found it quite a depressing. It was, you know, the paperwork was not that hard. There's lawyers, it doesn't cost a fortune. What I found so depressing was the citizenship exam. It was 10 multiple choice questions. You need to get six out of 10. Right. You're gonna not believe me, but. Or laugh if you want. The first one was name the ocean to the east of the United States of America. What? That's the caliber of questions then you get.
- [15:15]
Host
Well, to be fair, I don't know if a high school graduate out of Baltimore schools would be able to answer that.
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Dr. David Azerrad
I just, you know. You know what, I had the same thought too. But then that's, that's an argument for shoring up our education system.
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Host
Different argument.
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Dr. David Azerrad
Correct?
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Host
Yes.
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Dr. David Azerrad
Wow. And then you get an English language test where she gives me an iPad and there's a sentence written says the White House is in Washington D.C. and I had to read that and then I had to write down a sentence like, I don't know, the equivalent of what a seven year old might learn. Maybe not in Baltimore public school, let's say maybe Baltimore private schools. And that was it. I mean, there was no substantive questions about anything hard.
- [15:57]
Host
I mean, if anything, you want to make it. You want to make it more challenging to become a citizen.
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Dr. David Azerrad
Yeah, because I want to. You know, in the same way that, look, we deplore the fact that native born Americans don't know their own history, don't understand their own government. Right. We want to make school more rigorous.
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Host
Yeah.
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Dr. David Azerrad
Well, then I want to do the same thing for immigrants. Not because I hate them, I'm an immigrant, but because I want them to know this country.
- [16:22]
Host
Yeah. Have some greatness, have some bias. Yes.
- [16:25]
Dr. David Azerrad
Yeah. The, the test is just, it's just way too easy. It's a joke. I would also add, look, the fact that we don't require people to give up their foreign citizenship, that's also a joke. America should have demanded you want your American citizenship. We demand that you rescind your Canadian citizenship and bring us the proof from the Canadian embassy. They don't do that. Listen, I think that's not serious.
- [16:52]
Host
Most naturalized American citizens, like Dr. David Azeroth will repeat exactly what you're hearing right now. They love this country and they are the ones that are angriest about our current flux of illegal immigrants who are not doing it the right way. And I think one thing we've definitely learned here, David, is that your students are going to get much harder tests in your classes at Hillsdale College's Van Andel Graduate School of Government than you got on your way in. Congratulations. Thanks for joining us. I'm glad you're a citizen and I'm glad that you're finally on the winning side of some hockey matches here between our two countries.
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Dr. David Azerrad
Indeed.
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Host
It never gets old.
- [17:34]
Dr. David Azerrad
Thank you for having me.
- [17:35]
Host
Thanks, David.
- [17:36]
Narrator
Thanks for listening to Hillsdale on the Hill, presented by Hillsdale College. To learn more about the Van Andel Graduate School of Government and Hillsdale's work in our nation's capital, visit D.C. hillsdale Edu. That's D.C. hillsdale Edu.