Patriotic US immigrants are a cliché – but they still bring a tear to the eye. I watched Undercover Boss US on Channel 4 last night. The format (invented here, as they usually are these days) is simple: a major executive from a big organization masquerades as a humble trainee whose training is being filmed for a documentary. This allows him or her to visit various parts of the operation and to meet employees without them knowing who he is.
At least two aspects of the format strike me as favouring the company and its personnel – first, the presence of the cameras means the workers aren’t going to goof off too much or slag off the company, and, second, I assume the firm ensures that only the most endearing, aspirational, conscientious workers to take part: if what we see is a genuine cross-section of the British and American work-forces, I will have to revise my opinion of human nature (supportive but skeptical).
Last night it was the turn of Joe DePinto, a tubby former military man who is now the President and CEO of 7-Eleven, the American convenience store network.
The last of his employees Joe got to work alongside was Igor, a night-shift delivery driver from Kazhakstan (“You seen movie Borat?” he asked, unresentfully). He was so enthusiastic, so unrelentingly upbeat, one unworthily suspected him of guzzling prozac off-camera. Cynically, I began an “Only in America.. best demmed country in world” routine after a few seconds.. Then the 7-Eleven CEO asked the driver how he managed to stay motivated, and Igor delivered the following thoughts in an accent that made one realize how accurate Sacha Baron-Cohen had been:
“I’m living American dream now… America is the best country in the world – you guys just do not really know how blessed you really are… I came here with no English, no knowledge of any culture, fifty bucks in my pocket - and I survived. That’s the story about America … I’m blessed, I’m really blessed. I’m so thankful for this country which allowed me to survive and be happy.”
Near the end of the programme, after Joe DePinto revealed his true Superhero identity – “Get outta Dodge!” was one reaction – Igor uttered a classic line: “Only in a movie! Only in a book! Only in America!”
Well, I felt a bit ashamed of having made fun of such an evidently good man, but forgave myself on the grounds that American immigrants so often voice similar sentiments, no matter how hard their new lives appear to us: Igor’s wife (they have two kids) works days, so they don’t see each other for five days each week, and I really doubt that either of their pay cheques is much above the minimum wage.
I can’t believe the same sentiments aren’t regularly uttered by immigrants to the UK – but we rarely get to hear them. Why is that?
Perhaps the British are embarrassed by expressions of unalloyed enthusiasm for a country whose merits have been rendered invisible to us through over-familiarity.
Maybe, because the British default mode is self-critical, immigrants rapidly learn to adopt the same downbeat attitude.
Or is it because the idea of an immigrant feeling grateful for being allowed to settle in what is undoubtedly the European country which extends by far the warmest welcome to foreigners doesn’t fit the preferred “narrative” of the left-wingers who control British television? After all, as we all know, immigrants to the UK are all oppressed, exploited victims who face nothing but hostility and suspicion from the deeply racist indigenous population. That’s why liberal-left gauleiters have decided to use the full force of the law to impose the creed of multiculturalism on the unenlightened masses. To them, Igor probably comes across either as an all-purpose Third World Uncle Tom sucking up to avoid being arrested and flown for a torture break at Guantanamo Bay , or as a dumb dupe, brainwashed into believing that the most powerful country in the world is, at heart, decent and welcoming, and that democracy and capitalism really do offer opportunities that no other systems can provide.
At the end of last night’s programme, we were informed that Igor had been sent on an all-expenses-paid vacation so he could spend some time with his wife – and that he’d been made a 7-Eleven franchisee. Now, that might not sound like much to us, but for a refugee from a Third World dump (sorry!) destroyed by communism, it must seem like very heaven. If Igor was happy before all this, he’s probably certifiable by now.
Only in America? Unfortunately, yes.
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