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What Will Be the Public Health Costs of I.C.E.?

Summary: (1) Previous research shows that an immigration raid in Iowa in 2008 was associated with lower birth weight. (2) This was true of infants born to both foreign-born and US-born Latina women, suggesting this association centered around fear of being racially profiled, not merely immigration status. (3) Low birth weight is correlated with a range of health issues, including chronic diseases in middle age. (4) The scale of immigration raids today is much larger than 2008, affecting a wider segment of the population, increasing collateral damage among citizens. (5) One survey found that roughly 1 in 4 U.S. adults worry about deportation, with higher rates among immigrants and US born, second-generation citizens. This constitutes tens of millions of Americans, including an unspecified number of women of reproductive age. (6) In addition to human rights abuses, harsh deportation policies will likely lead to prenatal stress, impaired early development, and extensive long-term costs to public health.

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From fairimmigration.org

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“And you can see, you can hear, you could feel the fear, the intimidation. You could feel the terror.”

– Los Angeles resident Elizabeth Castillo, referring to local ICE raids (source)

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In 2017, Nicole Novak and colleagues looked at the effects of a major government raid against suspected undocumented, primarily Hispanic, migrant workers in Postville Iowa (Novak et al 2017). In May of 2008, nine hundred ICE agents, along with a Black Hawk helicopter, raided a meat-processing plant in Postville, resulting in the arrests of nearly 400 workers. After a five-month prison sentence, 297 people were eventually deported. However, even those who were not deported (or even arrested) were affected.

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Class Exercise: How Justifiable Is Violence?

If you ever get close to a human
And human behavior
Be ready, be ready to get confused
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They’re terribly, terribly, terribly moody
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And there is no map
And a compass wouldn’t help at all
(Bjork, Human Behaviour , 1993)

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This semester I tried something new in my undergraduate class on anthropology and war. Briefly, the class has two parts: in the first half of the semester we explore cooperation, conflict, and war from an anthropological perspective. In the second half, we look at various ways that wars affect health and become embodied, or get “under the skin.”

When writing the syllabus back in early January, I thought about delving deeper into what’s going on in people’s minds when they feel violence is warranted, a topic I’ve written about before:

determining when violence (lethal and non-lethal) is morally justifiable can be a gray zone, with people positioning themselves on a continuum between completely nonviolent “doves” to hyper-aggressive “hawks.” While many people hold nonviolence as an ideal; living up to that ideal perfectly has proven difficult to almost impossible. The question is where people draw their line.  

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For the class exercise, I gave students a survey. On a scale of 0 to 100, I asked them to rate how justifiable it would be to use violence under 28 different scenarios. For a bit more background, I picked some scenarios that were hypothetical (ex. Gandhi’s famous example of using violence to “dispatch” a man in the act of committing mass murder with a sword), while others were based on real-world events. I did not tell students which scenarios were hypothetical or not ahead of time, but did so after compiling results, which they then discussed in groups. A few scenarios involved variations on a theme to find where people drew their lines. Some scenarios were about the behavior of other people, while others were about how students themselves might respond. And some involved lethal violence, others sub-lethal, and still others pertained to threats of violence (therefore, the numeric results aren’t all directly comparable).

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An Ode to Canada, from an American

Dear Canada,

As an American, I would like to express how much we love you. The recent tensions between Canada and the U.S., needlessly sparked by Donald Trump’s insults toward Canadian sovereignty, reminded me how grateful my family is for you. Like many Americans, we have relatives in Canada; in fact, my grandmother emigrated to the U.S. from Nova Scotia decades ago. Without you, I wouldn’t exist.

source

Trump’s attempt to bully a long-time ally also reminded me that it has been said that he has few true friends, and therefore does not know how to be one. Instead, he prefers sycophants and others who glean scraps in his wake, but who are then loudly discarded once no longer useful to him. The classic example of this would be his own former Vice President, Mike Pence, but he is far from the only one.

This has been described as Trump viewing relationships as utilitarian or “transactional,” but others have argued that this is inaccurate. Rather, Trump could be more rightfully be called anti-transactional, since agreements entail a set of mutual promises, which Trump may or may not keep. Instead, the argument goes, it is likely that he views every interaction as a chance to gain more leverage.

A problem, understood by most people equipped with a basic range of emotions, is that in long-term relationships, insulting and bullying partners can breed resentment and defray cooperation. Advantages gained in the short-term may come with other costs down the road. For example, in the future, one could imagine an ally who has been insulted being less than eager to volunteer to send firefighters and equipment to a friend in need. However, Trump knows he won’t be around forever, and long-term relationships and consequences likely take a back seat to what can immediately benefit himself politically. As he allegedly said about the US debt reaching a critical mass in the future: “Yeah, but I won’t be here.” 

Canada has treated us well for a long time. My family has appreciated its people, cities, history, and breathtaking natural beauty for years, including Montreal, Banff, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, Nova Scotia (of course), New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. It’s actually kind of ridiculous how often we’ve traveled there, but we love it. We fondly remember all the tiny pleasant interactions, the many people who gave us directions, and especially the woman in a small town who kindly re-opened her restaurant after hours to feed our traveling family when everything else nearby had closed. As she said, “We don’t let people go hungry around here.”

That is how friends should treat each other, and we are grateful to Canadians for their hospitality and for giving our family so many memories. We look forward to going back many more times, long after what’s his face is gone.

Top of Olympic Stadium
Biodome/ Olympic Stadium, Montreal
Niagara Falls
Rogers Centre, Toronto (you’ll always be Skydome to me)
Dunelands, PEI
PEI
PEI
Canada Day, Pictou County NS
Bay of Fundy
Hopewell Rocks NB
Peggy’s Cove NS
Peggy’s Cove NS
Peggy’s Cove NS
Peggy’s Cove NS
Halifax
Ottawa
Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau QC
Calgary Tower
Peace Bridge, Calgary
Jasper Icefield
Glacier Skywalk
Horse Thief Canyon
Red Deer River
guess where?
Toronto ROM
ROM
1000 Islands Tower
L’Anse Aux Meadows, NL
Burnt Cape Eco Reserve
Fossils at Pointe Riche
Phillip’s Garden
Newfoundland Ferry
The Tablelands, NL

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USAID, Civil Wars in Laos (& Elon Musk)

Last week, Elon Musk wrote that “USAID is/was a radical-left political psy op,” as a partial explanation for his desire to close the organization. I am not an expert on the entire history of USAID (United States Agency for International Development), but I do know a little something about one particular episode in its past that contradicts Musk’s claim.

Long ago, I wrote my dissertation about some of the long-term health impacts of the civil wars in Laos from the 1950s-70s. That required interviewing and assessing Laotian refugees. It also meant delving into different subjects, including the biology of what was then called the “fetal origins hypothesis,” today commonly known as the DOHaD idea. It also meant plunging into the history of the wars and how the civilian population fared. I found the history fascinating, involving a revolving door of royalists, communists, and “neutralists,” featuring Laotians themselves, but against a backdrop of French colonialism, Japanese occupation, and later intervention by Vietnam, Thailand, and of course the United States.

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Resilience

“When there is a storm, and you stand in front of a tree, if you look at its branches, you swear it will fall. But if you watch the trunk, you will see its stability.”

—Alejandro G. Inarritu, The Revenant

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Trump: 21st Century Demagogue

Demagogue /n./ ˈdem’ə gäg’ : a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.

“Blessed are the ‘shithole countries,’ for they gave us the American Dream.” – Paul Hewson

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In the past month, much of the political discourse in the U.S. revolved around fearmongering by Donald Trump and his vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance against immigrants, specifically Haitian immigrants in Ohio. After Trump repeated baseless rumors about Haitians stealing (and eating) people’s cats and dogs in Springfield, that town was subjected to at least 33 bomb threats, including schools, government buildings, and local colleges, according to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (a Republican, if that matters to you).

While the bomb threats turned out to be empty, they were nonetheless highly disruptive, with hospitals put on lockdown, City Hall and schools evacuated, and universities forced to hold classes remotely. DeWine revealed that there was evidence that some of the threats originated overseas, likely in an attempt to create a bit of chaos in the U.S. Yet, other threats were local and not so empty. Haitians in Springfield have had property  vandalized and reported feeling anxious and afraid for their lives. Haitian-American media outlets have also been threatened. And even a white business owner in Springfield (a Republican who voted twice for Trump) has had his life and those of his family threatened after he defended his Haitian employees. The fallout for ordinary people has been very real, stemming largely from Trump’s and Vance’s incitement.

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(New Publication) Coming of Age in War: Conflict & Menarche

Together with my brilliant colleagues Delaney Glass (UToronto) and Meredith Reiches (UMass Boston), we recently published our article “Coming of age in war: Early life adversity, age at menarche, and mental health” in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

This was a special issue on forced migration and physiology, guest edited by Lee Gettler (Notre Dame) and Jelena Jankovic-Rankovic (University of South Carolina), and I think we probably compiled one of the most comprehensive reviews to date about armed conflict and menarche (first menstruation).

There are a couple of hypotheses about how child and adolescent bodies respond to early stressors: one is that bodies should mature quicker in times of uncertainty to increase one’s chances of reaching reproductive maturity. (The literature suggests that this does seem to happen under certain circumstances and types of stressors). The other is that maturation would be delayed, possibly due to energetic constraints.

We identified 36 samples from 29 studies in the literature that looked at armed conflict and menarche, with a range of methods and populations from around the globe. Here’s some of what we found…

Locations of samples on conflict and menarche we identified from the literature.

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War as an Extreme Environment: The Case of Gaza

In graduate school, my advisor Mike Little recommended I take a class outside of the Anthropology Department, since our class offerings were slim that semester. He suggested I go over to Biology and sign up for David Murrish’s class “The Biology of Extreme Environments,” which explored how different species adapted to their worlds. Dr. Murrish kindly accepted me. On the first day of class, before getting into any subject matter, he asked the students for examples of extreme environments.

People suggested some of the ones you’re probably thinking of—deserts because of their heat, polar regions, the deep oceans, etc. I recall one student suggested outer space. I raised my hand and asked, “What about war?” Dr. Murrish smiled and said with a chuckle, “You anthropologists… always looking at the social side of things!”

Of course, biological anthropologists recognize that there is a natural world to which species adapt, which existed long before humans ever evolved roughly 300,000 years ago (Hublin et al 2017). Not everything about human biology can be attributed solely to “the social side of things.” In Mike Little’s classes we learned about his research with Quechua people in highland Peru and Turkana pastoralists in northwestern Kenya, and they how they adapted biologically to stressors in their respective environments: hypoxia, cold, aridity, seasonal rainfall (Leslie and Little, 1999; Little et al., 2013). But Dr. Murrish’s question that day made me think about other types of extreme environments that we create for ourselves, and war certainly applies.

I didn’t get to explore war much further that semester, but the idea percolated. A couple of years later for my dissertation, I eventually explored how the Second Indochina War impacted the growth and body composition of Hmong refugees living in the US and French Guiana (Clarkin 2008). From there I thought about war as an environment in a general sense, including the various stressors they can create and the ways these things leave a mark on human biology and get “under the skin,” particularly among the very young who are still growing.

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Civil War Counter

After seeing a flurry of recent examples (early August 2024), I decided to start a running tally of people calling for, or alluding to, a coming civil war in the U.S.

I first wrote about this topic five years ago with the essay “Red States versus Blue States: Who Would Win a Civil War in the U.S?” Unfortunately, it is the most read thing on this site, by far. That isn’t because the essay is brilliant (really, I think I can do better). Instead, I think it’s because some Americans are anxious or even eager about the prospect of widespread political violence. The essay happens to show up in Internet search results, which brings people here.

The upshot of the essay was that we should reframe the question away from who would “win” a war. By deriving lessons from wars around the world, the one thing that we can be absolutely certain of is that a second civil war here would be devastating for everyone. Whatever resentments people feel – and we all have them – it is an understatement to say that war and political violence are not only unethical, but stupid and impractical, and something best avoided.

For that reason, it is highly irresponsible for politicians, authority figures, and celebrities to encourage the idea or throw it around recklessly. I think we need to confront the fact that people keep vocalizing this fantasy because there is an established pattern that dangerous speech and incitement like this can lead to actual violence. I’ll keep adding to the list as new examples arise. There will likely be more to follow. I may even go back in time to dig up older examples, though I know that will be an exhausting task.

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●June 15, 2024 Steve Bannon asked a conservative crowd “Are we at war?,” adding “Are you prepared to leave it all on the battlefield in 2024? It’s very simple: victory or death!”

●July 3, 2024 Referring to plans to overhaul the federal government, The Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said “we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

The co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, Heidi Beirich, said Roberts’ comments were “a bit terrifying but also elucidating.”

●July 22, 2024 At a political rally in Middletown Ohio, state Senator George Lang said civil war would be necessary if Donald Trump loses the election in November:

“I believe wholeheartedly Donald Trump and Butler County’s J.D. Vance are the last chance to save our country politically. I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved. It’s the greatest experiment in the history of mankind.”  

Lang later apologized.

●August 5, 2024 (Honorable mention, UK version) Self-proclaimed expert on everything, Elon Musk wrote on X/Twitter that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK, following widespread rightwing riots. Prime Minister Keir Starmer replied that there was “no justification” Musk’s comments.

●August 6, 2024 Actor Jon Voight stopped chewing on his pencil long enough to post a video on X/Twitter titled “Civil War”

“This is the war of our lifetime now. We the people are in trouble if this nation picks Kamala Harris. We must stop this crime that is happening. It’s a war crime that Obama’s directing and Kamala Harris will be the cackling hyena that just listens and repeats.”

He has not apologized.

Related post: Who Would You Like to Kill?

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“I suffer from everything!” (a boy in Gaza)

I recently saw the video below of a boy in Gaza describing how excruciating his life is, to the point that he wishes for death. I shake my head at how the world (particularly my country, the United States) allows this to continue. These people are beyond the breaking point, and it is a moral failure to allow innocent people to live exist under these conditions, for months on end.

(In case the video is taken down or lost to time, here is the given translation…)

“My only wish is that the Zionists leave us alone, and I get to live out my childhood! And that’s it!! Nothing else!


“I’m tired of everything! Everything! I’m wishing that I could just say ‘O Lord!’ and I die, and then come back to life again! Come to another life!”


I’m wishing that I could just die, I’ll die and be done with all this here! It’s what I want!
Because we’re tired of this! We’re tired! We’re tired! We’re being tortured!


We’re being tortured! By Allah, my uncle, we are being tortured! By Allah, we are being tortured! I haven’t lived my own childhood! We’re just children and we’re being tortured! We’re young (children) and we’re (always) filling (containers with) water (everyday) and I never used to even think about water, or anything else!


I suffer from everything! From everything from water, from everything, from food, from drink, from everything! We go through torture just to get anything! We’re being tortured!”