Bob Dylan and Immigration

Bob Dylan | via The Guardian

Days ago, Bob Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

When you think Dylan and immigration, it’d be understandable if your mind jumped right to his song “I Pity the Poor Immigrant.” There is something interesting about the first lines of that song: “I pity the poor immigrant / Who wishes he would’ve stayed home.” But the next lines suggest that Dylan isn’t really thinking about immigrants in the immprof sense: “Who uses all his power to do evil / But in the end is always left so alone.” (Although Trump might get behind that reading). I tend to agree with commentators who see the song as being about “if only” people who are never satisfied rather than migrants. 

The line that I think should resonate with immprofs comes from a different tune altogether: Absolutely Sweet Marie. Near the very end of that song, Dylan sings:

But to live outside the law, you must be honest

That line reminds me of a conversation I had with a federal prosecutor. He told me that it seems unbearably hard to be undocumented in the United States: Since undocumented individuals live outside the law, they can never afford to break any other law. They cannot jaywalk or speed or get into a fight. For any interaction with law enforcement has the potential to lead to discovery of a life outside the law.

It’s a lyric that just might kickstart some great conversation about undocumented migrants.

Of course, I cannot talk about music without at least providing you a few links.

Here’s the Joan Baez version of I Pity the Immigrant:

And here’s Absolutely Sweet Marie:

-KitJ