Southern Cross Review Interview with “Yanqui
Mike”
Photo: David Fern�ndez
Yanqui Mike Skowronek (second from left) is the Chairman of Democrats Abroad Argentina.
SCR: Thank you for coming, Yanq… Should I call you Yanqui Mike or just Mike?
YMS: You can call me Mike... but Yanqui Mike is my chosen moniker and is how I am known to most people in Argentina because of my internet presence www.yanquimike.com.ar
SCR: I assume that’s not the name you were baptized with…if you were baptized…Did you name yourself Yanqui Mike or did someone else pin it on you?
YMS: I pinned it on myself. I started to wonder how I should refer to my nationality after I started to travel to Mexico and Cuba. One day in La Habana, a group of would-be tourist guides tried to guess my nationality. Since I was still trying to think of a good term for people from the USA (better than the generic "American"), I decided to call myself a Chicagoan... like many Latin Americans call themselves after the cities from which they come. That caused some confusion among the tour-guides. "Chicagoan, Chicagoan... OH! You're a...." Then the assortment of appellations came forth: Estadounidense, Norteamericano, and ...yes ...most commonly, Americano. Yep, Americano. Exactly the term that for which we yanquis are critized for using. Such is cultural imperialism, I suppose. But let's be fair to people from the USA; we call ourselves Americans... because that's what the British called us from the earliest colonial days. If the Spanish had decided to call Argentinos "Americanos" (it's probably only by accident that they didn't!), would it be fair to criticize Argentines for calling themselves Americans?
Anyway, our former overlords may have called us Americans but they also referred to us by a pejorative term: Yankee. As we began to defeat their colonialism, we also began to adopt the insult as our own name for ourselves. That name, steeped in irony as it is, is the only original name we have for ourselves... although its origin and usage inside the US is complicated and not universal. On my website, I quote e.e. cummings, in Castellano and without attribution, as to its origin and usage. The irony suits me and my life as an immigrant to Argentina.
SCR: Yes, I've noticed resentment in Latin America because U.S.ers call ourselves "Americanos". Aside from your reasons, I think another one is that it's impossible to say United States-ers in English, as one can say "Estadounidenses" in Spanish – or Argentino, Mejicano, Venezolano, etc.� The Buenos Aires Herald has been using “U.S. Americans” for some time. Quite a mouthful. But you may have found the solution: Yanqui.
YMS:� Why not yanqui?� It’s pejorative… and it always has been …but that’s never stopped us before!�� Part of the irony, as well, is in my recognition of the harm my country has done as well as the good.� I try to remind my countrymen that, especially in Latin America, we have done much to keep this region from becoming an equal to North America.� We never tire from telling the world all the good the US has done …and the press never seems to tire of reporting it to the world.� However, if I want to be taken seriously in the realm of political discourse in Latin America, I can’t allow myself to be seen as an American that denies or knows nothing of the history of both sides of my country’s effect on Argentina and elsewhere.
SCR: I read the article about DAA in Viva, the Clarin supplement. That was quite a kick up P.R.-wise for you. In it the author describes you as a “tipo simp�tico”. Do you consider yourself a nice guy, or did you charm the pants off the female author?
YMS: HA! I truly AM a nice guy! I'm from Chicago! The Capital of the Midwest of the US, a sector known for the most unusually, sometimes ridiculously friendly, people in the United States. Porte�os [natives of Buenos Aires] are much more like Newyorkers: very suspicious and closed to strangers...or at least inquiries from people they don't know. Porte�os and NewYorkers are shocked at the openness and guilelessness of the residents of the metropolis of Chicago (a city very close to being the size of Buenos Aires.) For example, the following story has been recounted to me, absolutely independently, by mulitple Porte�os and Neoyorquinos: "Hey Mike, the weirdest thing just happened to me today in Chicago! I was walking down the street... minding my own business... when another person was coming down the sidewalk toward me. As we drew closer and closer... and just as we were passing each other..." At that point, I have to stop the storyteller by saying, "please let me guess what happened." The storyteller then allows me. To which I respond, “The person passing you said 'Hi! How are you?'" The porte�o or neoyorquino then says, "YEAH! How did you guess???" No porte�o or neoyorquino is prepared for that sort of "irrational" friendliness…
SCR: Back in New York we admiringly referred to Chicago as gangland. But what did we know?
YMS: In Cuba, and here to some extent, it was either “RAT A TAT TAT TAT!� Al Capone!” or “Michael Jordan! Chicago Boools!”� It was very generational.� You’re dating yourself, I’m afraid.
SCR: Not for the first time. Glad to learn that Chicago has reformed and the word is now out.
YMS:� Funny you should say that!� Our old alderman, Paddy Bauler is famous for his quote “Chicago ain’t ready for reform!”
But to answer your question more specifically, Marina Aizen of Clar�n needed no charming. She is one of those rare interviewers that understands your cause instinctively. However, I will say that she definitely had her own opinions. Her characterization of the Democrats/Republicans as being something quite Coke/Pepsi, even in light of what the United States has done to the world and itself after the disputed election of G.W. Bush, should be proof enough that the article came from her... not from my charm!
SCR: Could you tell us the objectives of DAA?
YMS: Our objective is members. Not just any members, mind you, but members who subscribe to the principles of the US Democratic Party. The principles of the Democratic Party have, on occasion here in Argentina, been compared to the principles of the Peronist [Justicialista] Party. I think the comparison comes from the fact that both parties in both nations encompass a sometimes unfathomably broad political spectrum of people. It is impossible to be brief about the principles of either party.
SCR: Per�n has been called a fascist and more comparable to Mussolini and Franco than with any historical Democratic Party leader. Some could therefore call the comparison insulting to the Democratic Party.
YMS: Per�n continues to confound students of fascism.� He fits part of the description… but not all.� And while he found much to his admiration while stationed as an attach� in Fascist Italy and certainly brought a corporatist attitude back home… he not only tolerated labor unionism but nurtured it throughout his career … a legacy that is palpable even today in the differences between Argentina and Chile, for example.
SCR: Okay, we’ll chalk that up to yanqui naivet� and carry on.
YMS: I hope you brought lots of chalk.
YMS: However, I must be brief on most of the occasions in which I am asked to describe my party's principles. When forced to keep it down to a few words, I always quote from our by-laws: What we hope for our nation, we hope for all the world's people: individual freedom in the framework of a just society, political freedom in the framework of meaningful participation by all citizens. Bound by the United States Constitution, aware that a party must be responsive to be worthy of responsibility, we pledge ourselves to open, honest endeavor and to the conduct of public affairs in a manner worthy of a society of free people. I could go into detail about how that differentiates us from the Republican Party and its conduct over the past 6 years... but, usually, it isn't necessary.
SCR: How much impact could all this have on the United States elections?
YMS: With enough members that subscribe to such principles, you can move mountains! The particular elections that we face in November need every possible voter to move the policy of the United States away from illegal war, the destruction of our own economy and the world's de facto reserve currency, and back toward what many of the world's emerging democracies have seen as "the city on the hill": a shining example of the kind of goodness that can be demonstrated when the will of a great people is represented by its government and not thwarted by greedy, immoral interests.� The people of this planet easily relate to the difficulty in maintaining that.
Throughout the history of the US, we have very often not deserved that level of praise. Nevertheless, we yanquis have regularly demonstrated that we are capable of not only displaying such virtue but maintaining it over long periods of time and at much personal expense. It depends on the type of politicians that represent us and the kind of thinking that influences our emerging generations of citizens. Most of our citizens today have been either born after or have come-of-age during a belligerent phase of our history that coincided with a tremendous industrial downturn in our economy and the exalted US position in the post-WW II world.� Many, if not most of our leaders since then have exhorted our people to use the might of our empire for our own personal gain in light of those losses.
In the last 30 years, almost all of our radicalism has come from the right wing of the political spectrum instead of the radicalism that sought to eliminate fascism from the world body-politic like a polio among us. It is my hope that our Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton will unite the yanquis that still remember the US of the that time and before and our Democratic candidates like Barack Obama will inspire those that can remember nothing but the demise of those times to move the country of my birth toward being the republic that was begun in 1789 and not the empire that our Republican President Eisenhower warned us against in his farewell speech in 1961. Do we contradict ourselves? Go ask Walt Whitman.
SCR: Eisenhower warned of the “military-industrial complex” taking too much power. He was right then and the warning seems even more relevant today. Walt Whitman, however, seems a bit “dated” as a counterweight. How did you think the Democrats of today could hope to reverse this trend – even if they wanted to?
YMS:� De Toqueville, Whitman, William Jennings Bryan all still have much to inform us and to contribute to the debate, to my mind.� Especially because the next president, whoever it is, will preside over such a dramatic change in almost every aspect of US life and policy that some of the reverse may be forced upon him or her. If I’m correct about the climate they may inherit, other changes, of their own volition, will be necessary as well.
SCR: How many United States citizens of voting age live in Argentina? You’re the only one I’ve met in twenty years.
YMS: I don't know and I'm not sure that anyone does. But the US Embassy here says that there are 20,000 US citizens residing in Argentina.
�
SCR: How many are Democrats…or at least anti-Republicans?
YMS: I have never met a self-described Republican in Argentina in my almost 5 years as a full-time resident. Argentinos describe to me a phenomenon regarding their former President Menem that I find amusingly similar to our former President Nixon. After landslide elections, it is virtually impossible to find anyone that will admit to voting for either man. I suspect we already see something similar with George the Second.
SCR: Of the two Democratic candidates still running for the nomination, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which do you favor?
YMS: I'm often asked that and I thank God that I supported John Edwards until he nobly left the race before Super Tuesday! "Going on the record" can be useful sometimes! But all along the campaign trail this time
Democrats have been blessed with tremendous candidates that evince passion in the electorate. For us, this electoral season has been like someone entering a restaurant in which everything on the menu makes us salivate... unlike our Republican counterparts who have found nothing to excite them and have, in the end, selected something from a meager bill of fare that, moments ago, they passed over as unappetizing.
SCR: I can understand why you, as Chairman, feel that you must remain neutral, so I was interested in how you would sidestep the question. Well done.
YMS: I think you can tell by now that if I held an opinion that one of our candidates was superior to the other my conscience wouldn’t allow me to keep that opinion from you!� In all truthfulness, I don’t at all see very much of a substantive, issues-based difference between Obama and Clinton.� They are both very much a product of late 20th century Democratic thought and opinion.� In terms of style, however -� Two different animals.� And the press being what it is today, personal style trumps all.� That is why everyone’s attention is so focused on their supposed differences.
SCR: What do you have to say about Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright, his long-time pastor, whose supposedly anti-American sermons have caused such brouhaha?
YMS: Obama’s response stands as the best words on the subject that I’ve read …not to mention some of the most eloquent statements on the subject of race ever spoken by a US politician.� I wouldn’t presume to add anything to his remarks on the subject and I recommend them to anyone interested in the Rev. Wright brouhaha.
SCR: In the Clarin article you are quoted as saying that you’re looking for a representative in the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands, because “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” Does this mean that you support Argentina’s claim to the Malvinas, despite the U.K. being the United States’ most loyal ally?
YMS: No, not at all. My responsibility, as Chairman of the Democratic Party in Argentina, is to represent all Democrats within Argentina's national borders. That I personally agree that Argentine claims to the South Atlantic islands and a portion of Antarctica make much more sense than those of the British, French, Norwegian, or even Nazi German ones is beside the point. However, I am fascinated by the signed treaties broken by the UK regarding Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas and of the generally untold involvement of the US in forced removal of native-born Argentines from the islands as very interesting.
SCR: When I first met you and your cabinet it was at an outdoor restaurant table on Easter Sunday in touristy, teeming San Telmo (Buenos Aires) across from Plaza Dorrego, the table was covered with dead soldiers (empty beer glasses). This must have been an exception, for the American Club should welcome your initiative. Do you also meet there? Or do you have your own offices?
YMS: Our Treasurer and I have met at the American Club and have engaged them in a dialogue as to our showing our flag there. They have, unfortunately, described data-processing issues that have prevented them from formalizing anything as of yet.
SCR: Hmmm. They could be closet Republican sympathizers, imho.
YMS: Could be.� It also could be that they’re just stuck in the past with a bad machine. THEIR COMPUTER, I MEAN!
SCR: A propos dead soldiers, to what extent has the war in Iraq impelled your desire to organize expatriate Americans in Argentina?
YMS: I cannot point to the more than four thousand US dead in Iraq more than to the damage to the US Constitution that those men and women swore to die to defend as reason to organize expat-yanquis. Nor can I point to their deaths more than to the destruction of a hope for a middle-class way of life that those soldiers aspired to by volunteering for military service... as I did myself at a young age in a similarly depressed United States... as good reason for patriots to gather under the "big-tent" of today's Democratic Party. Their service, that of the living and those that made the ultimate sacrifice to a liberty both real and imagined, must be honored if we are to hold our heads high.
SCR: How do you explain the fact that George W. Bush was actually elected president twice. This is very hard for the rest of the world to understand or digest.
YMS: George W. Bush was appointed President of the United States by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2001. As for 2004... never underestimate the power of the incumbency and manufactured fear. Not too many years ago, our leaders counseled us that we had "nothing to fear but fear itself." Those leaders were Democrats.
SCR: (Specifically FDR) In the instances of Bush’s election, in the first over half and in the second almost half of the electorate voted for him. To me this indicates a lack of knowledge and discernment. Is there any reason to believe that 2008 will be different when the Republican candidate (McCain) is using the same tactics?
YMS: I don’t mean to be argumentative, but Democrat Vice-President Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000.� If that helps to explain to both US citizens and the rest of the world that we’re “not half-bad”, so be it.� The 2004 election, as well, had its own discrepancies with the Republican suppression of urban voters in Ohio, a traditionally Republican state that trends more Democrat every year.
Looking toward 2008, the lack of knowledge and discernment, as you put it, among the US electorate is decreasing in my opinion based on the 2006 Republican loss of both the Senate and the House of Representatives …if nothing more.� We are composed, unfortunately, of a citizenry that is woefully under-informed when it is not misinformed.� The world probably expected the average Roman to be well-informed about the state of his empire, too.� The world was probably as disappointed then as now.� Our success isolates us as much as our continental expanse.� On the other hand, what the average Argentine DOESN’T know about economics … probably isn’t worth knowing!� Necessity is the mother of much, much more than just invention.
The US public today seems to be realizing how their opinions have been skillfully managed for the last decade, too, I think.�
Even among some of the youngest US voters, the legacy of a popular president being impeached is fresh in their memory, the 2001 Supreme Court decision that appointed a US president for the first time in our history, the abuse of world-wide support for us in the wake of our September 11th… I could go on and on.� In fact, I think I will!� The seriously unlawful invasion of a country that never threatened us nor harbored our enemies, the illegal surveillance of our own citizens, the surrendering of our liberties in airports and at every electronic transaction, the collapse of our vaunted economy, the deliberate destruction of our currency in the hope of covering-up crony-capitalism …just to name a few of the everyday facts of life for US citizens …may be cutting through the fog that has kept ordinary US citizens from voting in their own interests in greater numbers. Even with all of that, it won’t be easy.� We are told that the next presidential campaign will be between John McCain and the Democratic candidate.� What we cannot possibly be told is that it will really be a contest between our eventual candidate and the established press.� The emerging web-based media …and its effect on the consolidated print and broadcast firms …are helping immensely to inform voters and causing them to think more critically.
SCR: However, right now the Clinton campaign is complaining about the press having fallen in love with Barack Obama; Fox News agrees, although they call it the “liberal” press, meaning everyone except them. Don’t you think that this love affair will carry over to the general election if Obama is nominated?
YMS:� The Clinton campaign is justifiably disappointed in their performance to date.� Obama has not received the close scrutiny that Hillary Clinton has� …but there probably isn’t another person on earth that has been put under the microscope as she has been for more than a decade now.� As for a “love affair” with Obama, well, I can only say that the absence of hate does not equal love.� In the general election, the gloves will come off for the Democratic candidate.
SCR: Who will win the 2008 baseball World Series – the Chicago Cubs or the New York Mets? And how much are you willing to bet?
YMS: If my Cubbies don’t win, I’ll kiss yer ass in the middle of State and Madison Streets… and pay you $5 for every pedestrian that doesn’t stop to watch!
SCR: How about here in Plaza Dorrego instead, which I can at least find.
YMS: Ahhh… you're just looking for the kiss!� Nobody in Dorrego would even notice!
SCR: Thanks Yanqui Mike, for submitting to this interrogation. We hope to see you again after the nomination, when you can reveal who your choice was all along. At the latest in Plaza Dorrego in October.
YMS:� Always good to talk with Southern Cross Review.� It’s been a pleasure, don’t stop with your good works!
