I just finished a run of my comic monologues in Canada, and I just had my August 15 show at the Edmonton Fringe.
A few weeks ago, when I came back to California for a few days, it was the moment of truth. Would I be hassled at the border? Would I be let back into the US?
I was in customs at the airport in Vancouver, and an officer, an Asian woman, asked me for my passport.
She saw I was born in the US and a beneficiary of birthright citizenship because of the 14th Amendment. It took all of two seconds.
“Thank you,” she said, handing me back my passport and my faith in the Constitution and Rule of Law.
And that was that.
I actually feared an encounter at the next stop, SFO, but once the plane landed, there was nothing left to do.
I asked the airline officials at the gate. “Yeah, we have a reciprocal agreement with Canada,” the official said. “You entered the US in Vancouver.”
I was overcome by a sense of relief.
Anyone traveling to a foreign country and back this summer has this fear. And it’s all because of the capricious way our laws are honored or dishonored.
Ask Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Deported wrongly to a Salvadoran prison by the US, which tried to cover up that fact. Trump’s Justice Department official, Emil Bove, the man behind the cover-up, has now been rewarded with a seat on the second-highest court in the land.
I’m trying to get Bove kicked out of the Emil club.
Recently at SFO, there was news of a Korean American held by ICE after returning from a wedding in South Korea.
You’ll recall it was Wong Kim Ark in 1898, a Chinese American from San Francisco, returning from China, and refused re-entry. But the law was on his side. He won. It was that case that reinforced the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship.
And now here we are, 154 years later, fearing that this law that has withstood the test of time will no longer protect our free travel.
This is the high anxiety of living in these Trump times.
It’s irrational because the nation’s leader is irrational and likely to go after people on a whim. And with Congress and SCOTUS beholden to him, there is nothing he can’t do to anyone in the US.
He’s redefining everything.
Trump has transformed the swamp into the Trump Crud – our cruel and unusual democracy.
It brings about this sense of fear that we never had to think about. Now we have to carry our proof of citizenship, our passport, at all times.
A lawyer friend of mine told me a week ago he had no problem re-entering America from Canada. But, as he put it, “That’s because I look Amer-i-KUHN.”
He’s white. Beyond suspicion, unlike those of us who aren’t white and possibly faking it?
That’s the state of our democracy today. It’s America on ICE.
It’s the reason we have to fight for it.
‘South Park’ is our savior Canada, where I’m doing my one-man show on how I deal with the current state of America, was a great experience. Especially Winnipeg, where the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) has Jim Agapito doing a nationwide show on Filipino Canadians. In Winnipeg, Filipinos are the main anchors on CBC radio, and Marjorie Dowhos hosted me on her noon program.
Filipino Canadians came to my fringe show, including Ryle Mutya, who saw the show, liked it enough to invite her parents, a set of Filipinos who come with unique names and nicknames.
Jezreel, the dad is “Boyet.” From Batangas. Mom is Delvie, who goes by “Day,” from Manila. Both are in their early 60s, and were a delight to meet.
What separated these Filipino Canadians from Filipino Americans I know?
Timing.
That’s it. Like comedy. It’s all about timing.
Most Winnipeg Filipinos (the Winnipinos, I call them, or the Fillipeggers, which do you prefer?) came to work in Canada’s garment industry. A few were nurses.
They were all so different compared to my dad, who came to America in the 1920s. Most Fil Canadians arrived in the 1980s and 2000s.
But they picked a place where the winters can get to -45 degrees F with wind chill.
Sounds cold enough to be anti-Filipino. But it’s not. Ninety-one thousand Filipinos are in Winnipeg, the most by percentage in Canada. The place is a magnet for Filipinos.
And they laughed at all my jokes.
One audience member asked me if I saw the new “South Park?” And at the time, I didn’t.
But it may be the milestone in the first year of this second term that allows people to speak about, as well as laugh at, the truth.
Time to make fun of Trump It was in 2018 when a New York Times op-ed written by a one-time satirist said that’s it, now was not the time for Trump jokes. That essay set the tone for a new era of earnestness in how to deal with Trump.
It’s been a failure.
”South Park” and its season 27 debut have turned it around with a satirical onslaught that cuts down Trump to size and will make you laugh out loud.
It’s that salaciously on target.
Now, why were Stephen Colbert and “South Park,” both part of the Paramount+ family, treated so differently?
”South Park” gets to display a nude AI image of Trump and show the Emperor really has no clothes.
Meanwhile, Colbert is canned as part of a $16 million deal that Paramount+ made to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump. It also greased the way for a merger between Paramount+ and Skydance.
The sacrifice of Colbert was that little something extra to show allegiance to Trump and get the merger done.
You can call it a payoff. Some may say it’s a bribe. Ethics is in the eye of the beholder.
Trump has none.
So, Colbert, who is real and was said to have cost Paramount+ money, gets dumped.
‘South Park” is a cartoon. And Paramount+ just paid $1.5 billion to its creators for rights to the show.
Too bad for Colbert. He may have been too human to protect.
Was “South Park” considered art, and therefore ok? I think that $1.5 billion investment had something to do with it, too. You protect the assets. Colbert was considered expendable.
Not good for Colbert, but he’ll be back, I trust. He’s kind and moral—and deserved better.
In the meantime, the “South Park” Trump takedown in season 27 will continue, and if that first episode is any indication, democracy and free speech have rediscovered their mojo.
People who fight autocrats know this is the key – ribald attacks, the more salacious the better, get their goats. Can you get more salacious than Trump in bed with Satan? Talk about dealing with the devil. This was classic satire and will encourage more.
The 2018 “no time for Trump humor” NY Times op-ed was wrong.
We have to laugh at this stuff now. “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone may have helped liberate us from the chaotic chains of Trump.
By laughing at Trump, we’ll overcome where we’re at and find our way back to the freedoms that make us love America.
You laugh at the truth, speak out about it, and take action.
That’s the effect of good satire. “South Park” is a milestone of freedom. The second episode of season 27 on Comedy Central is almost as good. It goes after ICE and HHS leader Kristi Noem, who gets exposed for being the dog-killing, Trump Cabinet official who thinks she’s a Spice Girl.
With Trump, there’s no shortage of material.
Take note. Satire and freedom of speech are making a comeback. “South Park” helps us deal with the sad truth of the current state of America. May the laughter wake us up to stop our slide into authoritarianism.
EMIL GUILLERMO is an award-winning journalist, news analyst, and comic stage performer. He has written a weekly “Amok” column on Asian American issues for more than 30 years. Find him on YouTube, Patreon, and Substack.
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