Now it’s the I-word

LITTLE ROCK — IT WAS a bright, hot day in August, and the clocks were striking thirteen . . . .

Winston (Bubba) Smith was reviewing the press clippings from around the country at his desk in deepest Arkansasia. Across the wire came something from Newsday. It must be important. Because it’s in Newsday. If a story is important, it’ll be in Newsday. And if it’s in Newsday, it’s important. The Party makes sure there are no loose ends in these matters.

The clip made Bubba feel ungood. Maybe even double plus ungood. It seems a group of immigrants had gathered to protest the use of the word “illegal” to describe illegal immigrants. Bubba was used to black white in debates, but this new new think was starting to confuse even him. And he was an old hand at interpretting doublespeak here in his branch of Minitrue.

The latest order from the Thought Police, or rather its subdivision the Word Police, now said “illegal immigrants” should be unphrased and changed to “undocumented immigrants” throughout official records. He shuddered at the work that might mean. There went the weekend.

Well, sure, thought Bubba, if somebody is here illegally, he probably doesn’t have his documents in order. That was his first mistake: thinking. He just had to remember: No more illegal immigrants, only undocumented ones. Simple. And yet Bubba didn’t belly feel it. What if the Undocumented Immigrant had a warranty for a refrigerator on his person? He’d have a document then. Could he still be called undocumented? Bubba tried to get his mind around the new term. He knew he could if he made the effort. He’d handled tough challenges before. He just had to suspend disbelief and shed a little more old think.

The protesters were telling this newspaper back East that they were against bad think. Also badsay. And an unphrase like “illegal immigrants” violated both. From now on, they would be just undocumented.

“By saying illegal, they’re assuming that we broke a criminal law,” said one of the Undocumented Immigrants, to wit, one Jackeline Saavedra, who was described as a law student. Which came as no surprise to Bubba.

Another protester said the word “illegal” criminalizes a whole community. Bubba consulted his good old Merriam-Webster dictionary of newspeak. Criminalize, it said, was “to convict wrong people,” and anybody doing that, it warned, would be subject to criminal penalities up to and including being declared an unperson. His attention was caught.

“It’s a racist word against our community,” said a man named Osman Canales. “So we’re just here to raise awareness.”

Bubba knew what Racist meant. Namely, whatever the Thought Police said it did. In that way, it was like Social Justice, which had replaced Justice circa 1968. He also knew the meaning of the phrase Raise Awareness. It meant Pay Attention. As in Achtung! His awareness was immediately raised. For the Party didn’t fool around.

Still, Bubba didn’t belly feel the word illegal was racist. He’d thought it was an adjective. And sometimes, among the proles, a noun. As in “an illegal.” But from now on “illegal” was to be considered a racial epithet not a description of legal, or illegal, status. He got it. He’d drop “illegal” down the memory hole first thing. Lest he be caught using it. Using it now would be crime think.

BUBBA remembered that there’s a division of Minitrue in New York City called the Applied Research Center, which had started a Drop The I-Word campaign not long ago. The thought occurred to Bubba (a dangerous habit, thinking) that soon there’d be an outlawed word for every letter in the alphabet. He wondered what the Z-word would be. He tried to stop thinking. No telling where it would lead, and he didn’t want it to lead him right to Room 101.

Newsday, it said here, had interviewed another protester. His name was Elias Llivicura. He said the word “illegal” makes him uncomfortable. He came here from Ecuador when he was a boy. And he came, uh, without documents. “We also have feelings, too,” he told the paper. “It makes me feel like I’m different from everybody else. It makes me feel, like, really bad inside.” Like the word Undocumented was starting to make Bubba feel. Buthe wasn’t going to let that bother him. What the Party wanted, he wanted. What it did, he would do. Or else.

People do get their feelings hurt when things are called by their right names, Bubba couldn’t help but think-but he caught himself just in time. It wouldn’t hurt to stop using the word illegal. Though he did wonder how the official records would refer to illegal activities in that case. Somebody smarter than Bubba would have to figure that one out. And he knew just who that would be. He relaxed. O cruel, needless understanding! Everything would soon be all right, the struggle would soon be finished. He loved Big Brother.