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Will we learn from an obsolete past how to face an uncertain future?

During the second half of the 20th century, my native country, Argentina, experienced a series of economic and social challenges that lead to devaluation of the national currency to avoid printing bills with a ridiculous number of zeros.

In fact, so many zeros were taking out of the currency that today’s Argentinean one peso bill equals one-billionth of the value of the Argentinean peso in the 1950’s. In other words, the peso “lost” 12 zeros, that is, you need one billion to today’s pesos to buy what you were able to buy with just one peso several decades ago.

Because of that situation, successive administrations implemented several demagogic and populist measures. At the same time, people developed and honed their survival instincts, creating original ways to survive and to keep some dignity and appearance of normality in the middle of such a crisis.

Many of those memories have been dormant and almost forgotten in some dark corner of my brain, but now they came back to me, leading to an unavoidable comparison between that economic crisis with the current economic crisis in the United States. There are, of course, plenty of significant between these two crises, but they also have two things in common: a populist government and creativity among the common people.

Regarding the first element, I think we are seeing signs of the United States becoming a Third World country, in the sense of proposing huge social programs (needed, of course, but being paid with inflation and with a trillion-dollar deficit);  experiencing a growing flexibility and porosity among the branches of government; and facing the reduction of individual rights.

Many Latin American immigrants are used to live in similar circumstances and they also know the consequences of socialism and loss of freedom.

We know how to face those challenges, but the truth is many of us have already forgotten how to do it, both due to the urgencies of the life in this country and because we became accustomed to its culture and lifestyle.

But now, when unemployment is an issue, when competitors are fiercer, and when anti-immigrant sentiments are openly expressed, many immigrants, including myself, are remembering those episodes from the past and reactivating their survival skills.

Images of hyper-inflation, empty supermarket shells, long lines at gas stations, hospitals without supplies, marches on the streets, social and political instability, and even riots, are being seen now in the minds of many immigrants who lived those experiences in their countries and who fervently pray for those situations not to be repeated here.

But can we use that past to decide about our current behavior? Can we learn some from a past that is now socially, culturally, and technologically obsolete to face an uncertain future?

Yes, we can, because after all if there is something immigrants know how to do is how to be creative to survive and to build a better future even and in spite of big challenges. We just need to remind ourselves we know it.

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