My ears are still ringing from last night’s Los Angeles rally on immigration… Ghetto birds hovered over head as I walked through the barren streets of Chinatown (barren that is, except for the motorcycle cops that lined the perimeter) to head to where the rally was taking place. Two things struck me as I entered the mass of people listening to the speakers at Olvera Street; the first is the overwhelming amount of red, white and blue flags I saw being waved. There was a Mexican flag here and there, but overwhelmingly it was brown fists holding American flags. The second was the air of festivity- the ladies were selling bacon wrapped death dogs by the rally route, the cotton candy man was walking around, and everyone was whooping and hollering. It was a celebration of the diversity that is America.
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South Asian Representin’ |
As I stood to the side, I saw every kind of ethnicity represented; Mexicans, Koreans, Filipinos. And then, I saw them. A group of the other brown immigrants, our brown immigrants marching down the street. South Asian Network, the premier organization serving the South Asian community of Southern California were the main organizers of this contingent of desis. On Sunday, they had organized a town hall meeting on the issue of immigration in ‘Little India’. About 300 people showed up with a diverse representation of age, class, nationalities, and races. The forum was broadcasted on a live feed on KPFK and everyone there was given a chance to speak on why this issue is important to them, leading to a dynamic far-ranging discussion. Last night at the Los Angeles rally, SAN was there marching the streets with a representation of South Asians Americans.
There’s always a thrill of excitement when marching in any rally, but there was the additional spark of walking with a group of people chanting in Bangla, Hindi, Urdu and Tamil in a sea of “Si se puede!” At one point, the two uncle-aged taxi workers started dancing around in circles in front of the Mexican-American teens drumming. No doubt it was great to walk in solidarity with every other immigrant out there, but to be able to chant “Inqilab Zindabad” finally made it feel like mine.
The immigrant issue is a South Asian issue, despite, as Abhi pointed out in the earlier post, the lack of framing in the media. We are after all, if not immigrants ourselves, the son or daughter of immigrants.
”All of what is happening around immigration reform in the country is not a Latino-originated movement at all,” said Deepa Iyer, executive director of the South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow, based in Silver Spring, Md. ”There are also Asian and African groups working together. From where I stand, I feel that our community is greatly invested in the issue.” [link]
I’ve been following some of the dialogue on the previous post and am still unsure of where I stand on some aspects of the issue. Unlike other rallies where there is a clear cut side to the debate (i.e. either for the war, or against the war), I’m sure there were a variety of perspectives on immigration amongst protesters last night as well. It’s pretty safe to say that as Americans, we support the ‘melting pot’ ideals, believe in “liberty and justice for all,” [Pledge of Allegiance] and that “all men are created equal” [Declaration of Independence]. As a voting rights activist, the ‘borders’ defined by who is allowed into the ‘space’ of citizenship has a direct affect on who I organize and how I organize them. In the history of America, the xenophobic immigration policies were played out in the medical examination of new immigrants for fear of diseases that new immigrants carried (based on a 1902 medical article), to a race based quota policy that lasted until 1965, to Asian Indians not having the right to be naturalized until 1946 and only then it was used as a tool to pressure the independence of India in 1947.[link] One of the issues that was brought up at the Town Hall meeting is how the bill approved by the House is focussed on ‘enforcement,’ of immigration rather then actual reform. I do believe in the sanctity and legality of the immigration policy and defined ‘borders’ but I’m not quite sure what is proposed is a fair policy at this juncture.
As I marched in the rally, my personal purpose was two-folds; to make sure that the South Asian immigrant voice was represented in the the national dialogue, as well as representing the South Asian immigrants that were unable to make it to the rally. Hopefully, by marching in our small group of South Asian Americans yesterday, we were able to achieve that. In the meantime, we still have a couple of weeks left to organize to make sure that the South Asian immigrants voice is heard in the debate before Senate reconvenes. I highly encourage you to pick up a protest sign and get involved.
am I missing something, or, is the photo showing no more than FIVE people protesting?
There’s more! It was like 20 actually, but I don’t own a camera so this is what I got from SAN… I promise to be a digitally better Sepia Mutiny Temporary Super Star just for you…!
There are any number of clear cut positions to take on this debate 🙂 Try this one, from the group that helped organize the LA march:
“We will settle for nothing less than full amnesty and dignity for the millions of undocumented workers presently in the U.S. We believe that increased enforcement is a step in the wrong direction and will only serve to facilitate more tragedies along the Mexican-U.S. border in terms of deaths and family separation.”
So basically, oppose anything that doesn’t meet these principles, including all the Senate bills and the House bill. Here’s what they propose to do instead of supporting any of the legislation:
“Therefore, the “March 25th Coalition against HR4437 in Los Angeles,” the organizers of the mega march of almost 2 million on March 25th, has called for an emergency videoconferenced meeting on April 8th between Los Angeles and any city that wishes to join the efforts toward “El Gran Paro Americano 2006.” The following meeting will take place in Chicago on April 22nd, we ask that all that wish to participate and be a part of a national effort on May 1st and beyond, to attend by finding facilities in your areas that can hold the meeting, technologically.
The points of unity are: No Work, No School, No Sales, and No Buying, and also to have rallies around symbols of economic trade in your areas (stock exchanges, anti-immigrant corporations, etc.).”
Taz:
Thanks for the great post, Taz! You should buy a digital camera and charge it to your SM corporate card!
I was talking to my co-worker about the immigration protest that happened yesterday and I was trying to tell him that while it is mainly the people from the South of the border that come to mind first, there are also South Asian immigrants face the same issue. To that, he went ahead to say that- well there just aren’t as many south asian illegal immigrants as there are illegal mexicans. So it got me thinking that is it because the number of illegal “brown” people, also is it our lack of representation in media that the general public doesn’t perceive the immigration issue more than just a Mexican-American issue?
I guess its easier to march for illegal immigrant rights when you have no stake in legal immigration. The Life Act screwed only the Legal Immigrants who had been in line already and the same thing will happen once these 11 Million Illegals are granted amnesty as well.
I would like to ask though, once the law to legalize is passed, what about the money required to actually process the illegals? What about the Billions of dollars needed for the USCIS in terms of expanding the infrastructure? And if the money is not there and the USCIS ends up in major gridlock, the only people who get screwed again are the legal immigrants who are stuck in the system for even more years to come.
Correction: India became independent in 1947. (Feel free to delete the comment)
hello my name is,
So, I’m an organizer that is going to policy school- and the reason why is kinda displayed in the site you linked. I don’t think a message that is all about “no on HR4437” is a good stance. It’s just no. Politicians need help, they need a policy to be presented to them. From what i found on the site these are the demands…
To me, as a “policy” these are pretty generic- What Senator doesn’t want any of those? Maybe it’s the aspiring politician within, but when I see issues like this arise, I think, “if I was in the committee how would I write the bill?” More specifically, in regards to this issue, I don’t like that they are increasing the beds in INS detention centers from 2,200 to 10,000 – It represents disciplined space, and increasing the idea ‘holding cells’ for immigrants. How can we avoid that? How about due process for people being held to reduce the time that people are being detained? But on the flip side there’s the issue that the overflow of immigration detainees are ending up in less than habitable conditions. The detention centers need to be habitable for all that come through. I think for reasons like this, I’m a lot more hazy on where I stand.
Payal,
From what I gathered- this isn’t just an illegal immigrant issue, it is an immigrants/human rights issue. The INS detentions that happened directly after 9/11 is totally correlated with what is going on in this debate- you know the detention of people that didn’t have their paperworks filled out properly, etc… I think it’s interesting how it is never brought up though. Anyways, I think with the media right now it is a catch 22- desis don’t feel like they are in the dialouge because they aren’t being educated by the media for it. classic case.
All else,
There’s a SM corporate card!?!?!? What the heck? Why didn’t no one tell me?
yo taz,
that’s a commendably honest comment you just wrote (#9). it’s remarkable how poorly the issues are being framed, including or especially by the self-styled progressive advocated. just saying no to everything and advancing rhetorical concepts like “path to citizenship” is not going to solve anything. as much as the current demonstrations are a remarkable sign of political maturity, or loss of fear, by recent immigrant communities (and we are talking about overwhelmingly latino groups here, although city by city other voices are prominent as well, depending on the local demographic patterns), there is no clear political program emerging.
one casualty here is cross-ethnic, intergenerational, classwise, and documented-undocumented solidarity. very hard to build these things when the causes can only be described in buzzwords or by rejecting other people’s ideas, noxious as those might be. the astonishingly unproductive conversation on the comment thread to abhi’s very thoughtful post is a case in point.
the more the issues are couched in nationality and citizenship terms, the less productive the discussions will be. at root we are talking here about labor first, and folks should keep their eyes on that prize. the problem here is that undocumented labor is serving as an available underclass for businesses (and individuals, like people who hire undocumented nannies and gardeners), and at the same time it is solving a labor shortage in the united states. so the question is, on what terms should labor supply and demand be regulated? right now, there is a licit labor market and an illicit labor market. does the u.s. want to integrate these two markets or not?
i have no doubt in my mind that the number one thing that undocumented workers want are just that: documents. that means labor documents, not citizenship documents. all labor should be subject to the same requirements (pay taxes) and in return get the same protections (minimum wage, decent working conditions). at root it’s as simple as that. folks don’t want to work hard and yet live in fear and not be able to do anything when their work hours are extended, their wages fall, they face undue occupational hazards, or the boss or a co-worker abuses or molests them.
legal work need not mean citizenship. two different questions. once there is a long-term legal immigrant labor force in place, questions such as family reunification, etc., come up. but there is no one way to solve thst problem, it’s a fair topic for debate. in my experience i’ve found that immigrants all over the world are very respectful, even deferential, to the laws of the host country. they recognize that they are subject to those laws in exchange for the ability to work there. and they know that matters like bringing over a spouse, parent or child are not inherent rights but are processes that can take time or even fail.
indeed, all of this has happened before in american history. this part is not new.
the new part is that corporations are making crazy profits, in an america where income inequalities are rising, off undocumented labor, while the nativist constituency waves the flag and issues crypto-racist pronouncements about border security and the american way of life. this opposition draws a deep divide within the power structure, particularly the republican party, but to some extent the democratic as well.
the more the pro-immigrant advocates focus their combat on citizenship status and pathways, the more they bumble their way into battles they can’t win, and more importantly, the more they delay any focused, incremental progress on securing economic fairness for all labor. everyone should pay taxes on their work, and everyone should receive the same protections and guarantees in the workplace. that’s the kind of basic fairness message that a large coalition of americans could get behind, regardless of differences on everything else.
peace and respects
Do protests work??
re: do protests work
i really wish they did. look at all the big ones against iraq and the wto and imf and other big bag things. oh why is the world so unfair? good on taz and the south asian network for still believin and flying the flag though.
have been on some myself but now have that sinking feeling that maybe it just leads to sweet-f***-all.
*big bad. although guess bags could be involved…bags of money made by evil multinationals and neo-imperalists states!
gah who else wants to go on a general protest against evilness.
Siddhartha_m said:
and
Your first statement is what has led you to say the second statement about fairness of labor. But what if your first assumption that the un-documenteds looking for documents is not true or is not completely true or documents isnt on the top of their lists??
The reason I say that is that there is large part of immigrants who, due to coming from harsh economic realities or oppressive environment have little idea about “fair labor laws”. They may have internalized the fact that they will be doing hard work for not a whole lot in return. But even those people have HOPE for the future. A big part of immigrant’s journey is HOPE for a better tomorrow. HOPE that their kids will do better. That would lead them to put a possible path towards citizenship FIRST and fair labor conditions second. In my view …
Yo Taz,
Nice work with the article. I just wanted to point out an issue important to the south asian community that was being overlooked here. While we all talk about giving amnesty to the millions of illegal aliens in this country, what about the ones who come to this country legally and have to wait for eons to even get a green card forget citizenship.
I know someone who legally came to this country 10 years ago but still has to wait for another 4 to even get his greencard. Wouldnt it be unfair for him if you give amnesty to the illegals amnesty without giving him a chance.
RC,
thanks for the response. nice to see some substance here. i am making an assumption which i believe to be true, but i certainly see that one could disagree.
my evidence is anecdotal, and it would certainly be interesting to see pew or some such opinion research organization do some solid work on this.
having said that, i’ve had many, many conversations with new immigrants in a variety of immigration-destination countries (united states, france and ivory coast being the three i know the best — just a sampler but at least some continental/institutional variety) and i have noticed the following strong tendencies:
a stated desire to go home at some point, except in the small number of politically dire situations where one could make a good argument for asylum anyway. whether people end up going home or not is another matter, but often it’s an outcome born as much of constraint as it is of choice, and probably out of contingent circumstances more than either of those. life stories get complicated.
a strong sense of respect for rules and institutions, often directly linked to gratefulness about the opportunity to work and make a living in the host country
in addition, we need to take into account the fact that globalization has made it much easier to live hybrid lives where migrating to one country doesn’t mean leaving one’s home country in the absolute and final way it did in the days of ellis island. people legally in the u.s., whatever their specific documentation, tend to have much stronger day-to-day interactions, relationships and transactions back home than ever before. it’s a truism, but worth repeating, and the spread of cheap telephony, internet, phone cards, inexpensive travel, ubiquitous western union, etc. etc., is only accelerating this trend.
look at the mexican political candidates who come to dallas, houston and los angeles to campaign for votes. look at the national development banks or housing promotion banks from mali and senegal that have opened up branches near 116th street in harlem. those too are aspects of immigration today.
there’s an argument that the more restrictive you make legal status, the more you prevent people from going back and forth and leading these globalized lives. the wall-builders would say that’s fine, they won’t come in anyway if we build a tall enough wall. but the flip side to that is those who come in lose hope of being able to go back and forth, and prefer to smuggle their families in rather than invest in them back home. there is an article today in the los angeles times that makes this point.
one can agree or disagree with this argument, but the point i would hope everyone takes away is that migration is a complicated, multi-faceted thing, and that globalization has made it all the more so. it is helpful to get down to economic reality to help understand it better. (this is why i keep pleading for vinod to get into this conversation.) my beef with the framings of the issue that underemphasize the economic basis of immigration extends to both the know-nothing nativists and the white liberals who just learned how to say “si se puede.”
one economic reality that economists have studied is that the principal driver of migration is not absolute deprivation but relative deprivation. in other words, people from fujian province, which is relatively wealthy, come to the u.s. much more than people from an inland poorer province. the people from the poorer provinces are going to the chinese big cities. they aren’t jumping to the u.s.
if you look at the large african communities in the u.s., they are mainly from the more well-off countries like senegal, ghana, nigeria. the exceptions are purely political programs like the ones set up for somalis. we’re not getting huge numbers of congolese or angolans.
one driver of migration is that people return home, to settle or on visits, flush with their relative wealth from living abroad, and that drives more people from those communities to emulate them. it also sets up immigration networks, from smugglers to fake-visa touts to legal and legitimate travel agencies and shipping services. those services in fujian are serving the fujianese, not people from deepest yunnan or wherever.
which brings me to your second point:
and my response is that most migrants aren’t coming from situations that are all that desperate, economically or politically. of course, some are, but again, not the bulk. they are coming from situations of relative deprivation and they are sensitive enough to price and other incentives that they can remain rational economic actors, at least no less so than you and i can.
the idea that people see the united states (or britain, australia or wherever) as the promised land dies hard, but in fact people are so much better connected to their home country than before that they have a much more subtle and sensitive understanding than do either their detractors or their supporters here in the host country. america looks nice to people back home because of the movies and the imagery, but you won’t find the typical immigrant here calling america the promised land. chance are he or she is hedging his/her bets, trying to make a life in both countries at once. wouldn’t you? i certainly would.
anyway, i appreciate you responding to substance with substance. where are all the other non-ranting people? this is one of the biggest issues of the day, let’s try to talk about it seriously without digressions about anuses or whether or not to invade mexico. i mean, what the fuck.
peace
Damn, you sure analyzed this situation through and through… I was reading your comment during class today and was thinking about a couple of things…Nothing to comment yet (need to go to class), but I’d be interested to see what your perspectives are on the various list items on the action alert that I linked as the “get involved.”
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, it’s been refreshing to add them to the debate. Like mentioned, this is a very important issue.
Its interesting to see that people are more interested in discussing a book written by a priviledged desi about her charactor’s otherwise privileged life but some stupid otherwise minor social assimilation problem. Just shows that we are all priviledged ivory tower people, who dont give a damn about poor people (no matter mexican, South Asian, or whatever)
end rant.
Siddhartha,
I agree here, but I think that the reason this desire is seen is that, most of new immigrants dont see themselves as part of the society of the US. Now that MAY NOT APPLY to latinos, as there is huge secondary culture of latino in this nation. So, although I agree with your above observation I think it may NOT apply to latinos. (I should admit I have NO DATA about this, just feeling)
Again I agree that its not the poorest who emigrate. I think LACK of RESOURCES and AWARENESS could be behind it. We definately see that with Indian migration. Its not the poorest who have migrated to the west. In case of Indian I can say that its due to lack of resources for the poor. Having a relative in US who will “sponsor” them to US is considered a priviledge that only few have.
From the LA Times story you linked :
This shows why some of the latino undocumented would want to stay and be citizens. But then I see the point made by the article that latinos arent going back because coming back is so hard.
== I also notice that how people like me who came to US as students, so desparately wanted green cards, although coming from relatively priviledged background. == I think one of reasons is that people everywhere want to have options and once you get legal status in the US, your options open up really wide.
Taz,
We probably have a difference of opinion on how social change is happening on this issue, but for sake of argument : You’re conflating two different issues–one is framing, and the other is the substance of the policies. There are a million and one different ways to frame the debate, from “path to citizenship” (which actually has a specific meaning that signals a particular thing to insiders, including Senators’ legislative aides–it means “we don’t support amnesty, but we do need green cards after some waiting period “) to “legalization”. You can be an advocate for the same policy but couch your rhetoric in either of these, depending on what you’re trying to signal to different people. For example, I just finished interviewing someone who allegedly is pro-immigrant and I asked him “do you support amnesty?” He said “I support earned legalization.” And I had to ask him again to get a “no” to the first question, which is his actual political position (and includes a waiting period, fines, English requirements, etc. right now). Advocates are slippery folk.
In terms of substantive policy, there are plenty of specifics that you can call for:
restrict the definition of “aggravated felony” to only the most heinous of crimes as opposed to say, DUIs and shoplifting; immediately legalize all 5-10-20 million undocumented people in the U.S.; guarantee freedom of assciation for workers regardless of status through strengthening of provisions of labor law (not employer sanctions for hiring undocumented workers; reverse the supreme court decision in hoffman plastics through legislation, et; push for a system of regularized flow of labor across the border and eliminate the barriers that cause people to cross in the desert and die; defund enforcement; eliminate the application backlogs within X years, etc.
Most of these and certainly the total package is viewed as “unrealistic” today; that’s why, imo, it was moronic for immigrant groups to try to push a bill through. It doesn’t make sense necessarily to have a detailed policy discussion on a space like this one except in broad terms until you push the political climate as far as it’s going to go pro-immigrant and then talk with people who share your perspectives because you’re in a position to actually influence things. Form there, you let the Congress do what it will within the bounds that you have created for it to the extent of your ability.
My criticism of the mindset “what would i do if I were a senator” is exactly that it takes things off the table at a time when the debate is shifting left on this issue. If you were a median senator five months ago, you would probably vote for some combination of guestworker programs and legalization. And then you would go into conference committee with the hosue and you would sell everything but the kitchen sink to placate rabid conservatives in the house. It’s the Los Angeles demonstration (among others) that took the some of the parts of the sensenbrenner bill off the table, not arguments by well-spoken advocates that it’s a bad bill. If you were a median Senator a month ago, you would support what they’re proposing now in the Senate (a blend of mccain-kennedy, specter’s bill (which was a catchall), frist’s bill, and a bunch of other stuff that no one knows about because it’s hundreds of pages).
If you’re a Senator a month from now, what will you support? It depends how strongly immigrant commnunities mobilize and how much work their honest advocates are able to do in pushing forward a real solution to benefit people. And whether or not a bad bill is passed that will kill the momentum.
“No on hr4437” is the only thing that has unified immigrant advocates thus far and allowed them to coordinate demonstrations, work together, and make more mobilizing happen (which is fundamentally due not ot them, but the readiness of their communities–and specificalyl Latino communities–to actually hit the streets).
– A path to citizenship, not a temporary guest worker program – Family reunification measures – Worker protections – Full rights for all immigrants!
To me, as a “policy” these are pretty generic- What Senator doesn’t want any of those?
Well, Senators Cornyn and Kyl who authored a bill to the contrary, to start with. And Senate Majority Leader Frist, who did the same. And of course there’s the bulk of the House of Representatives (I know, not Senators, but they have say in Conference Committee, when it’s generally a few Old White Citizen Men making backroom deals that affect millions of people).
Maybe it’s the aspiring politician within, but when I see issues like this arise, I think, “if I was in the committee how would I write the bill?”
FDR is reputed to have agreed with some advocates on an issue and then said to them “Well, you have me sold. Now go out there and put the pressure on me!” In a year, you might not be thinking about whether or not it’s more humane to create more detention space for better conditions, but instead wondering why you weren’t fighting the increased enforcement provisions (like the expansion of the definition of aggravated felony) that led to the necessity of increased detention beds.