Immigration Is Also Emigration

We are fed stark images of brown men in running or jumping positions; brown pregnant women clutching the hands of their several little brown children; gardeners in pickup trucks; and Spanish-speaking cleaning ladies and nannies who now fill the shoes that were once worn bitterly by black women.

From Fidel Castro's recent retirement to the genocide of indigenous Guatemalans by the CIA-funded military during the eighties, undocumented immigration has more to do with what's going on beyond our borders than within them.

Undocumented immigrants are depicted as two-dimensional creatures who overrun our country, never as humans leaving their own countries. Sure they are specified as Mexicans, Hondurans, or Haitians, but always in a way that neglects their personal histories back home. A Guatemalan man who enters the country without documents seems to suddenly pop into existence upon crossing our southern border. The fact that he is an indigenous Mayan fleeing military persecution--which the U.S. has historically funded--disappears in the eyes of Americans who accuse him of unlawfully invading their territory.

Beyond our borders are all those countries where “illegal” immigrants aren't yet immigrants, but citizens in their native lands. The same people who come here as unwanted strangers are only perceived of as invading homes, never as leaving behind their own homes, families and friends.

Through our conversations of undocumented immigration, we always frame them as the assaulters of our national sovereignty. What conveniently fails to come into our discussions, however, is the United States’ own assaults against the national sovereignty of the countries from which they are coming. After the passing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994, hundreds of thousands of Mexican farm workers were thrown off their lands by a corrupt Mexican government working in league with greedy American developers. Even those that kept their land had a difficult time competing with heavily subsidized U.S. agricultural goods. As a result, they fled, and continue to flee, here by the hundreds of thousands seeking work to sustain their families.

The Cuban “wet-foot dry-foot policy” grants automatic admission to any Cuban who sets foot upon our soil, thanks to our animosity towards Fidel Castro’s government. Yet many people from poor Caribbean nations experiencing diasporas are continually rejected, especially Haitians who are continually denied recognition of amnesty status because of our diplomatic relations with the government of Haiti.

It’s important to see that there are many factors pushing immigrants out of their countries and pulling them into ours, many of which are greatly influenced by U.S. foreign relations. Once we expand the depth of our understanding of the processes of undocumented immigration into our country, we will come to understand that our popular policy approaches to the issue are far from solutions. From building walls to guest-worker programs, undocumented immigration is going to remain strong as long as we continue to tackle it as a mere occurrence within our borders.

The Struggle

Blatant or subtle,
What's better for the struggle?
A nameless mass of faces,
or Angela Davis?

What's easier to target?
Thousands who sing,
or Martin Luther King?

Maybe both.

Maybe by getting to Malcolm X,
you can impoverish and imprison the rest.

Nothing Like An Annoying Headline

It's amazing what a ridiculous headline can do.

"Whites to become minority in U.S by 2050" -from Reuters

Is this supposed to scare white people? Does it even? And would that change anything? Yes, I don't know, and no.

Before reading the article, I'm pretty sure that Latinos and their gosh-darned high fertility rates have something to do with it. Blacks and Asians are probably in there too, and then there are the whites. The whites, with their low-fertility rates and so-on. And I'm pretty sure that people of color--especially Latinos--are going to be sexualized. This is not gender-neutral. It implicitly sexualizes women of color...though to me, it's pretty explicit.

So of course, after reading the article, the headline was on target.

The headlines that hurt the most are ones such as this one. They say everything without saying anything at all. "Whites to become minority..." Whereas for other races or ethnicities, it wouldn't mean much to know they'll still be 'minorities,' it's a big deal for whites because they will no longer be the majority. Hmm...

If this were a movie, it would merit a "Whaaat?" As if white people are somehow going to be the shockingly new marginalized group of our time.

It might as well say "whites to become the new 'coloreds' by 2050." That darn 'm' word. Minority is not a race-neutral word. It's a tool of oppression.

These eight words are pure racism and pure sexism. This headline makes a lot of noise about race/ethnicity, gender, and even class--since lower classes of color have higher fertility rates--but I scoff at the tactlessness of this 'whites' over 'non-whites' language.

That's hypocritical of me to say because I am doing the same thing when I use the words "people of color," which creates the same white/non-white binary I am so passionately against.

Ayayay.

February's Black History Box

Black History Month is a beautiful thing when it's put on by those who are genuinely conscious of the profound role that blacks have had in this country. I respect that. But in light of the manner in which it has been celebrated throughout my twenty years of life in this country...well, from my experience, it's framed all wrong.

We definitely need to teach what contributions blacks have made, but before we teach about that we need to first talk about what it means for those contributions to be absent when it comes to the teachings of History itself. The problem is that our Anglo-centric educational system boxes "Black History" into a month, separating it from "U.S. History."

Everything, I guess, is easier to handle when its in some form of a box. Gender? Check a box. Race? Check a box. Juvenile delinquents go in this 'box,' adult criminals go in that one. And here, let's just draw a nice line around "US" to box them out.

This boxing happens in an infinite number of ways, and everything we box is something that we ultimately have no control over. You can label and incarcerate as many criminals as you want, but you'll never capture Evil itself.

Same with history lessons: all the class worksheets in the world wouldn't capture History. You'd have to have some kind of insane sheet of 'multicultural' paper that is infinite on all sides--where would I begin? And how? So I like my 8.5 by 11 sheet of white paper to study a historical timeline. Hey, why not? It's a way to get History under a false sense of control.

So here we are, in February's Black History Box. It's too overwhelming for the majority of our white educators to even consider history as a multifaceted subject. It's nicer to put it on that 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper where we can treat history as a linear progression of whiteness studded with black and brown featurettes here and there. So we box it up in a book, ship it to schools, and perpetuate history within a false sense of Anglo normativity.

The Perfectly Undefineable Identity of Barack Obama

So close. My heart races at the thought of voting today. As there are two democratic candidates with strong momentum, it makes it all the more exciting for me to participate on a side.



I choose Obama. Without delving into platforms, I largely base my support upon his character and his identity--or the identity I perceive him to have, I should say.

As to which candidate connects to me the most, I gotta go for the least defined. Hillary Clinton is a white woman. Her being white is not necessarily what distances me from her as I am a woman of color. It is more that her identity is not complexified enough, multiple enough. My own identity as a woman is of color is not solely that: I have a mixture of identities in which I am a Latina but not indigenous; I am the daughter of immigrants, but a U.S. citizen. It goes on.

Personally, Hillary's white-woman identity is is outweighed by Barack Obama's mixed identity and complexified status as a person of color.

As a fan of Gloria Anzaldua, I embrace the multiplicity of Obama's character. He has experienced the United States from inside and from outside its nation-state. He is the son of a mixed couple--a white mother and a Kenyan father--yet raised with an Indonesian stepfather. He cannot be boxed into a racial category--his ancestry apparently does not trace into United States slavery, yet he is referred to as a black man and United States citizen.

I recognize that one's experiences and physical characteristics should not solely merit judgment--Hillary can't control that she's a white woman just as Barack cannot control his mixed identity.

But what I truly appreciate in Barack Obama is that he applies his mixed characteristics towards his consciousness. His conscious experience consists of plurality--he does not have the luxury of boxing himself into categories: he is not just a man, nor is he just a black man. Because he cannot singularize his identity, I feel that he has the strongest sense of identity of all.

Barack Obama's identity is extracted from people. From family, to friends, to anyone that he comes into some form of contact with. His identity is not grounded onto something, but rather assembled by a mixture of interactions.

To run as a white woman for president, Hillary is not at a disadvantage. However, to run as a white woman who has cemented herself in that identity, Hillary is distanced from the various aspects of her platform. She might defend important issues concerning people of color, for example, but always as a white woman.

Barack cannot select an identity, he cannot fit himself into a conceptual structure. The issues he faces continue to provide him insight into his identity, whereas the issues Hillary faces are channeled into her accumulated sense of "professional experience."

What this means for me is that Barack is a leader who continues to learn--from the very core of his being--from those he encounters and from those experiences he lives on a day to day basis. I strongly believe that he connects to a wide range of people--he will not know everyone's experiences, but he recognizes that the United States is a complex structure of infinite lived experiences.

To avoid definition is to reject confinement. Barack Obama, through his strong sense of identity as a member of the people of this country but not as a specific type of people, recognizes the core multiplicity of our physical and conceptual nation-state.

I passionately support Barack Obama. For his platform, sure, but so much for his rhetorical meaning to our nation.

'Dos Equis' Buses Sprouting In Mexico

When I think of Mexico, just as when I think about most foreign countries, I tend to immediately think of women. Of course I think of their children as well, but my thoughts start with the women.

Maquiladoras. Feminicides. It goes on...ayayay.

It's impossible to lay it all out in text, let alone in words. But here's a small something that can serve as one lens into the complicated world of the brown woman:

Andrew Gumbel, from The Independent, reports that Mexico has finally established a female bus line.

Mexico City residents take a staggering 22 million bus rides every day, creating an atmosphere ripe for chaos of all sorts.

Officials say about one-seventh of the city's rapes and incidents of sexual harassment take place on buses, but the number of actual complaints is stunningly low – just seven last year.

Every woman has her own defence mechanisms – everything from wearing dowdy outer clothing to carrying a safety pin to deter wandering hands.

Mexico City is not the first place to introduce women-only buses. Similar services already exist in Brazil, Japan and India. The concept is not entirely new in Mexico City either – on the city's underground system, the first three cars are usually reserved for women.

The response in the first few days, though, has been enthusiastic. A couple of times, men have got on a bus, only to be mocked by the passengers and shamed into climbing back off.

"Now he knows how women feel," Yolanda Altamirano, a 64-year-old office cleaner, said after one hapless caballero retreated from her bus.

Well, these buses aren't complete life savers, because women do have to exist outside of the buses for most of the rest of the day...but at least they get a small break. For now.

You can never know enough about Mexico. This is the one thing that I would say to anyone who asks me anything about the country. I have never been there. But the Mexico experience fills more spaces than merely the geographic.

[Edit]
To complete this post now that I have more time (I was running late to class when I put this up), you can't just look at these events without understanding the layers and layers of cultural, political, religious, and spiritual spaces of Mexico.

Too many working women of color are systematically targeted, violated, and killed--known as the feminicides that take place in areas like Ciudad Juarez. Too many women of color in Mexico are the family bread-winners, many working in factories along the border--living off of some of the best wages in all the country, yet what they make is barely enough to live in suffering. Many of these women hold onto their love for family, religion, and rich culture. They hold the country together, as daughters, mothers, grandmothers, wives, friends...and collectively make up that essential flame that gives Mexico life.

This is why I am elated to hear about such buses. I have no way of imagining a bus ride with these women--but with the little knowledge I can piece together, I feel (and I hope) that for a small part of their day, they can step into a space where fear and anxiety can be put away for a little while.

Interracial Thoughts On The Presidential "Race"

Really quick, do you ever think that this year's election feels somewhat like a popularity contest from high school?

Maybe not totally like that, but maybe more like how Margaret Cho from the Huffington Post puts it:

"I just think overall there are too many people running. It is like a reality show. It's like America's Next Top President. Why don't we just let Tyra decide?"

Oh MY. That's a funny idea.

"If you become the President of the United States, can ma' momma and I have a slumber party in the Lincoln bedroom?"

Lincoln? What, because he "freed" blacks? Give me a break. Girl, you need to get a grip. If Obama is president, you're not even going to be last on his list of all the screw-ups he'll have to fix--you are beyond salvaging.

Sometimes I'm embarrassed to admit that I am voting for Obama. I think it's because I am a light-skinned Latina, and people might suspect that it's because my boyfriend is black. It's really a ridiculous thought, but I admit that it's one of those many self-conscious ideas you get when you are in an interracial relationship. You know, something you'd hear in some lame joke on Comedy Central, worthy of no more than a "heh."

I am not embarrassed *of* Obama, don't even get me wrong there. What I am saying is that since I am not black, and since my boyfriend *is* black, I hesitate to proclaim my strong support in some cases when I believe someone might shallowly perceive it to be evidence of some kind of fetishism of the black man. Oh it's a real thing in this world, but don't start with me on that.

And another thing. Why should I ever even consider Hillary just because she's a woman? Women are just as capable of deception as men. As my boyfriend put it, "I would put my wallet in Obama's hands...but not in Hillary's." It's not about the money, you see, it's about trusting that the person would actually hold and take care of something of yours. Kind of like when another female student asks me to watch her *laptop* at a cafe while she goes to order a coffee. Or before when we used to have to sit on the floor in lines to board our our planes at Southwest and a fellow passenger would ask me to watch her things as she visited the bathroom.

I would not trust Hillary with my wallet, my laptop, or even my luggage full of used textbooks from last semester's classes. She reminds me of a self-righteous ESL teacher who patronizes and condescends dark-skinned, accented students and parents. I feel like if she met my mom, she would listen with her eyes stretched open, a forced smile, and re-pronounce any mis-pronounced words back to my mother as she nods excessively. Ech, if you know what I am talking about, you'll understand my quivering at the thought of that. Ha, my mom would hate me for even hypothesizing about Hillary being anything less than a hundred miles near her.