“I’ve Got A Golden Ticket…”

I’m an American citizen. I was born here and, despite occasional instances of racism, I’ve felt secure and confident doing anything I please. Living in Japan for a year was a bit of a sociological experiment. I’d recommend it to any of my fellow citizens who have never “walked a mile in someone else’s shoes.” I was essentially on a skilled guest worker visa in one of the safest, developed, and most polite countries in the world with universal healthcare. But I still got stopped in the street by a young punk of a cop and had my purse searched. I still got stopped every time I boarded the airplane for a second pat-down, while my husband breezed by. Um, and they all thought I was good at math. Joke’s on them!

My point is that although I’m not an immigrant in this country, my parents were. And I’ve had my own brief immigrant experience. So I’m certainly interested in hearing what the issues are and how I can help.
I participated in an immigration townhall, hosted by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), at the Indo-American Center last Wednesday along with 80 community members (and some fellow SAPACers) and wanted to share some thoughts from the event…

1. Those of you who don’t think there’s a significant undocumented community of South Asians in the U.S. right now might want to check this out (PDF).
2. There were men, women, young and old who attended the townhall–signifying that this issue matters to everyone.
3. The discussion was grounded in the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights–a list of rights that everyone is entitled to, including the right to education, the freedom from torture and slavery, the right to work in humane conditions, and the right to move across national borders freely. (It’s super-short and has been translated into a bunch of languages. Check it out here.)
4. We saw 3 short video clips of people who were affected by the current immigration system: a single mom who hasn’t seen her daughter in years because she hasn’t been allowed a visitor’s visa; a highly educated wife who isn’t allowed to work because of her H-4 visa; and a group of H2-B guest workers who were recruited to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, but were exploited and abused instead.
5. What I got from seeing the videos and hearing people’s stories from the audience was that the current system doesn’t protect the most vulnerable. It doesn’t protect women and men who are being abused by their spouses. It doesn’t protect people who want to work but aren’t allowed, and are then forced into a dangerous and exploitive cash-based market. It doesn’t protect those who are trafficked into this country.

Too often South Asian citizens are silent about this topic. And I’m including myself! We get our golden ticket and then it ceases to be a problem for us. But if we’ve read our history, we should know that nobody’s status is secure. African American citizens were denied equality and justice for a century after slavery was banned. Japanese American citizens were interned during WWII. Their property and liberty were taken away. And for the last decade after 9/11, citizens have been detained and harassed. It’s time we engage in this debate and speak up for those who can’t.