America: A Nation of Immigrants
By M. Aurora Vásquez, Senior Attorney, Advancement Project
For many months now we have been inundated with information on the 2008 presidential candidates and their views on a myriad of issues. Eventually the focus will come to include the views of congressional candidates as well. When this happens, their respective views will begin to serve as markers mapping the potential path the country could travel through 2012. When I contemplate that path, I cannot help but wonder how the ongoing immigration debate will impact its grade in light of the way the debate has unfolded over the last several years.
Have we met? When the post September 11 winds began blowing nativist rhetoric and anti-immigrant sentiment across the strata of my life, I found myself readily recognizing the sentiment as though we were somehow old acquaintances. “How can this be?” I thought, “After all, am I not American?” As it continued to bubble to the surface the recognition that nativism I had met before was certain, though I remained unclear as to when.
Did we meet on the Metro on that rainy day when the White man who sat next to me equated his struggles with a leaky roof to the roofers who, he said in hushed voice, “spoke Spanish?” Perhaps we met in the fall of 1996 when the woman with the long, board-straight hair and blue eyes followed me for a block and half through my Philadelphia neighborhood to declare, “We don’t like your kind around here.” Could it have been in California, when as a kid I traveled to Santa Barbara with my family to visit my sister in college and a local shop owner told us we were not allowed to speak Spanish in his store? Or maybe we met on my first day of kindergarten, me a four-year-old with tears streaming down my face, my teacher leaning in close to hear me say my name only to respond, “Oh honey, your name is just too hard to pronounce. From now on, we’re going to call you Audrey.”
With the impact of nativism in tow, in 2006 I took to the streets alongside marchers many of whom were immigrants, some were likely undocumented, and many of us were neither. The masses that gathered in the streets that day were impressive not just because they produced a groundswell of unity but also because every marcher, supporter, and “luchador” had at least one thing in common irrespective of immigration status: We were all residents of this country. And what makes a nation, if not the people who reside in it? But by the time we marched on that April day, the immigration debate had been seething for so long the idea that sharing a common soil could serve as a unifying factor was all but lost to some. Along the route marchers were met with accusations of being un-American, disloyal to American ideals, and hell bent on “browning” the nation. Surely the sound of Spanish rolling off my tongue would have been as appalling to the counter-marchers’ ears on that spring day in 2006 as it was on that distant afternoon in Santa Barbara and most certainly “Aurora” (pronounced in Spanish) would have been promptly converted into “Audrey.”
How will the path be paved? Within this nativist framework the call to stop the browning of America had been made and for a while HR 4437 lead the charge. The message that seemed to flow most loudly from this bill was that criminalization of the undocumented was appropriate and even necessary because, after all, the undocumented contribute nothing of value to society and are therefore not worthy of receiving the consideration, respect, and even the most basic of services every ser humano should receive. Life within the shadow of the bill quickly became one where for some the flesh, blood, and bones that make us all human where magically replaced with DNA strand number 4437 which made some people less human than others. Ironically, the shadows cast by HR 4437 were so far reaching that it shed light on what for many had been a mostly distant battle taking place in someone else’s back yard or on The Hill. It brought the immigration debate into America’s homes, places of employment, its streets, and into entire cities—such as Hazelton, Pennsylvania and Valley Park, Missouri—who were among the first to enact anti-immigrant laws. Since then I have watched the debate on The Hill rage on and the rage on the ground press ahead. Between 2006 and 2007 as many as 40 cities passed anti-immigrant ordinances. Reports have surfaced suggesting extremism is on the rise, and judging from media coverage, radio interviews, blog postings, and even an occasional overheard conversation on the Metro, it was as though an incredible transformation took place almost overnight:
All immigrants became undocumented, all undocumented immigrants became Latino, and all Latinos became criminals.
Fast forward and we are now coming to the end of 2007 and the immigration debate is far from over. This June the Senate killed the latest attempt at immigration reform—S.1639—with a 46-53 vote. When the vote came down, some immigrants’ rights supporters let out a sigh of relief and others a sigh of dismay. Yet, regardless of where each of us stood on S.1639 we hold one inevitable fact in common: We still need comprehensive immigration reform. It is against this back drop that I wonder what we will see in the upcoming year as we prepare for the 2008 election.
Will we see more footsteps on the road leading to colleges that refuse in-state tuition to undocumented students who reside—often their entire lives—in the state? Will we see more universities, like Metro State in Colorado, trying to use these policies to clear a parallel path where some citizen students will be denied in-state tuition based on their parents’ immigration status? Knowing that in this country we already have what can be described as tiers of citizenship, will we see continued efforts at creating these distinct tiers of second class citizens who are just not American enough to be treated like other citizens? I would like to think it is not a pre-determined fact that we should travel a road straight into George Orwell’s Animal Farm where this time the solitary golden rule will read: “All American citizens are equal/but some are more equal than others” To the extent that all of the stones needed to pave this path have not yet been cast, it makes sense to pushback. To the extent that many have already been put into place, it is essential to fight back.
Who will pave it? Thus, where some cities have begun forging new roads of their own by declaring themselves sanctuary cities where nativism will not set the tone for life and where in response, some elected state officials carved out new paths where such declarations of sister/brotherhood would be banned, what can be done? Faced with a tug-o-war like the one that appears to be unfolding in Wisconsin, there are likely many who wonder—and rightly so—whether they can actually influence the direction the country takes. Knowing that the road we travel will be most greatly influenced by those who hold the power, I hope people are asking what options we have for making sure that the path is one that leads to a just democracy. From where I sit it seems the best option is clear: Vote. Just vote. George Jean Nathan once noted, “Bad politicians are elected by good citizens who do not vote.” I would add that bad ideas that eventually become bad policies and bad laws are created in the same way. So in 2008 vote, just vote.
“Luchador”: A fighter in the struggle.
Introduced by Republican House Judiciary Chairman, James Sensenbrenner.
See, e.g. Kristin Collins, Immigrants find growing enmity: Immigrants now targets of racial slurs and taunts, The Myrtle Beach Sun-News Reports (September 23, 2007).
Original quote reads: “All animals are equal/but some are more equal than others.”
