![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The immigrant speaks
May. 1st, 2006 03:40 pmSo the only reason I'm not doing A Day Without an Immigrant is that I took Thursday and Friday off, being all Pukey McSick.
I am an immigrant. A legal one, even. On my way to getting greencard, and eventually citizenship. Of course, I'm probably not the type of immigrant you want. (I don't have the proper reverence for the country, I'm only here because of my family, and I'd leave in a New York Minute if it either became practical for Ross and I to do so, or something happened to Ross. Oh, and I've got a job you'd probably want, unlike the poor bastards out in the fields of Plant City.) But that's beside the point; I'm here, and I'm contributing and paying taxes and all that jazz.
I've spent the last four years of my life dealing with the US immigration system, as part of one of the most priviledged intake groups. Maybe the most privileged. I have every benefit it's possible to have as an immigrant to this country. I'm married to an American. I'm white. I speak reasonably good English. I'm highly educated. I'm comfortably middle class (at least until one of us gets sick).
And it still sucks ass. If given the choice between having thyroid cancer again and going through immigratin again, well, get that radioactive iodine pill ready, baby; I'm gonna glow. That's how much it sucks.
So that's where I'm coming from as I say the following: I don't have a problem with illegals. I realize I'm bucking against the cliche here, but there it is. Here's why I can't muster up the rage that so many legals (and their decendents - "they're spitting on our legal grandparents") seem to feel: what they have, I wouldn't pay for in a million years. It's hard enough to be legal here, and navigate your way around the system. But that's the price of not having to look over my shoulder (nearly as much) every day, the way illegal aliens do. I don't have to face the daily scorn and derision from people whose lifestyle I'm making possible; we tut-tut about how many illegals there are in the country as we pay for our cheap strawberries, watch Pedro finish the gazebo, or ask Maria to please remember that the kids need their snack a half hour early. I have nothing but compassion for them.
And here's why I think the attitudes of legal immigrants towards illegals is unfortunate: we're all tied. The current underlying level of American rage and xenophobia at the "brown illegal other" has ripple effects throughout the entire cultural discussion of "all other".
Someone in a forum I visit asked a (paraphrased) question "how much is the government obliged to look at the feelings of legal immigrants in this debate?" The fact is that the current level of anti-immigrant feeling in America means the government doesn't have to care about what legal immigrants feel about anything. Especially since legal immigrants, as you say, tend to be anti-immigrant themselves, once they get in the door.
And like a cancer, it spreads; the "anti-illegal" sentiment becomes an "anti-immigrant " sentiment, which becomes an "anti-alien" sentiment, and before you know it, Canadian Mahar Arar is getting stopped during a routine plane change at JFK and gets sent to Syria to be tortured for a year. And barely anyone knows, let alone cares. Because no-one really cares what border guards do to "others". Especially those "brown others".
And successful legal immigrants who turn around and say "they shouldn't have it easy, because I had to go through the hard way" are contributing to this cancerous culture of xenophobia. Of course, should it ever turn around and bite them on the ass (for instance, going back for a family visit and getting stopped on the way back home) then somehow "it's an outrage the way border guards are allowed to treat people".
And here's where it impacts legal immigrants directly: Americans already believe that it's too easy to immigrate here. If I had a nickle for everyone who's said "but aren't you a citizen automatically once you marry one?", I'd own a house. With a pool boy. But I don't, because it's not that easy. However, the basic, underlying anti-immigrant sentiment means that it's never going to get easier or faster, because there's way more votes in shutting the doors than opening them.
I am an immigrant. A legal one, even. On my way to getting greencard, and eventually citizenship. Of course, I'm probably not the type of immigrant you want. (I don't have the proper reverence for the country, I'm only here because of my family, and I'd leave in a New York Minute if it either became practical for Ross and I to do so, or something happened to Ross. Oh, and I've got a job you'd probably want, unlike the poor bastards out in the fields of Plant City.) But that's beside the point; I'm here, and I'm contributing and paying taxes and all that jazz.
I've spent the last four years of my life dealing with the US immigration system, as part of one of the most priviledged intake groups. Maybe the most privileged. I have every benefit it's possible to have as an immigrant to this country. I'm married to an American. I'm white. I speak reasonably good English. I'm highly educated. I'm comfortably middle class (at least until one of us gets sick).
And it still sucks ass. If given the choice between having thyroid cancer again and going through immigratin again, well, get that radioactive iodine pill ready, baby; I'm gonna glow. That's how much it sucks.
So that's where I'm coming from as I say the following: I don't have a problem with illegals. I realize I'm bucking against the cliche here, but there it is. Here's why I can't muster up the rage that so many legals (and their decendents - "they're spitting on our legal grandparents") seem to feel: what they have, I wouldn't pay for in a million years. It's hard enough to be legal here, and navigate your way around the system. But that's the price of not having to look over my shoulder (nearly as much) every day, the way illegal aliens do. I don't have to face the daily scorn and derision from people whose lifestyle I'm making possible; we tut-tut about how many illegals there are in the country as we pay for our cheap strawberries, watch Pedro finish the gazebo, or ask Maria to please remember that the kids need their snack a half hour early. I have nothing but compassion for them.
And here's why I think the attitudes of legal immigrants towards illegals is unfortunate: we're all tied. The current underlying level of American rage and xenophobia at the "brown illegal other" has ripple effects throughout the entire cultural discussion of "all other".
Someone in a forum I visit asked a (paraphrased) question "how much is the government obliged to look at the feelings of legal immigrants in this debate?" The fact is that the current level of anti-immigrant feeling in America means the government doesn't have to care about what legal immigrants feel about anything. Especially since legal immigrants, as you say, tend to be anti-immigrant themselves, once they get in the door.
And like a cancer, it spreads; the "anti-illegal" sentiment becomes an "anti-immigrant " sentiment, which becomes an "anti-alien" sentiment, and before you know it, Canadian Mahar Arar is getting stopped during a routine plane change at JFK and gets sent to Syria to be tortured for a year. And barely anyone knows, let alone cares. Because no-one really cares what border guards do to "others". Especially those "brown others".
And successful legal immigrants who turn around and say "they shouldn't have it easy, because I had to go through the hard way" are contributing to this cancerous culture of xenophobia. Of course, should it ever turn around and bite them on the ass (for instance, going back for a family visit and getting stopped on the way back home) then somehow "it's an outrage the way border guards are allowed to treat people".
And here's where it impacts legal immigrants directly: Americans already believe that it's too easy to immigrate here. If I had a nickle for everyone who's said "but aren't you a citizen automatically once you marry one?", I'd own a house. With a pool boy. But I don't, because it's not that easy. However, the basic, underlying anti-immigrant sentiment means that it's never going to get easier or faster, because there's way more votes in shutting the doors than opening them.
