Extra Credit #2 Illegal Immigrants

The Bruin Standard had an article called "'Illegal Immigrant' - A Crime, Not a Race" and although the title sounds bad (i thought it was going to be talking bad about immigrants) its actually on how student government doesn't have the right to control what students say, the title really was just to make people want to read it. "What we want to know is how USAC has such unprecedented egotism that would lead them to decree from their thrones to other students what they can and cannot say on campus" (p.1) 

There isn't really much to say about this article but there is a lot to say about the term "illegal." I am a Mexican born undocumented immigrant and I was not excited about the banning of the word illegal. I was actually kind of mad that they made it a big deal like if USAC did this amazing thing for immigrants and that we should be grateful, they even had media coverage. I actually feel like if we stop using the term illegal we are not addressing the real issue. This system in the U.S. renders us as illegals and criminals, and I think that needs to be put out there. This system is calling humxns illegals and the fact that a peson can be called an illegal should be enough to question this system that would makes that happen. Identifying as undocumented for me means not having documentation/ social security number and thats it, it erases the fact that my mom crossed the border more than 3 times while pregnant, she crossed the border illegally with my dad. She hid me and my brother in a car illegally because she wanted to get out of the country that had few opportunities for very poor family living in a pueblo, in a country where the united states started imposing their companies and hurting the economy. She did this for us and as cheesy as it sounds it was for a better life. 

Everyday is a struggle, I can't go back to Mexico to see my grandmother, brothers, sisters and other family because I can't leave this country or else i won't come back. My abuelita was basically there for me and my siblings when my dad left us, when my mom worked in the city of Vernon. she basically risked her lifes to that city de indusrty, constantly putting our families' bodies on the line with their harmful chemicals and procedures. Both my grandma risked their lives crossing physical borders (multiple times, my abuelita once was also beaten to the floor) and working many jobs. Now my grandmother is gone back to Mexico and my biggest fear is having her pass away before i get papers so that I can see her again.

I've known what injustice is for as long as I remember and that is why this banning of this term makes me angry, I am not someone that needs protection from words, I'm definitely not saying they don't hurt, but I want people to realize this system is not made for immigrants, for people of color looking for a better life. This system also causes migration by imposing themselves in other countries, messing up our economy, our land, and our people. Or even la crisis as Gloria Anzaldua writes about (10) People want to ban this word because it sounds mean and hell yes it sounds mean, it really hurt growing up and seeing my mom work so many hours and still trying to catch up on the news about the Dream Act (because she always thought about me and my brother) and hearing anti immigrants call us illegals and "leachers." It hurts seeing my mom be so worried about me and blaming herself for our struggles. But if the word hurts how do you think it feels to be an actual "illegal" where this system hates us? Where I couldn't go to Washington D.C. in the 5th grade (haha), when my mom risked death twice because she didn't (and couldn't) go to the doctor, when my aunt passed away for not getting her cancer treated on time for lack of health care and money, where my brother was stuck after high school without a job or without being able to go to college, where me and my mom where threatened with calling ICE if we reported the abuse we faced 11 years ago? The list goes on for so many immigrants in this country.

Lets call it illegal, lets make people uncomfortable, because there are illegal immigrants in the U.S and we keep coming in large numbers. People don't leave their homes with the idea of "lets do something illegal because its America blah blah blah" people are pushed to do these acts out of desperation. So when UCLA and now UCBerkeley banned this term I want everyone to understand that this does nothing for me, or for other undocumented immigrants. 

Note: this is just MY opinion as an undocumented immigrant who has had enough of this unfair system and is in no intention to offend anyone. I also don;t condone the word illegal, I can say it all I want but when people in power say it I will get mad. 

Here:

Warsan Shire - Home is the Barrel of a Gun. 

...No one would put their children in a boat
unless the sea is safer than the land…
no one chooses refugee camps,
or strip searches where your body is left aching
or prison, because prison is safer than a city of fire
and one prison guard in the night
is safer than fourteen men who look like your father. 

No one could take it, stomach it, 
no one’s skin would be tough enough, 
the “go home blacks, refugees, dirty immigrants, 
asylum seekers sucking our country dry”… 
How do the words, dirty looks, roll off your back?
Maybe it’s because the blow is softer than a limb torn off, 
or the words are more tender 
than fourteen men between your legs, 
or the insults are easier to swallow than rubble, 
than bone, than your child’s body in pieces. 

I want to go home. 
But home is the mouth of a shark 
home is the barrel of a gun, 
and no one would leave home 
unless home chased you to the shore, 
unless home told you to quicken your legs, 
leave your clothes behind, crawl through the desert, 
wade through the ocean, drown, save, 
be hungry, beg, forget pride, your survival is more important. 

No one leaves home
unless home is a sweaty voice in your ear, saying
"Leave. Run away from me now.
I don’t know what I’ve become. 
But I know that anywhere is safer than here.

heres another one 

BATTLING SILENCE

by  Kemi Bello 

First, I was illegal
An identity given to me
By a socio-political complex
Hell-bent on forcing me to
Reject my notion of self.

Illegal is illegal, they said –
More than my age
More than my gender/sexuality
More than my humanity –
I was now this thing, an ‘it’
No longer a human being.

I stay silent.

Then, I was a dreamer
An identity that built
A collective consciousness
And finally made me
Part of an ‘us.’

I was put on a giddy high
Of dreams deferred
Of “I have a dream”
Of a rainbow of caps & gowns.
For we are the dreamers,
The mighty, mighty dreamers.

Never mind those whose dreams
We are not acknowledging because
They do not match our own.
Never mind those who will not make it
Far enough to don a cap and gown.

Suddenly, a proclamation:
“But we are all dreamers,”
documented or undocumented.

I stay silent.

Then I was undocumented
An identity borne of the realization
That I am more than just legislation,
That this new piece of paper
Would not magically heal the wounds of the struggle
Wrought by lack of papers to begin with,

That dreams without concrete, effective action and empowerment
Would not serve my growth.

Again, it was said:
“But we are all undocumented,”
united in this struggle.

I stay silent.

Then I became unafraid,
Unashamed,
Unapologetic –
About my immigration status,
About refusing to bow down
to rhetoric & political punting,
about choosing a movement over a campaign,
about acknowledging the full, wide, deep and beautiful
spectrum of the undocumented experience,
and about reclaiming my voice and
demanding that it be the only vehicle
through which my story is told.

This time though,
We were not “all unafraid.”
Instead, I was being divisive,
I was being stubborn,
I was selfish, petulant,
I was Radical.

Once again labeled an “other”
In the delicate world of “Us”
I called home.

I stay silent.

At the end of the day,
Though our many struggles and experiences intersect,
And you say we are all dreamers,
My dream of existence in a society
That still views me as illegal, as an it,
Has yet to come true.

You say we are all undocumented,
Yet I am the one who has to justify,
In a court of law,
The right to call the dirt I walk on
And the air I breathe
My Home.

Can I not claim an identity of my own,
Without it being co-opted, rebranded,
Misinterpreted and censored
by those who are not affected?
Those who support, understand,
Sympathize, fight alongside,
But who are not undocumented?

If you truly support me,
You would understand
the importance of my words,
for they are one of the few weapons I own.
If you truly support me,

You would understand,
The necessity,
In a world in which
I am constantly told I have no rights,
To have an identity to call my own.

If you truly support me,
You would understand that
My struggle is not about you.

If you truly support me,
You would understand that
We both lose
When I remain silent.