hey y’all. it’s me. your local second gen mexican american lesbian of color begging on the internet.
if you don’t know a lot about me outside of fandom, basically i’m a huge nerd who wants to go to grad school. this is not something i take lightly. as an undergrad i was both a research assistant for one of the faculty members at my university and i conducted my own research on the side. i collected and analyzed local immigration laws across 2 states. i identified and analyzed 7 different potential factors of cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE in 6 different counties. i collected hour-long interviews with activists. i transcribed those interviews. i identified and analyzed 21 different kinds of political activism, the majority of which aren’t even widely recognized as political in the discipline but i argued that they are. i dedicated six months of my life on one specific project that both of my thesis advisors considered too ambitious when i first presented it to them. i wrote 68 pages of ground breaking research. i’m literally the first person to argue that the threat of deportation is an act of state violence in an academic setting. my thesis received university-wide recognition and multiple awards both inside and outside the department. and i did that while i was a full time student and while working two jobs to pay tuition and a 2 hour daily commute to and from the university.
research into activist and immigrant communities is vital, and unfortunately understudied in the field of political science. this is not a spur-of-the-moment decision. this is literally what i aspire towards. i want to be a researcher. but i just don’t have the funds to apply to grad school.
grad school applications cost $105 each and I spent my savings on paying for the GRE which was $205. i’m applying to five grad schools, which means that’s about $525 that i literally do not have. i have basically until December 1st to send the applications, but even if I save every spare dollar I don’t spend on bills from now until then, it still won’t be enough.
so please, if you have a spare dollar or two to help me out. or if you’re like me and money is tight, just please reblog this so other people can see it? thanks. love y’all.
Let’s talk about it. So before we even saw the short, we knew the story featured an Asian woman whose children had left the nest. And as you watch the short, you pick up that this woman is likely to be a first generation immigrant.
When we meet Bao, we hear baby gurgles and giggles, so the audience knows that we basically just witnessed a birth. And as we see Bao grow more and more, we witness the immense care and affection the woman puts into caring for Bao, establishing that it is her “child”. However, with the care and affection, also comes an extreme protection, in which she attempts to keep it by her side at all times, away from soccer – and most importantly– away from non-Asians. As an Asian-American who was brought over at a young age, this is incredibly familiar behavior. Our first generation parents love us AND their home, and they try to instill that same dedication to our native culture, despite what our individual interests may be. This can cause a rift between the two figures, the Asian parent and the Asian-American child. One wants to keep the other close and safe, away from the unfamiliar, while the other, unaware of the dangers of unfamiliarity, wants to learn and explore. This rift grows as the two continue to pursue their goals.
Eventually, it comes to the climax. Bao comes home with a non-Asian fiancé and it’s leaving home. Unequipped to cope, the woman eats Bao. This scene hit me the hardest. Instantly after eating Bao, the woman regrets it. My interpretation? She realizes that in trying to protect Bao by keeping him home against his will, she destroys it. Kills it, really. But wait!
A new character appears: Bao, but human and grown. We can connect the dots that THIS is the child who left the nest, and what we witnessed was this man’s youth leading up to his departure from home. So we can start piecing things together. Bao from the start, has always represented this guy. And the woman had wondered “how could I have kept him with me?” And through reliving her motherhood with Bao, she realizes she couldn’t. Her child wasn’t going to live life the same way she does, in her ethnic enclave, and she forcing him to do so would have destroyed him. She realizes she has to meet him halfway, thanks to him taking the first step of coming home. So the sharing of the bao making process with her son and his wife is the Asian parent reconciling her son’s Asian-American identity with her own Asian identity.
TL;DR As an Asian-American, seeing the struggles of cultural reproduction vs. cultural assimilation and its relationship with immigrant parenthood on the big screen induced tears, and I’m not ashamed.
It’s what happened to Jews in Germany in 1938 when their passports were declared invalid. That is what is beginning to happen here, now, to Hispanic citizens along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Oh, is it bad to compare the GOP to Nazis? Well, if members of the GOP do not like being compared to Nazis, they should consider not behaving exactly like Nazis.
Hispanic U.S. citizens, some of whom were in the U.S. military, are not being allowed to renew their passports. This is reportedly happening to “hundreds, even thousands” of Latinos, according to a report in the Washington Post. They’re getting letters from the State Department saying it does not believe they are citizens. The government claims their citizenships are fraudulent. “I’ve had probably 20 people who have been sent to the detention center—U.S. citizens,” Jaime Diez, an attorney in Brownsville, told The Washington Post.
The Washington Post also reports on ICE officials coming to citizens’ homes and taking their passports away. This is an escalation from a few months ago, when Americans were detained by ICE officials just for speaking Spanish to one another.
The administration is currently launching an effort to take citizenship from people who they suspect of fraud in obtaining it. Fraud in these cases is exceedingly rare. The last time the government tried to strip people of their citizenship was, according to Columbia Professor Mae Ngai, during The Red Scare of the 1950s. As Ngai remarks, McCarthyism is not typically remembered as a good period in American history.
There is good reason to believe that this could portend still worse things to come for the U.S. Hispanic population, unless people begin to speak out loudly, and fast.
This is actually what you should say to an ICE agent who has come to your house looking for an undocumented immigrant.
Specifically, do not open the door; tell them to slide their warrant under the door. Read it carefully and check to see if it’s a JUDICIAL warrant, which will have specific information like the time and location where they’re allowed to search, and a specific description of who or what they’re allowed to search for. ICE practically *never* have this; they’ll have an ADMINISTRATIVE warrant, which is just their orders from their boss telling them to arrest a particular person. It does not give them the right to enter your house.
ICE *can* enter your house if they have probable cause, such as if they see the person they’re looking for through a window or door (which is why you don’t open the door). Other forms of probable cause include kids telling agents that they were born outside of the US. Agents will trick people into chatting with them, especially kids who serve as translators for their parents, asking things like “What part of Mexico are you from?” Staying silent keeps the onus on them to prove in court later that they had evidence someone isn’t here legally.
It’s important to remember that for now, at least, every person ICE wants to deport has to go before a judge, and ICE has to provide evidence that they know this person is undocumented and that they were arrested without violating the 4th amendment (against unreasonable search and seizure). We know that cops lie and that judges usually side with them, but agents would rather go for a sure bet from a targeted raid than risk wasting their time and energy on arrests that could be thrown out. Knowing your rights and being prepared makes you a more difficult target.
“I do not consent to entry without a warrant.”
(This information comes from notes I took at a workshop on being an immigration ally. Learn more at welcomingamerica.org)
ACTUALLY, ICE will wave around anything and call it a warrant and unless you’re a lawyer chances are you won’t be able to tell, so call a lawyer. ICE often comes in civilian vehicles and clothes, will often conceal their badges from you and will even lie about who they are, and they’ve been known to work with police. You shouldn’t open the door. Call your lawyer, a volunteer lawyer group that assists immigrants or a response network* first. Never say anything that might reveal you’re an immigrant at all to any cop, not even if you are arrested for something else. Call your lawyer and let them deal with it.
ICE presentara cualquier cosa y la llamara un warrant, y aunque usted sea un abogado, probablemente no sabra la diferencia, asi que llame a su abogado. ICE muy seguido se presenta en ropa y autos civiles sin marcas, obscuren sus placas y pueden hasta mentir aceca de quienes son, aveces hasta trabajan con policia local para hacer arrestos de immigracion. No habra la puerta. Llame a su abogado, un grupo de abogados voluntarios que asistan a immigrantes o un grupo de respuesta* primero. Nunca diga nada que revele que es usted un immigrante a ningun policia, ni siquiera si usted esta ciendo arrestado por ortra razon. Llame a su abogado y dejen que ellos lideen con ICE.
Here is what a Judicial warrant looks like:
Asi es como se ve un warrant judicial:
This what an immigration warrant looks like:
Asi se ve un warrant de immigracion:
If the warrant looks like this, you don’t have to let them in. Either way, call your lawyer and if you see ICE or suspect you see them, call someone who responds to ICE raids.
Si el warrant se ve como este, usted no tiene que dejarlos entrar. En qualquier caso, llame a su abogado y si ve a ICE o sospecha que los ve llame a alguen que responda a raids de ICE.
*Response networks. Research online if there’s a network of people in your area who respond to ICE raids, you can also ask at local temples or churches if they know of one. These are people whom you call on the phone, they give you brief instructions and send respondents to your location to assist you, serve as witnesses and document what happens so you can use that information to your defense.
*Grupos de respuesta. Busque en linea si hai un grupo de gente en su area que responda a raids de ICE, tambien puede preguntar en tempos o iglecias locales si conocen de uno. Estas son personas que usted llama en el telephono, le dan instuciones breves y llaman socorristas a su locacion a asistirle, servir como testigos y documentar lo que suseda para que usted pueda usar esa informacion en su defensa.
Yep! Flights For Families is being run by the same coalition that ran the Families Belong Together marches, and processed through ActBlue, which I believe screens its clients because it works for Democratic causes only.
This is not to scold at all, but I’m now trying to educate people as we go in how to confirm these things for themselves; I didn’t have any special tools or foreknowledge (other than that ActBlue was a Democratic thing) when I fact-checked this. I checked by:
1. googling duvernay plus “flights for families” in quotes, which led me to a (unfortunately defunct) page about Families Belong Together being the ones who ran it. Because all I could see was the Google blurb and it wasn’t cached, I
2. Googled “families belong together” and “flights for families” both in quotes, which took me to the Mashable page, which included quotes from and links to the chair of Families Belong Together talking about it.
Remember you don’t have to work in nonprofit or be a researcher to fact-check! 😀
Dr. Michelle Martin is a researcher and professor at California State University, Fullerton. She has a Masters of Social Work, Masters in Global Policy, and a Ph.D. in Peace Studies (Political Science). She teaches Social Welfare Policy in the Master of Social Work program.
The following is her write-up on the separation of families at the border. She dispells a lot of common myths going around and provides sources which are linked. This might be helpful in your personal debates and discussions.
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There is so much misinformation out there about the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy that requires criminal prosecution, which then warrants the separating of parents and children at the southern border. Before responding to a post defending this policy, please do your research…As a professor at a local Cal State, I research and write about these issues, so here, I wrote the following to make it easier for you:
Myth: This is not a new policy and was practiced under Obama and Clinton.
FALSE. The policy to separate parents and children is new and was instituted on 4/6/2018. It was the “brainchild” of John Kelly and Stephen Miller to serve as a deterrent for undocumented immigration, and some allege to be used as a bargaining chip. The policy was approved by Trump, and adopted by Sessions. Prior administrations detained migrant families, but didn’t have a practice of forcibly separating parents from their children unless the adults were deemed unfit.
Myth: This is the only way to deter undocumented immigration.
FALSE. Annual trends show that arrests for undocumented entry are at a 46 year low, and undocumented crossings dropped in 2007, with a net loss (more people leaving than arriving). Deportations have increased steadily though (spiking in 1996 and more recently), because several laws that were passed since 1996 have made it more difficult to gain legal status for people already here, and thus increased their deportations (I address this later under the myth that it’s the Democrats’ fault). What we mostly have now are people crossing the border illegally because they’ve already been hired by a US company, or because they are seeking political asylum. Economic migrants come to this country because our country has kept the demand going. But again, many of these people impacted by Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy appear to be political asylum-seekers.
Myth: Most of the people coming across the border are just trying to take advantage of our country by taking our jobs.
FALSE. Most of the parents who have been impacted by Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy have presented themselves as political asylum-seekers at a U.S. port-of-entry, from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Rather than processing their claims, according to witness accounts, it appears as though they have been taken into custody on the spot and had their children ripped from their arms. The ACLU alleges that this practice violates the US Asylum Act, and the UN asserts that it violates the UN Treaty on the State of Refugees, one of the few treaties the US has ratified. The ACLU asserts that this policy is an illegal act on the part of the United States government, not to mention morally and ethically reprehensible.
Myth: We’re a country that respects the Rule of Law, and if people break the law, this is what they get.
FALSE. We are a country that has an above-ground system of immigration and an underground system. Our government (under both parties) has always been aware that US companies recruit workers in the poorest parts of Mexico for cheap labor, and ICE (and its predecessor INS) has looked the other way because this underground economy benefits our country to the tune of billions of dollars annually. Thus, even though many of the people crossing the border now are asylum-seekers, those who are economic migrants (migrant workers) likely have been recruited here to do jobs Americans will not do.
Myth: The children have to be separated from their parents because the parents must be arrested and it would be cruel to put children in jail with their parents.
FALSE. First, in the case of economic migrants crossing the border illegally, criminal prosecution has not been the legal norm, and families have historically been kept together at all cost. Also, crossing the border without documentation is typically a misdemeanor not requiring arrest, but rather has been handled in a civil proceeding. Additionally, parents who have been detained have historically been detained with their children in ICE “family residential centers,” again, for civil processing. The Trump administration’s shift in policy is for political purposes only, not legal ones.
Myth: We have rampant fraud in our asylum process, the proof of which is the significant increase we have in the number of people applying for asylum.
FALSE. The increase in asylum seekers is a direct result of the increase in civil conflict and violence across the globe. While some people may believe that we shouldn’t allow any refugees into our country because “it’s not our problem,” neither our current asylum law, nor our ideological foundation as a country support such an isolationist approach. There is very little evidence to support Sessions’ claim that abuse of our asylum-seeking policies is rampant. Also, what Sessions failed to mention is that the majority of asylum seekers are from China, not South of the border.
Here is a very fair and balanced assessment of his statements: [ source ]
Myth: The Democrats caused this, “it’s their law.“
FALSE. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats caused this, the Trump administration did (although the Republicans could fix this today, and have refused). I believe what this myth refers to is the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which were both passed under Clinton in 1996. These laws essentially made unauthorized entry into the US a crime (typically a misdemeanor for first-time offenders), but under both Republicans and Democrats, these cases were handled through civil deportation proceedings, not a criminal proceeding, which did not require separation. And again, even in cases where detainment was required, families were always kept together in family residential centers, unless the parents were deemed unfit (as mentioned above). Thus, Trump’s assertion that he hates this policy but has no choice but to separate the parents from their children, because the Democrats “gave us this law” is false and nothing more than propaganda designed to compel negotiation on bad policy.
Myth: The parents and children will be reunited shortly, once the parents’ court cases are finalized.
FALSE. Criminal court is a vastly different beast than civil court proceedings. Also, the children are being processed as unaccompanied minors (“unaccompanied alien children”), which typically means they are in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS). Under normal circumstances when a child enters the country without his or her parent, ORR attempts to locate a family member within a few weeks, and the child is then released to a family member, or if a family member cannot be located, the child is placed in a residential center (anywhere in the country), or in some cases, foster care. Prior to Trump’s new policy, ORR was operating at 95% capacity, and they simply cannot effectively manage the influx of 2000+ children, some as young as 4 months old. Also, keep in mind, these are not unaccompanied minor children, they have parents. There is great legal ambiguity on how and even whether the parents will get their children back because we are in uncharted territory right now. According to the ACLU lawsuit (see below), there is currently no easy vehicle for reuniting parents with their children. Additionally, according to a May 2018 report, numerous cases of verbal, physical and sexual abuse were found to have occurred in these residential centers.
LIKELY FALSE. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on 5/6/18, and a recent court ruling denied the government’s motion to dismiss the suit. The judge deciding the case stated that the Trump Administration’s policy is “brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency.” The case is moving forward because it was deemed to have legal merit.
Here’s a call script for your Senators and/or representatives – scroll down to “Tell your members of Congress: Condemn the Trump administration’s separation of families.” This is especially important if you live in a red state.Trump is trying to claim that the separation of families is due to a “law” enacted by Democrats – there is no such law. This is a Trump administration policy. It’s important for Republicans to know we don’t believe his lies, and that we know exactly who is responsible for this. Calling Democratic members of Congress helps, too – even if they already support keeping families together at the border, it will help to continue to encourage them to take action.
L.J.'s Obsessions 