Grace and peace!
This week, and every week:
May we challenge one another’s perspectives with compassion.
May we open our hearts and minds to learning.
And may we build a community that is mutually supportive.
A Quick Recap (Because It’s Been A While)
In recognition of having offered a lot of information to process and reflect upon in my last two posts, I want to take a moment to summarize some key points that we’ve discussed so far:
- It’s important to be aware of the perspectives that we and others bring to the conversation.
- It’s paramount that our service and advocacy work honors immigrants’ needs for respect and dignity.
- It matters whose voices are part of the conversation, and whose are lacking.
- Fear affects all of us – driving some of us to flee home and others to distrust newcomers.
- There is need (within the majority culture) to balance an acknowledgement of our own immigrant histories while not placing ourselves at the forefront of modern immigrants’ narratives.
At this point, I’d invite you to take a moment to breathe in, breathe out…and buckle up.
For us to honor immigrants in our community with respect and dignity, for us to better understand our perspectives and histories and fears as well as theirs, we must dig deeper into past and present immigration realities. Looking truth in the face is rarely easy, especially when it’s an unpleasant truth.
Which is why it’s helpful to face these truths together.
We Are Responsible FOR
…the U.S. immigration crisis, that is.
Don’t get me wrong, you and I are not personally responsible for millions of people having to flee from their homelands (for better or worse, we’re not that important). It is the collective “we” that I am using here to speak of “our” responsibility. “We” have elected people into government office who, along with other institutions and systems that affect immigration policies, have in many ways given cause for our immigrant siblings to seek safety in the U.S.
Please allow me to explain.
The reasons why people leave home to seek refuge or asylum in another country can generally be broken down into two categories: push factors, and pull factors. Push factors are things like poverty, persecution, and violence that push people out of their homes in search of safety. Conversely, pull factors are things like job opportunities that pull people out of their destitution in search of economic security.
These things, safety and economic security, are things that we all need.
They form our basis for survival, native-born and immigrant alike. Which is why one argument that is often made against immigration (or the support of undocumented migrants) is that they are stealing jobs away from native-borns. Yet reality paints a slightly different picture: the vast majority of immigrants (documented and undocumented) are doing jobs that the vast majority of U.S. citizens don’t want. They are willing to perform back-breaking work (harvesting produce by hand, for instance), often for minimum wage or less. As a (white) native-born stated in the Netflix series Immigration Nation, “They’re doing jobs we Americans don’t wanna do” (Episode 4).
For the purposes of this conversation, I invite us to reframe “stealing jobs” as “seeking economic security,” because it is true no matter which side of the argument you fall on. And by focusing on the cause instead of the end result, it becomes possible to ask the question, “What is so bad about the situation in their home country that they would make the journey here to seek security?”
What indeed.
The United States’ Push and Pull Factors: Communism and Capitalism
As many of you likely know, probably better than me, the end of WWII ushered in a Cold War pitting the U.S. against the U.S.S.R. (modern-day Russia). At the time, the United States government did everything within its power to prevent communism (the political ideology of its Russian enemy) from reaching the western hemisphere. And I do quite literally mean everything.
I love my country, let me make that clear. That being said, I don’t love everything that my country and its government have done throughout (and before) its 250 years of existence. This includes funding the overthrow of democratically elected leaders in Central America out of an immense fear of communism. These Central American leaders were trying to nationalize their economies to provide for their citizens suffering from poverty. In turn, the U.S. supported military coups and dictatorships that killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians over the course of several decades.
If this is news to you, please take a moment (or several) to breathe.
I commend you for staying with me as long as you have, and I want to remind you why we are shining light on these ugly truths of U.S. history: for us to honor immigrants in our community with respect and dignity, for us to better understand our perspectives and histories and fears as well as theirs…
Breathe in, breathe out…and buckle up
…because when talking about push and pull factors, we can’t leave out our country’s long-term love affair with capitalism. Whether or not you believe it to be a worthy (or even necessary) economic system, the ugly truth is that our country’s love of capitalism (and profit) was a springboard for the eventual monopoly that United Fruit Company (UFC) developed on banana production in Central America. At one point, UFC was the largest landowner in Guatemala, despite the fact that the company’s profits were used exclusively for U.S. interests.
Again I say:
If this is news to you, please take a moment (or several) to breathe.
I commend you for staying with me as long as you have, and I want to remind you why we are shining light on these ugly truths of U.S. history: for us to honor immigrants in our community with respect and dignity, for us to better understand our perspectives and histories and fears as well as theirs…
Do not lose hope, dear community! And do not wallow in guilt. The point of this conversation is not to place blame or point fingers. The point of this conversation is to better understand our collective past so that we can do better as we move into the future.
We Are Responsible To
…our immigrant neighbors, that is.
And this time, by “we,” I do mean we. Us. Those of us here in conversation, and all native-born citizens. We may not have directly pushed or pulled immigrants to our country, though now that they’re here, we are responsible to provide a loving space for them in our communities.
“Why?” you may ask? A valid question, indeed.
When we look back at our own immigrant histories, though quite different from modern realities, we often view our ancestors as valuable and insightful contributors to society. We speak fondly of the (male) founders of this nation and the wisdom that led to our constitution. (A quick aside: I acknowledge that this “wisdom” was very Eurocentric and oppressive to many, though that reality deserves its own, separate conversation.)
We (those of us in the majority culture) seldom look back on our ancestors with distrust or fear. Whatever their reasons for leaving behind their homelands and coming to this country, whether it be for safety or security (or something else entirely), they must have been valid. Right?
And so I would answer the “why” question with a “what” question.
What, dear ones, is preventing us from viewing today’s immigrants in the same light as we do our ancestors? What is preventing us as individuals and as a society from viewing our immigrant neighbors as valuable and insightful contributors to society? (Okay, that was two “what” questions.)
Beloveds, we have a responsibility to our immigrant neighbors and to our communities to find out.
One last thing…
I want to make clear that our responsibility to our immigrant neighbors is not to be dictated by their achievements or how they might benefit our communities and country. It is not taking responsibility if we expect them to earn their right to stay (as if safety and economic security weren’t enough) once they’re here.
My challenge for us this week is that we, especially those of us within the majority culture, might honor the responsibility that we have to our immigrant neighbors by continuing to grow in understanding and self-awareness, and by making loving space for them in our communities. (If you’d like some examples as to what this might look like, I’d be happy to provide some in the comments!)
And as we do this, how can we ensure that we are focusing on their needs and not their achievements (or our guilt)?
In solidarity,
Emi
What are some examples of a loving space?
Thank you for asking, James!
Based on my experience (and I would welcome the experiences of others, especially immigrants!), creating a loving space can look like uncovering our own biases against immigrants (which may sound simple but is not easy) so that we are in a better position to help instead of harm when we meet refugees or asylum seekers in our day to day. For instance, one of my own biases is that I might hear someone speaking in broken English and immediately think that they are unintelligent. I’m not proud of this automatic thought, yet it’s a bias that I’ve picked up somewhere along my life journey. When we take the time to uncover these kinds of subconscious judgements, we are able to counter them, like when I can silently remind myself in conversation that the person I am speaking with is an intelligent human being (especially to have survived as long as they have) and that they likely held employment back home in a position that we would associate with intelligence here in the U.S. (such as a college professor or medical doctor).
Creating a loving space can look like writing a letter to an immigrant in detention. We might not be in the same physical space as them, but where else might they need loving (mental) space to be created than in a prison, uncertain when they might be released? Casa de Paz has a pen-pal program here, and Families Belong Together is organizing a drive to send cards of welcome to newly arriving (Afghan) refugees, which you can find instructions for here. And if you feel comfortable with being in-person right now, there are visitation programs that you can join, including Grassroots Leadership’s Hutto Visitation program (which you can learn more about here).
Of course, Casa Marianella is always looking for community volunteers to help create a more loving space for our residents! With the help of volunteers, we are able to go above the provision of basic necessities (food, clothing, bedding, towels, hygiene products, etc.) to work towards creating a clean, organized, and well cared for living environment. We’ve also recently launched a Neighbor to Neighbor program that partners community members with residents who are moving out of Casa and into their own apartments. This program is a great opportunity to accompany one of our residents as they continue to settle into (and get to know) the Austin community! (If you live and/or work in the greater Austin area and are interested in the Neighbor to Neighbor program or volunteering at Casa Marianella, please email our Volunteer Coordinator at volunteer@casamarianella.org. We’d love to have you!)
Beyond these concrete examples, creating a loving space can be as simple (though not easy) as remaining open and alert to whatever (and whomever) you might come across in your day to day. While it’s not always helpful to assume that someone is an immigrant (another one of my biases!), when you discover that you are speaking or working with an immigrant, be extra intentional about engaging with them! Ask them about their day or how they are doing. Talk about the weather. For that brief (or maybe not so brief) conversation, let you be you and they be them and see where it takes you both. <3
I hope this is helpful, James! And if not, let me know if there is something else you have in mind – I'd love to hear it!