I write because queer immigrant experiences matter, because I am a tired, queer immigrant/permanent resident, because I have been tired for a long time...
Thank you to Christopher Soto for this gathering of bold voices against the dehumanization of immigrants—up now on the Poetry Foundation blog. I contributed a small statement (quoted above) that feels like it might become a full piece (poem? essay?) in the near future. Here are two statements from two writers I admire immensely:
I grew up in Europe at a time when the trending, right wing rhetoric was to send the children of all immigrants "back to where they came from." I had the feeling, at times, that I had not really been born. That emptiness carried through. It's what a child, in particular, might internalize as worthlessness. What could be more cruel? Yet, and we already know this: this is how colonization works. It strips you of your human-ness, your connection to place and home. Dear Government, no.
DACA, at my most optimistic, is a long overdue reconciliatory action by a bifurcated governing body that creates a citizenship path for those most essential to the renewal of the vivacity in the United States of America. At my severest, DACA appears to be the furthering of centuries of hegemony by an empire woefully, purposefully insistent on oppression of the many for the benefit of the few, creating a dual revenue of money and obedience. The difference between me being a citizen of the U.S.A. and an immigrant is 18 miles, the length of the New York City Tune Up Marathon, the amount of books in Strand Book Store, only half the size of Disney World, or the speed at which a "cheetah" robot can run per hour on a treadmill. In many ways, a border is no more than a razor. Government originated as a nautical term, meaning to steer, which they are doing towards capsizal. We must resist.
And everyone should definitely check out (if you haven't already) these collections by members of Undocupoets—Soto's Sad Girl Poems, Janine Joseph's Driving Without a License, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo's forthcoming (from BOA!) Cenzontle, Javier Zamora's just-released Unaccompanied.