Think or Swim: Community Activism

Guest blogger: Kenny Lee, Masters of Migration Studies Graduate Student, University of San Francisco

Growing up undocumented, I witnessed the danger of activism when I saw, heard, and read about young immigrant activists detained and removed from the United States. I forced myself to be practical in order to avoid such a prospect, only revealing my status in order to inquire and receive support, like a zero-sum game. Like many others, education, especially higher education, was extremely crucial to me. It was a credential that I needed in order to meet the qualifications of the DREAM Act or other proposed immigration bills. Yet growing up in a mixed-status family and being the only person undocumented in the household, my family was an incomplete support system as I navigated through junior high, secondary, and higher education.

I understood that it was a practical reality that latinx were the largest undocumented population in the United States. Despite that, I knew I wanted to be part of a support group, a community just for undocumented Asians. But being undocumented and Asian in the United States, it was hard to find others who are also undocumented and Asian—let alone Chinese. Although I went to a supportive university like UC Davis where they had a resource center specifically for AB540 and undocumented students, I felt a degree of alienation when I saw mostly latinx students. Even though there was solidarity through our shared undocumented status, it felt like a space that could not meet my needs emotionally.

It was not until graduate school in San Francisco that I found a community that was specifically for undocumented Asian and Pacific Islanders. We are a group of mixed Asian ethnicities—Korean, Chinese, Filipino, and other API. Our solidarity comes from our shared struggle of being different from the mainstream undocumented movement. I realized that feeling alone for so many years, being part of a community was so liberating to my mental health. With this community, we are able to focus on issues that pertain to undocumented Asians—mental health and the need for activism within our respective ethnic communities. And for the first time, I do not have to feel exhausted, vulnerable, and dehumanized to ask for support and being understood.

Being part of an undocumented Asian group also transformed me to think about immigration and activism differently. Practicality had made me undervalue ALL the other noncitizens affected by immigration law by putting my security over others. Where is fairness when immigrants have served their sentence, persecuted again for removal, and denied the opportunity to show they can reform and stay? How could we teach people about inalienable rights when the country treats noncitizens like disposables and exceptions when children are detained in detention ice boxes and divorced from their parents and siblings—the only people that can they DEPEND on? Where is the line that we have to draw when human rights violation is a human rights violation? Activism and civic engagement in this sense is a necessity in order to reform immigration law and inform American citizens the stake at hand that affects their family, neighbors, and friends who are immigrants. Activism is not suicide. Indeed, it is the agency of those who demanded—the young activists—that helped me and hundreds of thousands of young people obtain prosecutorial discretion under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival.

Undocumented status affects all racial groups and ages, including Asians, Africans, and Europeans. For a minority within the undocumented population, finding an undocumented Asian community was a liberating experience for my mental health. It shifted my view away from the zero-sum game mindset, especially the “deserving” immigrant narrative, to that of a social justice lens. Yet, it is difficult to escape that political narrative when these communities are small. Universities, Asian American educators, immigrant rights organizations, community members, and undocumented Americans must work together to establish community for those who are inconspicuous. Justice cannot overcome politics for those who are pacifist—it comes from those who demand.

bh