Queering Immigration

Producer: Southerners On New Ground
Director, Cinematographer, Editor: Sowjanya Kudva

southernersonnewground.org
sowjfilms.com

[ Ngowo Nuemeh / Itai Marshall Jeffries / Ashe Helm-Hernandez / Vanessa / Taryn Jordan / Paulina Helm-Hernandez ]
_______________________________________

Queering Immigration #queerimmigration

We at SONG have followed the tide of the national immigration debate as it rose and fell, making its way from the streets of our cities to the farming fields of the rural South; from the small town Immigrant-owned shops to our temples, churches and mosques. We watched it heat up and try to make its way towards a reform solution in line with our people's demand for an Immigrant justice. This is a justice that acknowledges the reality of daily mass deportations, countless families separated and of over 11 million undocumented people emerging out of the shadows to tell the story of our collective struggle. The reality is hundreds and thousands of our children are graduating from high schools all across this country only to work minimum wage jobs because they are banned from attending colleges and universities.

We face a historic moment where collective struggle has seeded a demand for true justice. We watch as the debate makes its way to Washington, DC, where it is translated into a proposal for $6 Billion dollars to militarize an already militarized border, while simultaneously funding a plan that whittles away at the number of people who qualify for legal residency. This has made us reflect on what lies ahead for the Immigrant Rights movement as we get clear about our wins, our compromises, and what is left to be done.

What is undeniable is that our people have struggled to make this moment come to fruition: from the Dreamers demanding the passage of the Dream Act, to Undocuqueers coming out as all of ourselves to both immigrant and Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans & Queer communities. From mass mobilizations demanding Immigration reform to organizing against the criminalization of undocumented people, people of color and immigrant people—it’s the people that make movements happen.

We offer this video as a love letter to our Immigrant communities, LGBTQ communities, and communities of color about our inter-connected destinies.

On the Fourth of July, SONG knows real independence is inter-dependence. Real independence requires community beyond citizenship. For all those who live between and beyond borders of all kinds, this one is for you.
_________________________________

Nosotrxs en SONG hemos seguido el sube y baja que es la marea del debate nacional en torno de la inmigración, desde las calles de nuestras ciudades hasta los campos de cultivo en el Sur rural; desde las tiendas de dueñxs inmigrantes en nuestros pueblos hasta nuestros templos, iglesias y mezquitas. Observamos mientras se intensifico y se intento de plantear una solución reformista de acuerdo con la demanda popular por justicia inmigratoria. Una justicia que reconoce la realidad de deportaciones diarias y un incontable numero de familias separadas, de mas de 11 millón de personas indocumentadas saliendo fuera de las sombras para declarar la verdad de nuestra lucha colectiva. La realidad de cienes y miles de nuestrxs hijas e hijos graduándose de la Escuela Secundarias por todo el país solo para conseguir un trabajo de salario mínimo porque se les prohíbe asistir la Universidad.

Lo que es innegable es que nuestro pueblo ha luchado por realizar este momento: desde los Dreamers (soñadorxs) exigiendo la aprobación del Dream Act (Ley de Aspiraciones) hasta lxs Undocuqueers (personas indocumentadxs LGBTQ) presentándose en su plenitud a tanto la comunidad Inmigrante como a la comunidad Gay, Lesbiana, Bisexual, Transgénero & Queer. De las enormes movilizaciones exigiendo la Reforma Inmigratoria hasta el organizar en contra de la criminalización de gente indocumentada, gente de color y gente inmigrante – es el pueblo quien crea los movimientos.

Brindamos este video sobre nuestros destinos entrelazados como una carta de amor a nuestras comunidades Inmigrantes, comunidades LGBTQ, y comunidades de color. Este Cuatro de Julio, SONG reconoce que la verdadera independencia es la interdependencia. Independencia genuina requiere comunidad mas allá de la ciudadanía. Para todxs lxs quien viven entre y mas allá de todo tipo de frontera, les dedicamos lo siguiente.

I came to this country, um, from Cameroon,

as an international student on a student's visa,

and upon graduation I was faced with a question of

do I go back to Cameroon
where it's illegal to be gay?

Or do I stay here and become undocumented?

And obviously I chose to stay here,

and that was a very stressful and scary time
in my life,

because I had to, I didn't know where to turn to begin

the process of becoming a citizen.

When I did finally become a citizen,

um, that didn't fix everything.

There's this notion where citizenship is the answer to everything...

no it isn't, because I still am a black queer woman,

and I still am someone who presents themselves
as a masculine identified woman,

so I'm faced with racism every day,

I'm still faced with homophobia,

I'm faced with gender discrimination,

and that in itself, that's the reason why I'm interested in talking about immigration.

Citizenship is not the answer to everything.

We also have to look at social justice

and how it affects all of us individually.

As an indigenous person, uh, I understand that borders weren't present prior to colonization.

And when borders were imposed on us,

we internalized that.

We create legislation to reinforce physical borders,

and we create mentalities,

we create attitudes,

we create these positions, um,
in terms of those legislations,

to reinforce those borders inside of ourselves.

And that in turn ends up
alienating us from everyone else,

and it causes us to fail to see the humanity in others.

I see that the government is trying to frame this immigration, uh...

not even them calling it a movement, but a problem,

criminals in our country, illegal people,

and they're trying to make it a south-of-the-border, uh, not a north-of-the-border, not a white thing,

it's a brown thing, it's a black thing.

They don't want blacks to be in brown solidarity.

Historically, the laws have been made against us,

and here it is now, in immigration, I see the laws are against our brown brothers and sisters.

They're in this country and people are saying that they're illegal,

I mean, what does that even mean?

They're humans.

We've separated ourselves from our immigrant past.

What can I do as one person?

I can tell the next.

Don't believe the hype.

Stay in solidarity
with your brown brothers and sisters,

and hopefully, hopefully find the peace within us all

to see that people are human.

So when I think about how queer rights
connect to immigrant rights

I go back to 2003.

I think we can all remember George W. Bush

telling us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,

and that they were a threat
to the American way of life.

What we know now,
and what George Bush himself has said,

is that those weapons didn't actually exist.

And so what's left in the wake of that gigantic lie

is over one million Iraqis
that have been estimated dead,

and a very small amount of Iraqi refugees that've been allowed into the United States.

But what does it actually mean
to have citizenship papers

when your entire country's been devastated?

Um, and you're in a country
that's actually caused that devastation?

So I think as queer people, and as queer immigrants, and as queer people of colour living in the US,

either in exile from our own families,

in exile from our home countries,

that it's important for us as we move forward in the immigrant rights struggle,

to think about how citizenship

might mean some surface level, um,
privileges and comforts

but it doesn't necessarily mean liberation,

which is of course what we're all fighting for.

This work to me is complex.

I'm not an immigrant,

but I am directly affected by anti-immigrant sentiment, and anti-immigrant laws.

I see my connection to this movement
in the living and in the loving.

Both of our communities, immigrant and black folks,

have to deal with issues of hyper-policing
and racial profiling,

and it is there that I see incredible connections.

Every time a new anti-immigrant law is created,

that makes it so much harder for me and people like me in my community, to live.

I do this work because my lover is an immigrant,

and we've created a family together

that has mixed statuses,

and it's our everyday life of having to negotiate

what that means
when the phone call comes from Arizona.

I do this work because I refuse to live
in a city, a nation, a state,

that allows these sorts of laws and these sorts of sentiments to be circulated and affirmed.

I do this work because I love people, I love humanity.

And I do this work because I want us to be free

so that every single one of us can live and love

any way and any how we all please.

I see the connection of queer rights
and immigrant rights

as one that is intertwining our destinies together,

as communities that are both not separate,

but also as communities that are fighting for the liberation of all people.

I think that we do have a generational charge

not just to sort of expand the way that we think about immigration and immigrant justice,

but we have a charge to also help transform an immigration system

that has always, always defined
the idea of citizenship

with the idea of proximity to power and privilege.

And we have an opportunity to help move away from the colonial roots of this country,

and to move away from the slavery roots
of this country,

that has always used the backs and the bodies and the livelihood of people of colour

to build what is currently the US.

We have a generational charge to not just transform the immigration debate,

but also the very idea
of what citizenship means to us.

We have a duty to continue to fight

for all of our liberation movements;

we have a duty to fight for, to make sure
that racial justice is a reality

for people of colour in this country;

we have a duty to continue to fight to make sure

that this immigration debate does not move us closer to assimilation;

specifically for folks of colour,

we have a duty to make sure that our LGBT people

are also included in immigration reform,

to make sure that all LGBT families have access to the same immigrant justice

that we want for the rest of our communities;

we have a duty to continue to fight,

and the fight has just begun.