Examining racial divides created and made worse by man

Race is a funny word. Man-made, just like everything else we’ve created using our own languages. I believe it is an attempt, at best, to distinguish ourselves from a common genome.

When I was very young, a race was something I saw horses or greyhounds compete in. I grew up in the suburbs of Colorado - hardly a prime suitor for diversity in the 1980s. But, nevertheless, I hardly ever felt like the ugly duckling because of the amount of melanin in my skin or the child that everyone looked at funny because I didn’t physically fit in. Looking back, I’m sure plenty of factors played into this relatively comfortable childhood, particularly the idea that I came from an Asian background. Asians have a very different sort of stereotype associated with them, especially those of the Indian subcontinent.

In my teens, people didn’t look at me and think, “She’ll never make it through middle school” or “I wonder if her parents are crack cocaine addicts”. People looked at me and wondered which Ivy League I’d be attending and how many hours a night I spent studying. And in a funny little way, I began to disapprove. Mostly because I was put on a pedestal I wanted neither to justify nor own. And when I didn’t make Ivy League for college (mostly because I didn’t apply to begin with), people wondered if I was the “special” case among Asian Americans.

It was in freshman year of college that the entire schism between racial groups became very apparent to me.  Prior to this, I didn’t know what “racism”, “white supremacy” or “affirmative action” really were. Of course, I’d studied the Civil Rights movement and gave my allegiances to honorable figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., but they didn’t apply to me. I was neither black nor Hispanic. I came from an immigrant family that specialized in skilled labor and whose parents were sworn in as American citizens when I was in the second grade. Parents who had their Masters degrees from American institutions and who lived a relatively comfortable life.

I may have not personally experienced racism growing up, but that isn’t to say I wasn’t exposed to it. Americans are not the only ones with a long history of racism. It’s a global phenomenon. Many Pakistani Muslims, for example, find Indian Hindus to be inferior, “dirty” and “backwards”. “Monkey worshiping filth”, as one particular individual in my family used to put it. Why this hate? Hinduism and Islam clash historically, politically and religiously. Their followers must, as result, categorize themselves as superior to the other faith in order to justify their own beliefs. This is not to say peaceful coexistence does not exist. But there are a fair share of extremists and racists riddled in the both populaces, some of whom also happen to make-up my family.

This sort of racism also isn’t something to discuss with others. It’s a dinner table conversation, behind closed doors. It is understood, but never publicly acknowledged. Growing up, I found it to be a fascinating paradox that I vicariously lived, through my own parents. They’d smile, make small talk with Hindus and non-Muslims – and then behind closed doors, the hate would fill every corner of every room in the house. At the time, I was too young to realize that what they were engaging in was racism. Thankfully, their words weren’t too impressionable, either.

I did have a personal face-off with racism in the latter years of high school. It stemmed from the ignorant and widespread racism following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. These days, it doesn’t matter if you’re Pakistani, Bengali, Indian or even Sri Lankan – to the ignorant racists in this country, you’re a “terrorist”. In 2002, I was stopped at Bush Intercontinental Airport and subjected to SWAT team interrogations, for absolutely no reason except that my name was Maha. A white Delta employee at check-in was kind enough to report me (for national security’s sake, of course). It’s a very belittling and awful feeling, to be subjected to racism. Suddenly, your personality and your achievements are trashed for your name and what your skin color is. And often times, there isn’t a single thing you can do about it.

But I’ve learned, through attaining my own independence from unfortunate aspects of my bicultural identity, that racism is very much psycho-social. Individuals with racist tendencies have failed, for the most part, to establish their own personal identities. It is easier to elevate one’s ethnic, religious or national background to a higher level over another than to endure deep introspection geared towards understanding and strengthening insecurities surrounding personal identity. At the microcosmic level, this could be controlled. If an individual exhibits racist behavior, he or she can be consequently restrained.

At the macrocosmic, state-level, however, it becomes a rather nasty problem.

Being Asian in the gulf Middle East

When I was 8 years old I watched my mom get pushed into a kitchen at an Arab wedding and ordered to serve drinks to the guests. The mother of the bride didn’t realize that my mom was a guest. She was, in fact, personally invited by the bride (a former student of my mom’s), who wanted her favorite teacher to be there on her special day. The reason my mom’s sequined scarf and make-up went ignored is because my mom is Malaysian.

Let me take you back. The years my family spent in Kuwait are littered with uncomfortable incidents like the one described above. We moved to Kuwait about a year after the Iraqi invasion was over, and shaken from the war, Kuwait was hugely xenophobic in the early ‘90’s. My parents were working in a village called Batu Buruk (Ugly Stones), Terengganu on the east coast of Malaysia before they were offered better-paying jobs as instructors in the Middle East, and as Muslims with a romanticised idea of the region that gave the world the Prophet (swt) and the Quran, my parents were excited that their kids would grow up in such a privileged environment. They packed up their three girls (ages 1-5) and flew to Kuwait University, Shuwaikh.

My village Malay gave way to a gulf Arabic accent in school, and one of the first teases I got was for being “yabaneezy” (Japanese). When my mom came for PTA meetings the teachers would give surprised looks and tell my mom her English was good. My mom’s first couple of months as an instructor at the Sharia’ College for Girls was rocky with repeated explanations that she was the teacher. No she wasn’t the tea lady, no she wasn’t the cleaner; she was the teacher. “Mudarasa” my mom would say in Arabic and the students would continue to give her wary looks. Luckily my mom was a great teacher, because it would only take a couple of weeks for those same wary students to become enthralled by her classes and her zany humor. “Miss wallah I love you, you must meet my family!” On days when I visited the office with my sisters, a hail of black abaya robes would descend on us and leave lipstick streaks across our cheeks. “Ya Allah Ms. Jenifah you have many children and you are still so small mashallah!” They’d look at my almost-five-feet mother, mousy in her own baggy abaya and wonder how they started out with such different assumptions. It was unfortunate that not all Kuwaitis could be in my mom’s classes.

The same could not be said for my dad. At 6-foot-6-inches, blue eyes and as white bread as Iowa makes them, my dad was regarded as the big American hero who fought the Iraqis (which, as an instructor from Ugly Stones, he hadn’t). Kuwaitis didn’t trust any foreigners or other Arabs, but if you were American you were given rockstar treatment. Shop clerks would smile at you, people on the street would go up to you, and if you were an instructor at the University, the women would swoon.

And swoon they did. My dad would come back after teaching to his office and find that love letters had been stuffed under the door and a few giggly girls in abaya waiting outside. My dad received offers for a second or third wife on a regular basis. At first my parents would laugh at these gestures, but the overwhelming attention bolstered my dad’s ego while the tactless prejudice bogged down my mom’s confidence and self esteem, setting what was once a stable marriage onto a rocky patch of misunderstanding and injured feelings.

Eventually the racial attitudes towards our family and the lack of affordable good schools drove my family to move back to Malaysia. After a couple of years of settling down, my parents received job offers from the Middle East again, but this time in the Emirates. My siblings and I refused to go back, but after being assured that we’d be going to international schools this time, we relented. We were happy to find that racial attitudes in the Emirates are much improved from the ones in Kuwait. For one thing the Emirates is more cosmopolitan, and the university my parents teach at is a hodge-podge mix of local and expatriate students. As American-Malaysians we found our niche among the other halfsies and 3rd culture kids of Emirati-Iranian, Polish-Greek, Egyptian-Philippina, and the Lebanese-Cypriot types. We were finally not weird: we were just like everyone else.

My mom still encounters a few awkward situations in the Emirates, but nowhere near the scale that she had in Kuwait. Recently with Obama’s election we can see that racial attitudes are slowly shifting in the US as they do in my mom’s classroom. Justice Sonia Sotomayor once said that “stereotyping is perhaps the most insidious of all problems in society today,” and we found that to be true, but it’s also true that this insidious problem can be dealt with—from the students in my mom’s classroom to the attendees of President Obama’s speeches. It’s not enough that anyone can be a good teacher or president in theory: Sometimes a country needs to see the black president at the White House leading, and sometimes people need to see the Malaysian woman in hijab standing at the white board teaching. Perhaps the change isn’t as big or as radical as most of us would prefer it, but if one person can change the way they think of other races, it makes that much of a difference when they respect people like my mom who expect discrimination.

My mom continues to teach in the Middle East, only this time she’s armed with experience, that same zany humor, and hundreds of students and friends that love, respect and admire her.

What the NAACP Means to Me

As a brown-skinned immigrant who has spent 25 years working for racial justice, I owe a good deal of my life to the legacy of the NAACP. So I attended and watched the organization’s centennial convention in New York this week, with both gratitude and the urge to contribute.

My family emigrated to the United States from India when I was five, which would have been impossible if the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act hadn’t removed country quotas under the pressure of the civil rights ethic.

When I became a community organizer at age 20, I found an inspiring set of groups to work with—few would have existed without the movement’s example and infrastructure.

Yet, my very presence in this country, and my activism, symbolize the demographic and political trends that have changed the racial justice struggle since those days some 40 years ago. Today’s context includes great numbers of non-black people of color, complicating the way in which racism plays out. Certainly there have always been activist indigenous Asian, Latino and Arab communities, but there’s no question that recent immigration has driven our numbers up, expanding our presence in small cities, suburbs and rural areas where we never used to be.

The dominant racial dynamic of the 21st Century is not solely black and white, but a complex hierarchy in which multiple groups of color shift around according to geography, economic status and political power. While communities of color all relate to racism, we don’t experience it in exactly the same way.

I’ve spent most of my career building multiracial organizations and alliances, working with black, Latino and immigrant communities to win new health programs, to protect labor rights, to control the police and to reform school systems. In the early days, I made the “same boat” argument for sticking together—racism oppresses us all in one way or another. But eventually the very real differences between our positions would arise. Immigrants had language problems at the local hospital, but black people were routinely denied high quality treatment through discrimination that was much harder to prove. Black men experience racial profiling while driving, while South Asian and Arab Americans get it at the airport, and law enforcement justifies those actions in different ways.

Sometimes, in some places, people of color exercise their power in ways that hurt other people of color. At some point, cooperation based on abstract solidarity turned into competition based on specific grievances about the higher step someone else appears to occupy on the ladder.

We can prepare for that moment and deal with it constructively, and dozens of groups across the country have managed to do just that. Being ready means building a broad agenda to expand resources, educating ourselves about other communities, and, most of all, acting as if we’re in the same movement, if not the same boat.

I’ve been privy to a great example in the restaurant industry through my participation in and writing about the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROCU). In any high-end restaurant in any city, we will find the same racial arrangement: white people, whom employers consider attractive enough to speak to diners, in the living wage jobs at the front of the house; immigrants of color at the dangerous low-wage jobs in the back of the house; and black Americans missing entirely, relegated to fast food.

The obstacles we face in accessing the industry’s benefits vary according to employers’ faulty perceptions of our relative worth. Breaking down that hierarchy requires thinking it through, which almost always leads to a complicated set of solutions. Training programs, new hiring and promotion policies, immigration reform and the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws are just a few strategies that ROCU pushes in cities like New York, Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago. ROCU meetings take place in multiple languages, and organizers make constant adjustments to make sure the group is truly inclusive.

That’s the essential challenge facing the NAACP too: being a racial justice leader in a multiracial nation. Its new president, Ben Jealous, is committed to revitalizing the organization—nothing and nobody gets to be 100 without getting a little weary—in ways that connect its current membership to the rest of us. He uses the broader language of human rather than civil rights and works hard to inspire young people, who barely blinked through his speech to the Youth and College Division at the convention.

I’m not attached to the NAACP changing its complexion. The organization doesn’t have to be fully multiracial to meet the challenge set by Jealous. Black people need their organizations, and other communities of color also need black communities to be well organized. As we do our work, though, we need to do it together, regardless of how we’ve arranged ourselves. The solutions we come to will differ, but we can stand up for them together, grounded in our commitment to dismantling the racial hierarchy as thoroughly as we can over the next 100 years.

The author, a social justice activist from the Indian American community, explores the role of the venerable rights organization and the kind of leadership necessary going forward in a multiracial nation.

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Rinku Sen is the president of Applied Research Center and Publisher of ColorLines magazine.
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This article appeared on New America Media.

Exploring racial divides in America

What is your race? Check all that apply.

I’m brown. Latina. Hispanic. Whatever. There’s no way around it.

Since 1790, the American government has been racially classifying and socially constructing labels for us – people of all colors and looks – to help “identify” or “place” us in society, with each U.S. Census allowing for more racial categories. Are they necessary? I don’t know, but they’re there and it’s not realistic to easily eradicate a racial system that has existed for centuries.

I don’t look black, white or oriental. I’m brown, or whatever other title is applicable. That’s what I am, that’s how I’m seen and it’s what I know. And I’m OK with it.

I do have to say, though, that there is a slight hostility between the numerous ethnic groups that are placed under the umbrella term Latino. Guatemalans or Salvadorans are not the same as Mexicans or Cubans.

Despite people of Hispanic/Latino origin coming from different countries and diverse cultural backgrounds, most people don’t understand the differences between us, especially those who lie outside the brown umbrella.

We’re mostly perceived as Mexicans because of the booming Mexican population in California. Yes, there are similarities. Yes, we have almost the same exact experiences with the challenges we face, our parents or just simply growing up.

But we’re different. Our cultures are completely different. Our ways of speaking are different. Our value systems and ways of thinking are different. Our food and music is different. Just because we have some similar qualities like dark skin, hair and eyes doesn’t mean we’re all the same.

Just as Koreans aren’t the same as Chinese or blacks aren’t the same as Haitians. Yet, I’m still assumed to be Mexican, which is the prevalent thought, I suppose.

I don’t think I’ve ever faced blatant racism or discrimination, though. However, maybe indirectly I have.

I’ve usually been followed physically, with the eyes or by a camera whenever I go into stores, most of which are owned or managed by Asians in my area. It is the most irritating thing to be looked at as if I’m going to steal something and even more irritating to be followed while they’re pretending to just be cleaning or organizing.

I’m not dumb and I’m not blind. And I definitely don’t need to steal your cheap things that I can easily buy, is what I usually think. Is it them just being paranoid or is it me and the stereotype I carry that calls for that type of surveillance?

I don’t know, but it’s there.

I’ve also been to wealthy Brentwood neighborhood stores, most of which attract white customers, and have been looked at almost immediately.

Maybe they don’t get too many people like us in their stores? Do I look diseased? Or is it the fact that I’m a beaner/wetback/illegal in their store? Is that too harsh?

Maybe it’s just the reality of how I’m perceived by some.

When my mom came to the U.S. from El Salvador she started working as a housekeeper for wealthy families and continues to work for one in Brentwood. However, she was once fired from her job with a well-known sportscaster; his wife thought she was stealing, which she wasn’t.

She also takes the bus daily and as she waited at her bus stop with other housekeepers, she would come in conflict with an older white woman who lives in the apartment complex near the stop. She repeatedly told my mom to get off of her property or she’s going to call the police and immigration officials.

It’s kind of typical for people to try to intimidate those who look a certain way or don’t speak English as well. These things can’t be sugarcoated.

Furthermore, I don’t know how much President Obama’s election has changed for people. It was a milestone and the blood, sweat and tears of millions of people coat the huge hurdles that were crossed to get to this point.

He is a man who encompasses the wealthy, poor, whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics. He’s the one who brought the world together, marking one of the most momentous days in American history.

But he is just one man. It’s going to take all of us to change the status quo and progress to a compassionate and accepting future, especially being that this country was founded on diversity.

However, recent events show that some people in society aren’t interested in accepting certain racial groups, making it more difficult to believe that Obama’s election alone will make us move forward.

For example, the Orange County Register reported that on July 4, two men – one bearing a swastika tattoo on his left shoulder – allegedly committed a hate crime against Maria Guadarrama, a 45-year-old custodian in Ladera Ranch, Orange County. She said in a press conference that as they stabbed her they yelled racial slurs, calling her a worthless Mexican.

On the day Americans across the country celebrate the nation’s independence and freedom, two men decided to attack a woman because of her ethnicity and attempt to silence a race as a whole.

Irony at its best.

A letter to immigrants past and present

“I am searching for words that do not betray me.”

There was a time when television was enjoyable.  Now announcer words infuriate me; as such I watch it less because I told myself I would never be that one member of the family who was always yelling at the people inside the show. Yet even as screen sits silent, the words still echo inside eardrums:

“They are taking our jobs….”

My father was born in 1936 in Wyoming to my grandparents after they crossed. He had asthma, so he had difficulty filling the 30-pound sack wrapped around his waist with potatoes that brought in nickels for the family. In the evenings, he would pass the time with his siblings chasing the trucks that sprayed DDT on the fields. He was five. Pesticides are a known cause of cancer and birth defects. Fifty-five years forward, two of my grandfather’s daughters would die from cancer. I am grateful my father is still living.

“But they are criminals…..”

The other morning my phone rang earlier than normal. It was a colleague who taught at a Middle School in Watts. His voice strained, he said simply: one of my students need’s help; immigration raided her home last night and took away her mother for not having papers. She is left alone and does not know where to go or where they took her mom. Can you offer any help?

An eleven-year-old little girl with caramel colored skin and eyes almond shaped now faces life inside a foster system because under the cover of shadows, men with badges stole her mother. I often wish that theft of one’s childhood were a crime.

“Remember this is OUR country”

There are days where my skin pretends to be of another nationality, but my tongue betrays me. English is the only language it speaks. However my soul is tri-lingual, dancing across dialects: local, global and spiritual.  It sings hymns that remind me borders are imaginary lines reinforced with real weaponry; my heart carves poems that challenge an economy of fear that entire banking systems are built upon.

In arguments, I am able to offer an array of data that counters every common misconception of immigrants in the public realm. Remind individuals that an undocumented immigrant pays a higher percentage of their taxes than the average citizen, is less likely to commit a crime, or use illegal substances than the average citizen. FBI research shows that the highest amount of drug abuse happens in affluent communities and so forth.

Yet this is not the dialogue I want to build upon. One that reduces immigration to numbers and statistics, economics and self-interest, rather than the sweat, flesh, blood, and tears that comprise the lives of those who live a human reality complicated by immigration policies, whether they are documented or not.  I was raised to speak with people, not about them - and reminded to do otherwise is rude.

The phrase “this is ours” implies  a separate class of people who must be told “this is not yours.” If “ours” is a collective ownership of a land and an idea that is limited in access, I ask those who use such phrases how they obtained ownership of said idea or land: was it purchased, inherited, passed on? When did Earth sign your deed of purchase? I know my family’s experience, have ancestors who played drums that  echoed across deserts before America was even imagined, when India was a dream in an explorer’s hat. Look closely at your deed of ownership,  chances are it was signed with our blood. I will write love poems that transcends legal limitations, I will decolonize my imagination and language, speak new words that do not betray me. I will remind myself, I am human, and recite it like mantra.

Life. Love. Language. Land
These are all the things ever stolen from us. They are everything we will reclaim.

How two illegal voyages led to my American Dream

My mom was 4-years-old when she first dreamed about going to the United States. Sitting in front of the church in the impoverished village she grew up in, called Paraiso de Osorio in El Salvador, she watched a newsreel of President John F. Kennedy giving a speech, with the American flag waving in the background. Watching those images, she said to herself that the United States was where she wanted to go.

She was born in 1954 and grew up in a small village where there were dirt roads, no hospitals, fire or police stations, and no water or electricity. My mom rarely wore shoes. There were also seven other children in the family, making it more difficult to have aspirations in a life filled with destitution.

My dad was also influenced and inspired by Kennedy. He used to get care packages to feed children, which the U.S. sent through a program started by Kennedy. My dad was born in 1950 in a city called Santo Tomas, where he lived in a tin-roof house and showered with cold water in the outhouse. Working at age 17 to provide for his mother and sister, my dad had a strong work ethic and desire to leave his country.

Kennedy’s politics also had an impact on my dad, who grew as the radical and revolutionary type in the Central American country. But his love for the political climate in the war-torn country – which eventually erupted into a violent 12-year civil war – didn’t make him stay. He needed money to survive and he wasn’t finding it there.

Separately, my parents left the country in 1978 and began their illegal voyages, walking through mountains, dirt and mud to cramp into vans and big rigs with other immigrants headed on the same path. They made their way to the City of Angels.

For 11 days, my mom traveled through Guatemala, Mexico and into the United States. She paid three smugglers working together $900 to take her from El Salvador to L.A. My mom and 21 other immigrants walked from Tijuana to San Diego for 10 hours. Struggling to walk through the hills and mountains, several immigrants collapsed from exhaustion. After making it to San Diego, there was still the trip to Los Angeles. She and 80 others cramped into a hot and humid big rig. People fainted and almost suffocated. However, when the truck reached San Clemente, immigration officials stopped it for 25 minutes. They knocked on the truck and asked if anyone was there. The immigrants remained silent.

My mom arrived to a parking lot in downtown L.A. She shared an apartment with six other women. There are only two options for immigrants: working in a factory or housekeeping. But at a factory she would have been easily caught and it paid very little. She became a housekeeper for wealthy families, something she still does.

Throughout my dad’s trip, he met men who played folk songs to keep them positive about their journey to America. Arriving to Tijuana, he found a smuggler and crossed rivers and mountains into San Diego. He arrived to the same apartment my mom lived in. Landing his first job as a brick layer, he made $2.50 an hour, which was substantially more than what he used to make. However, the boss didn’t find his work satisfactory and started yelling at him: “Get out of here you f-ing Mexican!” Starting in 1979, there were random raids in Hispanic-dominated areas. My dad recalls one weekend of fun that ended in his deportation. There was a party in the apartment, and my dad, mom and aunt were sitting outside on the apartment steps. An immigration van came and they ran. My dad was hit in the head, dragged off and deported. He came back a couple of months later and found a job as a mold-maker in a factory where he still works after 30 years.

They became naturalized citizens in 1996. Gaining legality, they were able to cast their first votes for President Bill Clinton.

Looking at how my parents desperately wanted to leave their third-world country, I can’t blame them or others like them from wanting to come to America, legally or not. Should they come here legally? Yes, but how easy and possible is that? It can take years. I have a half-sister from El Salvador who has been waiting over 10 years just to get a Visa. With such animosity and anti-immigrant sentiment directed towards Hispanics, it’s a shame that we still blame a people who come for survival, the way past immigrants of different cultures and races did. In my case, my parents never went on welfare or asked for handouts, and still managed to own a home. My parents worked to own their home. They’re illegal journey made me who I am today and made what I’ve accomplished possible. I have an education and am a graduate thanks to them. Luckily I’ve surpassed any poverty my parents faced as children. We’re not the stereotype or the villains in this country like we’re made out to be. But because I’m “brown,” that’s the stigma placed on me. I know what it is to be brown, but maybe not to the extent of others who probably face more and much worse than I ever have. I recently heard of a proposed California ballot initiative for next year’s June election that would require parents to prove U.S. citizenship or legal residency to receive their child’s birth certificate. If they can’t, they would have to pay for a certificate acknowledging the child’s “Birth to a Foreign Parent.” Does that mean that because my parents weren’t lawfully here when I was born I wouldn’t be a considered a U.S. citizen? Does that mean future generations won’t get that chance? Through my parents experience, I’ve developed the empathy and sympathy to understand their plights. And such a measure is unfortunate, especially in a country that supposedly embraces differences and encourages economic prosperity.

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Editor’s Note: Minority Dreams asked its readers and writers to submit personal immigration stories, explain why it matters and how it has shaped them individually. Juliette Funes recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton and is interning at the LA Times Calender Desk.

Building Ourselves in America

As far back as I can remember, my family’s life has stretched across two parts of the world: America and the Middle East. We tore our hearts in two and buried them on opposite ends of the globe, traveling between them as we chased after a higher cause my dad labeled i’mar al-ard. Although the phrase doesn’t translate very well in English, it means something like “building the world,” and was my dad’s way of dedicating his life to doing something – anything – that would leave a positive impact on this planet he called home.

As he taught us later, building the world was a simple cycle in which we learned as much as humanly possible about the world we were in, while simultaneously working to make that world a better place. It was a wonderfully vague life plan that could adapt to any dream, take root in any soil. It would propel us around the globe, where we would meet all colors of people, and would (at least I hope) make us quite colorful as well. But my dad would never have dreamed, as he lay on his balcony in Syria watching the sky like a teenage Ché Guevara, that it would take him and his future family to America.

In preparation for his bit of building the world, my father spent his youth chasing knowledge the way he used to chase soccer balls in the alleys of Damascus. From the clutches of his family he ran to college in neighboring Halab. From a war that rained bombs in Halab he ran to Saudi Arabia to explore the uncharted territories of computer science. When machines didn’t satisfy his curiosity about the world, he set his sights on a place across the globe that was said to have enough libraries to satiate even Averroes. He and his wife packed all of their belongings in two suitcases, grabbed their two infants and jumped across a few continents and an ocean before landing in the middle of Chicago. They had nothing but those two suitcases, three thousand dollars in their wallets, and countless prayers to God – who they called by His Arabic name, Allah – that things would turn out alright.

My parents, when they set out, had no idea what was waiting for them in the country that was home to Hollywood and the White House. They would have been shocked to hear that they were going to stay there for over a decade, rather than the five years they had envisioned. They couldn’t foresee the Muslim communities that would take them in as long-lost cousins, my mom’s discovery of teaching and addiction to Burger King, my dad’s multiple lives as student, car dealer and activist, or their children’s mastery of English at the expense of the language of the Quran.

They didn’t know that a few years later they would make another life-changing trip, this time halfway across the continent, after my dad discovered an unmatchable political science program and a liberal Islamic Center in Los Angeles.  They would fall in love with the San Fernando Valley, which eased the pain of homesickness with of all the Muslims it held in its lap and with its mountains, sisters of the mountains that encircled Damascus. I only understood what they were talking about years later when I drove through Damascus for the first time, and felt a sudden pang for the LA home I’d left when I was fifteen.

By the end of my freshman year of high school, we had decided to move to the Middle East, this time to Dubai. With two master’s degrees and a PhD under his belt, my dad felt that the time for his formal education was over. It was now to be the era of building. Building bridges between the two parts of the globe dearest to him. And as for us kids, it was time for us to formally meet the other half of our hearts – the annual summer trips we’d taken back to the Middle East were not enough to make us Middle Easterners. So we carted ourselves off to Dubai, not knowing whether to laugh or cry the whole way there.

Years later in the Middle East, my family is still under the spell of i’mar al-ard: that endless cycle of learning and working. And we’re still torn between our two halves. My dad makes trips back to the U.S. once or twice a year, my brother and I are doing our undergrad at a local American university with our eyes on New York for work and grad school, and my mom is a lover of all things organic in the best tradition of California culture.

But while we’re each busy trying to build our own world, it’s important to stop and recognize what built us. Among the many forces in our lives, America had no small role in helping us with our i’mar al-nafs, our “building the self.” It is the privileges, challenges and pleasures of American life that made us who we are today. And from the many lessons America taught us, perhaps the most important one is this: new worlds can always be created from those already existing. It’s a lesson we hold tight to, no matter what part of this Earth we find ourselves in.

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Editor’s Note: Minority Dreams asked its readers and writers to submit personal immigration stories, explain why it matters and how it has shaped them individually. Nour Merza is a regular contributor at Minority Dreams and keeps a blog at Crisscrossing Borders.

Generation You: Immigration

The Obama Administration just announced plans to tackle immigration reform by sometime this summer. We’re asking you, our readers, writers and commentators, what do you think?

Abrahim Appel of Minority Dreams said:

The debate over immigration is a debate over how human we allow people to be if they are born outside of the boarders and enter. How much should we belittle people is the question. This is balanced by the very real fact of cultural change and static based on such change that at the very least will bring in new traditions and standards for success and the very most, riots and lynchings.
This debate in this country is juvenile at best because Americans do not recognize that the only time we want immigrants is when an industry needs them. The only time America talks of immigration problems is when that culture of people begins to feel at home, demand some form equality or adjust the standards of living that takes away from some form of profit.
The immigration-debate really serves no other people other than the purpose of economic enrichment of the Americas business owning class.and the fears of class-ism.
In a country that refuses to speak new languages, learn about even Southern America and has a marine symbol that treats the whole hemisphere as if it were the United States, has 172 military bases across the world, two occupations, Puerto Rico has taxation without representation - it is the American empire that needs to have its migration revoked. [Don't blame] the hard working people who visit and make the wheels turn, who then infuriate us as if they were criminals, when they live where we do.

Jena Johnson of Chicago sent an excerpt of Theodore Roosevelt’s view of immigration in 1907 1919:

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.
But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American.. There can be no! divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American , but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but on language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.” -Roosevelt.

What is Generation You?

‘Generation You’ is an open conversation that revolves around a monthly issue. These topics affect various minority communities and your participation is critical. We hope to hear fresh voices and build a community of progressive minds.

Join the Conversation!

Whether you’re an avid blogger, represent an organization or just want to post your reply, we want to hear from you! To participate in this month’s Generation You, contact me at Urmi@minoritydreams.com.

Generation You: Racism

Controversy erupted last week when the NY Post published an editorial cartoon of a chimp being killed by police and an implication of the federal stimulus package.

With no visual signs specifying who or what the  Jan. 18 cartoon was referring to, many viewers branded it a racist portrayal of President Barack Obama - the one in charge of signing off on the bill.

The Post offered an apology Friday to those genuinely offended by its cartoon, saying, “It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.” They steered clear however, of apologizing to those who might be seeking “payback” for past differences.

With the aim of breeding dialogue and understanding, Minority Dreams asked its readers, “What do you think?” Here’s what some had to say…

What’s your opinion of the New York Post’s satirical cartoon that has linked President Barack Obama to a raging chimpanzee shot dead by police?

“What is truly happening here is the psychological discomfort and ignorance of the white- American, who is being forced into the public space. European Americans are wrestling with the new realities that challenge all the inside jokes and discomforts with black people that have existed in this country since the first pilgrim. We will face the challenges of Barack’s representation often. It is similar to the interview John McCain did with Bill O’reily. Bill asked if the white power structure that America has was being threatened by the American left during the [presidential] election.

The cartoon was essentially saying that Obama’s first victory as president could have been written by a monkey and Obama, like the monkey, went wild. [He] had gone crazy with spending and was not controllable and so needed to be shot by two white New York policemen (long a symbol of white authority and comfort to the white community or power community in the United States.) There is no other markings within the cartoon to signify that the cartoon is talking about anyone other than the person identified in pop-culture with the stimulas bill.

Like many racist cartoons, the violence in it is unnerving. The blood and holes from the bullets showing. Would they have shown a dog representing, say, Bill Clinton’s sexcapades with the same blood and bullet holes? It is a good question to place for perspective. The cool demeanor of the officers is similar to the long history of the European-American being calm and collected and the Non-European being seen as untrustworthy, easily excitable and needing brute force to be tamed.

But what it really comes down to is: does Barack act like a monkey? The reason I ask this is because racism, as opposed to parody or irony, uses illogical comparisons. When Bush was first elected, many cartoons including [those at] the OC Weekly compared him to Curious George. The difference is that Barack does not seem like Curious George. A reasonable person will see a leader, [who] they disagree or agree with, [who] is under-dramatic, well polished, accessible and yet in constant control of his image. So can we fairly satirize Obama as the same monkey that attacked [someone] and was so berserk, that it needed to be shot?

What has really caused the uproar is not that we see a monkey and say it’s racist, but that we see the monkey and it doesn’t make sense. So we wonder, why is this monkey being shot for the stimulus bill and why didn’t they use an elephant to represent the democratic party? Why isn’t there monkeys with congressional suits or different animals? Then with the breath being hit out of us, we think of the image of Barack Obama not tainted by white fear and pride. We shake our heads knowing we wouldn’t make that mistake with that image in our head. Even more complexing is that the stimulus bill passed, so when did it get shot down?

This cartoon is about authority and representation.

I read a book called Capitol Men, it was about the history of Reconstruction (around 1865-1870) through the lives of the first elected black Congressmen. Like Obama’s election, people cried and said they never thought they would live to see the day. But the author points out that because these former slaves, now free men, were so good and so opposite of the white racist perceptions of them that a deep resentment grew in the South. And then the North, as jobs fell away, people got tired of the civil war and clans began lynching people - reconstruction died.

Remember the cartoon says, “Well I guess we’re gonna have to get someone else to write the stimulus bill” It was [representing] the one responsible for the bill, not the bill itself lying their shot.”

–Abrahim Appel, 30, in-home assistant to the elderly from Fullerton, California.

“Well, I think it’s childish on both parties. Why do we waste our time crying over some stupid cartoon picture? Why are we giving these people the very attention they so desperately want?

The fact is, Bush was run through the mill. Clinton was run through the mill. I don’t know of any single public figure that hasn’t been ridiculed or made fun of by their critics. It’s a sad fact of life. Who in this life has escaped the back lash of their critics? The fact is that if you don’t have critics – you have a problem. You must not be making much of a difference!”

–Jena Johnson, 31, Chicago.

Do you think there are sufficient racial overtones? Is this racism or are rights groups over-reacting?

”This is a subject that tires me like non other. Wow. We as America have committed ourselves to be this ‘melting pot.’ Maybe that is forcing something that can only take place with time.

Let me explain…I am a pastor’s wife of a very diverse church in Chicago. My husband and I are a minority family in this church. We have people from all over the world and they naturally tend to socialize with their own kind. It has grieved me in the past, but I’ve come to realize that trying to force inter-racial relationships at the church has done more harm than good. What happens is, it draws even MORE attention to the fact that we are so different. When I have downplayed the issue, people tend to not think about it and sort of mingle in their own time.

It’s an awesome thing to watch. Jews mingling with Iraqis, whites mingling with blacks, Assyrians and Mexicans, Cambodians and Indians. I’ve learned a good lesson with the whole racial thing. It’s just a natural thing for groups of people with a common culture to gravitate towards each other. This does not mean that they are racist. They are human beings doing what is natural. The more we have outings and gatherings, the more we discover what we have in common. It takes great patience and time to allow this phenomenon to happen.

America is long past the black/white issue. It’s really quite amazing when you look at the recent past just how far we’ve come. I think it’s best now to let these races mingle on their own in their own time. Bringing up the past only pours salt on the wound. I have also felt that African Americans have held on to this bitterness and hate for so long that they are enslaving themselves over and over and over again. It’s a sad thing to watch.

Unfortunately, no one dares address the issue for fear of being labeled a racist. So, it seems to me that in trying so desperately to force this great melting pot of a nation to desegregate, we only draw more attention to our differences instead of our likeness. I think this desegregation is placing way too much expectation on people. Let them mingle in their own time. It will happen. It just takes time, patience, and lots of love.”

–Jena Johnson, 31, Chicago.

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Generation You: Religion

With Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration right around the corner, Minority Dreams asked students, activists, leaders and educators about his full name and the rise of Islamophobia.

Q: How do you feel about Barack Hussein Obama using his full name during the inauguration speech on Jan. 20, 2009?

“Barack Obama’s inauguration will be a undercover test of character. True, his middle name has Islamic origins, but it does not necessarily mean he is Muslim – a label which many of he peers would consider to be political suicide. I think he should use his middle name. Why should he hide part of his name? He should be true to his name and identity – a black man, whose FATHER was Muslim, who will be the next President of the United States of America.” – Aysha Mohsin, law student at University of Southern California

“If he hides “Hussein” people will manipulate it and interpret it the way they want to. It’s better if he holds his name and explains it himself. I don’t think he identifies himself as being Muslim, so I don’t think he’s appealing to Muslim Americans or Muslims in general.” – Noor Higley, activist, Washington DC

“I think he should use his full name. We should all be proud of our names and Mr. Obama should be proud of his. Our names give us some insight on what our ethnic or cultural background is. With such a name as his, it has shown how far our country has come in embracing not only people but leaders of diverse backgrounds.” – Curtis Schlaufman, president of Associated Students Inc. at Cal State Fullerton

“I don’t think using Obama’s middle name should be an issue at all. It’s his name, period. The issue of using a middle name wasn’t a subject to debate when Bush or Clinton were inaugurated. I think he should spell it out, loud and proud.” – Rashad Al-dabbagh, Access California Services, Anaheim, Calif.

“I think he should use his full name. All the other presidents that I can remember watching used theirs.” – Anthony Ragazzo, lecturer at Cal State Fullerton

Q: Do you feel there has been a rise in Islamophobia [prejudice against or stereotyping of Muslims] in recent years in America? How & Why?

“Islamophobia is becoming the unsaid norm for much of the country. Living in California we don’t see it as much, nor do we hear it in the media or news reports since much of the incidences go unreported. Being Muslim, Pakistani and a student, I come to hear of attacks on students at universities, professors making discriminating remarks and especially racial profiling by authority figures. I, myself, have fallen prey to racial profiling many times. It has become common, almost expected, for me to be stopped every single time I fly for intense security screening. I suspect my name, Aysha, is the red flag.

The creation of the term “Islamophobia” itself should be an indicator that there has been a rise in incidences so much so that a term needed to be created to categorize these events.  It is true that Islamophobia has been at an increased state for quite some and fluctuates surrounding global events. Depending on the international political climate, people tend to be more outspoken and become more Islamophobic. In my opinion Islamophobia is becoming more and more common and almost accepted.

When you travel outside California [and] see what the rest of the nation thinks of Islam, Muslims, the war and the East, you would be shocked. Muslims need to work to help others understand Islam and combat the stereotypes rather than ignoring ignorant remarks.” – Aysha

“Yes. It’s hard to measure Islamophobia, but there have been campaigns designed to make Islam and Muslims look bad, such as the Islamo-fascism campaigns that toured campuses. In terms of foreign policy, the U.S. has occupied Muslim countries for oil in the name of spreading democracy. U.S. foreign policy requires the dehumanization of Muslims to justify the war. The people have not protested the Iraq war as much as they did when America was in Vietnam.

Both Americans and Muslim Americans must take action. Have a campaign that educates the public and our representatives in Congress about the situation, how racism can take different shapes and forms.” – Noor

“I do feel that there has been a rise in Islamophobia, mostly because of the attacks on September 11th. Unfortunatly the majority of people don’t quite understand Islam or it’s ideals and values. People fear what they don’t understand and to get over that obstacle we must all be educated.

It’s a matter of interacting with people who have roots in Islam and learning about different religions in school. The more the public is educated the less fear there is.” - Curtis