Little Red Rising

At the close of the film the audience had grown noticeably larger and on the other side of the room I saw a familiar face. Jose received a warm welcome as he made his way to the stage. Among the panel with Jose was Marisol Conde Hernandez (Co-founder of NJ Dream Act Coalition and Rutgers Newark Law Student) and Giancarlo Tello (Campaign Chair for NJ United Tuition Equity for DREAMers campaign and Rutgers FASN student).

They answered questions from the audience that formed a line behind microphone. I took some hand written notes during the Q& A. Here are the parts that are clear to me after the fact:

Q – With marriage equality, can you obtain administrative relief?

A – Jose – admission disbars one from any admin relief.

Q – The text under the title of the film “illegal immigrant” is crossed with “undocumented American” underneath. Why?

A – Language matters, it determines the conversation we have. (He might have said he was conscious of this as a writer)

Q – Has it benefited your career as a journalist to be “out”?

A – Yes, the work is richer now than before, it is more honest.

The long line of students waiting to speak to him was awe inspiring. I did not have such an experience being an undocumented undergrad. I was happy that in their respective situations that they could have each other and also someone like Jose as an advocate. I was also happy that the immigration debate was at a point where the language is more widely used and the climate was such that it was okay to utter the words, “I am undocumented.” Some of them just wanted to tell their stories and express that his work spoke to their hearts. One petite woman tilted the mic to her and told Jose that her English was not so good but said that she was a legal resident. Despite this she has had many experiences where people seemed to question her rights because she was Hispanic. Jose commented that he found it pernicious that the words Mexican and illegal were often synonymous.

An African-American woman also told Jose that she recently visited Great Britain. She said that whenever she told anyone where she was from, she was regarded with a certain kind of awe being an American. She told Jose that part of her felt like a fraud because she was “looked up to” by the people outside of the country yet “this” (our immigration issues) was going on in the United States. Jose had a pained and also humbled look on his face. He said that he could not imagine what an African-American woman experienced in our country but was grateful that she could make the connection with him.

Another woman told the panel that time was an issue for her. She was currently undocumented and waiting for her father to sponsor her so she could become legal. She was going to be 21 soon. The process could not happen fast enough as she will no longer be eligible after she turns 21. The panel member Marisol told her that she must work through her anxiety and live her life. Marisol is an undocumented law student and said she has to work through similar issues of one day starting a life with a family. Honestly, this was one of my issues having been undocumented. The anxiety of it all is paralyzing. Forget waiting for the fateful day ICE comes to your door. Working through the anxiety means having to function beyond the fear to hold down a job, be a student or navigate through young adulthood.  It took the entire decade of my 20s to “work through” the anxiety. I might have made better decisions without it but as it is, there is no getting back lost time. This woman and I connected briefly since we were sitting in the same row and were both from Pennsylvania.

The panel urged us to do the work towards immigration reform in a grass roots fashion. They said in 1986, the amnesty bill was passed as a result of Irish immigrants that lobbied hard for change. We were in this together and would only succeed together. There was also some mention of the “othering” of immigrants post 9/11 when organizations like the Immigration Naturalization Service (INS) became the Department of Homeland Security and the US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created.

There was strong disappointment towards the President in his delay of an immigration reform announcement until after the November elections. The disappointment was echoed by the audience. The panel urged us not to be used as a democratic pawn because the issue transcended both parties.

Close to 3pm the Q&A session had to be stopped since Jose had another engagement. I also had to leave since I had to pick up my son at daycare 2 hours away. We were told that Define American was recording videos of the audience if they wanted to share their stories with Define American. When Jose walked towards Rev. Eller, I was introduced to him after several members of the audience got up to shake his hand. In my mind, I wanted to greet him in Tagalog and express my reverence, excitement and respect. In reality, I responded like a 12 year old responds to her favorite activist. I must be honest, nothing intelligible came out of my mouth. I believe I said the words “Filipino history”, “blog” and “stalker”. I don’t even remember telling him my name. There is a reason why I am not in the field or marketing or the “front man” when engaging a conference room full of colleagues. I did exchange information with Jose’s team so perhaps it won’t be the last time we meet.

In the end, it is my shared history with Jose as Filipinos and our respective work towards the same end that keeps our fates intertwined. Apart from politics, this issue is about keeping families together. As much as Jose said “language mattered”, I wish for the day he and his mother are reunited. Like my son and I do every day, they’d hug each other and wouldn’t say a thing.

 

Some interesting information I learned about Rutgers and NJ while I was there:

• Governor Chris Christie approved the Dream Act in Jan 2014.
• Undocumented students are qualified for instate tuition under the premise that they attend a New Jersey high school for at least 3 years and earn a high school diploma or equivalent. They must also sign an affidavit saying that they will adjust their immigration status as soon as they are able to do so.
• Rutgers University is the second institution to provide financial assistance to undocumented youth. Financial aid was not part of the bill that Chris Christie signed.

I identify with Mr. Vargas for many reasons. We are both Filipino, similar in age. We are both writers. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist that has covered Presidential elections. I am newly minted on the Balloon-Juice front page having graduated from my audience of 10 with the other other (a little bit neglected) blog. He is “out” about the most intimate details of his life and at some point I might also consider disclosing details about myself. He is friends with the likes of Mark Zuckerburg and I am a stalker of professors. All and all pretty close right? It remains to be seen if he has a luxurious, tumbleweed generator of a cat but I think not with his hectic travel schedule. This may be where I have Mr. Vargas beat.  My immigrant cat says, “eat your heart out Jose!”

So anyway, there are a couple parts of his story on my mind. On the forefront is him being a child when he made the journey here. My mom and I arrived here in April of 1987, I was 7 going on 8. With us for the trip was a girl named Joy. I did not know her to be a member of my family nor have I seen or heard from her in the 3 decades of my residence here in America. Looking back on it, although I was not an unaccompanied minor, my mother and I accompanied a minor.  I guess as a mom, I would NEVER send my child anywhere without me, unless of course I thought elsewhere without me might be better. In addition to the physical distance, I would not risk destroying the relationship with my child not being there during his most formative years. This is the reality of many of the children that come to the U.S. and many people do take that risk.  For some of us the journey was via Japan Airlines. For someone else I know, it was through the unforgiving southwest dessert via a coyote. At some point I do want to talk about the unaccompanied minors flooding our borders but I need to do some serious homework. For now, I’d like to keep the topic on the 11 million undocumented immigrants already within our borders.

On Jun 15, 2012, President Obama made an announcement that his Administration would no longer deport immigrants that were brought to the U.S. as children. This was the inception of what is known among us as “DACA” or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.  USCIS or United States Citizenship and Immigration Services began accepting applicants for DACA in August and approvals were granted in September of that year. Keep in mind that within the same family, some are eligible for this while others are not. The criteria to be DACA eligible are as follows:

• Under age 31 on June 15, 2012
• U.S. resident since Jun 15, 2007 up until the President’s announcement
• Physically present in the US on Jun 15, 2012 and have had no lawful status or any lawful status you had expired on June 15, 2012
• Applicants should be in school, have graduated from school or have been honorably discharged from the Coast Guard or the U.S. armed forces
• No criminal record or be deemed as a threat to national security or public safety.

USCIS.gov provides explicit instructions on filling out the I-821 (Application for Temporary Protected Status) DACA form as well as the I-765 (Application for Employment Authorization) form. The filing fee for I-821 is 50 dollars. The biometrics fee, where you schlep yourself to a USCIS building or non-descript processing building, after driving around it a few times because you didn’t recognize it, to get your fingerprints taken is 85 dollars. The fee for the I-765 form is 380 dollars.  Please trust me when I say that this is “cheap” compared to the other USCIS forms and having to fill out only 2 forms is not so bad.

Seems like a paradox to provide documentation to a government for a life that by its very nature isn’t recognized as ever having existed.  Yet the DREAMers march on because it is one obstacle of many. Those that have been granted DACA approvals obtained social security numbers and have gone on with their lives with their semi protected status.  DACA recipients must renew in two years. Some have been able to obtain driver’s licenses based on the state in which they live. Unfortunately other have not. For example, you can be a DACA recipient, be legally allowed to work in the state of Arizona and not eligible for a driver’s license.

Like Mr. Vargas, I would not have qualified for DACA because of my age. It was a heartbreaking point in the film when the announcement was made by the President but someone like Mr. Vargas didn’t “fit” the criteria.

This past Friday the House voted to end DACA as well as approve $694 million towards the border crisis. What the two have to do with each other, I am not sure. I know the $694 million is not what the President requested. I am also not sure what ending DACA would do since the people it has already impacted are not going to self-deport. I await the President’s next move.

In April of last year, I started reading a lot about Philippine history. I would call it a binge except it’s been slow. It’s more like permanent residence at a nice restaurant where the each course is very small. At the end, you’re not that full and the bill is an arm and leg, not to mention it was a BYOB.

I started my education on Wikipedia about the People Power Revolution I had lived through as a child prior to our departure. Then I moved on to a book written by a reporter that had a series of interviews with the Marcos’ and the Aquinos (2). This reporter eventually accompanied Aquino on his journey home prior to his assassination. Then I read a general history book that middle school kids might read if they needed to write a book report (3) (yes I went there, sometimes you just want it to be easy, especially after the previous book. If I could have read it in a pop up picture version, I would have). It went through the tribal history of the archipelago prior to the Spanish landing, the brief American rule of the nation and the nation ruling itself. There is a Muslim region towards the south so I understood why CNN has reports of an Al Queda presence in the region. For the record, I skipped the chapter on Marcos and Aquino. I also read a really good book by a professor (4) at Mercer University that spent his formative years in the Philippines. The book was about the Japanese occupation in the region. This occurred after the Americans lost control during World War II. I read this because I wondered why certain regions were destroyed during the War. The book was about American families trapped in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation and what they had to do to survive waiting for the U.S. military to return (5). I liked that the book discussed why those families were there (6).   I had no idea the Philippines was a U.S. colony.  I mean, I had inklings since the U.S. influence was so strong when we lived there but I did not know the reason. Oddly enough, my peers (30-somethings and 50-somethings) were also unaware of this history. Interesting that this is not covered in our US history or world history curriculums (I was a teen then so very possible I just missed it). I can’t speak for other states but it wasn’t a question I recall in the New York State Global Studies Reagents.

Anyway, I read “the Noli” because I couldn’t bear to read another book about the Philippines during World War II although I have lots of other titles on this topic on my queue. The Japanese were particularly brutal to the Filipinos. It bothered me to know my countrymen were treated like dogs. For example, the Japanese were slightly more humane to the Ally soldiers while beheading Filipinos as an example to the locals in case they felt like rebelling (…again).

I asked my mother if she recalled these times.  She was born two years before the Japanese took over in 1942. They did not leave until 1945. She said she didn’t remember much although she did recall alarm bells sounding and she and the family would have to move closer to the main square of her town and hide out. These incidents were called “penetrations” where the Japanese were in reconnaissance of Philippine islands, the more remote areas, not in their control. Given the dense and unforgiving terrain and the locals that were willing to help (at the risk of their own lives) some American civilian families survived. My mother told me that the inhabitants of her town had an intense hatred for the Japanese. After reading Edge of Terror, I understood why. It’s similar to my mother in law’s dislike of Germany. She said as a child she once watched a German soldier point a pistol at her little brother’s head, also during WWII.  She does a little cheer when German athletes or teams lose in sporting events. When Germany wins, she maybe utters a string of Italian curses.

I went back about 50 years in the history of the Philippines around the execution of Jose Rizal in the late 1800’s. I had a sense that other than the U.S. dominating the country, I needed to understand how Spanish colonial rule lasting for three hundred years has shaped the people, culture and economy. The Noli supposedly sparked the Philippine revolution against Spain. I wanted to know what it was that caused the “spark”. I suspect that it wasn’t just the Noli but the man behind it that incited the revolt.

 

(This bill came from my neighbor’s brother. She found his things after his passing. He was stationed in a military base on the Philippines.)

Much of the Noli is a 17^th century love story. For the record, I do not like “chick flicks”. I actually have a strong aversion to it. It really wasn’t towards the end of the book in the dialogue between the main characters does it occur to me why Filipinos might have revolted. I would too (7). Here’s a taste, “For three centuries we have held our hand to them, asked them for love, eager to call them brothers, and how do they answer us? With insults and mocking, denying us even the status of human beings”.

Having been undocumented, I have spent much effort assimilating into American culture to the point of denying my connection to the Philippines. Once legalized it has been a slow process but the connections with my family still living there has been re-defined. My knowledge of the country’s history is also coming into focus. Unlike most of the DREAM act “kids” as President Obama calls them, I’m at a different point in my life. For one thing, I am about 10 years older. I envy the bravery of the DREAMers, these putting their statuses out there while undocumented, still trying to navigate their lives in these uncertain times with their uncertain statuses. For me right now, it’s about putting the pieces together about the past living in my DNA so I can understand the path forward.

I had a conversation with one of the attorney’s at my job. Part of our duties in the business of clinical trials is ensuring that each site, worldwide, is covered by a contract to protect both parties and also to maintain confidentiality. One of the things he mentioned as a source of difficulty with some of the Eastern European countries that haven’t been countries for very long after having been ruled by Russia, was the rampant forgery. He said those areas really preferred handwritten signatures, which is obsolete compared to the U.S. with our validated (8) electronic signature systems.

This made me think of the Philippines and some of the ridiculous requirements for handwritten signatures. It made me realize how young it was as a nation, not quite a hundred years old since being colonized a few times. Of course a 40 year old economy in the 1980’s, when we left, was unstable and uncertain! Most of the country has been scrambling for scraps from the imperialist table!  We came here because a life as second class citizens, being undocumented, was better than what our lives would have been had we stayed! It seemed like a natural course of events that many Filipinos emigrated to the U.S. since the two countries had such close ties. At one point, the colony was even ruled under the U.S. Bill of Rights.

(Look familiar?)

I can’t speak about the economic or political reasons other immigrants had for leaving their countries of origin. I do know my family and I didn’t come to America to be a burden. To quote Jose Antonio Vargas (9), “we are not who you think we are.” We pick your produce, bus your tables and in my case, make sure the medications you put into your bodies (or the bodies of your pets) to manage chronic or acute medical conditions are safe and effective. Also, as much as it is not discussed in our school curriculums or the media, the reasons people emigrate their countries is not entirely unrelated to the decisions made by governments. It’s not the fault of immigrants that their lives become the aftermath of colonial vision or policy. It’s also not the fault of Americans already living here for being critical.  They might only be seeing the immediate outcomes of such policies, not taking into account decisions made decades ago by the Administration that may have caused such a migration.

 

 

Anyhow, you guys asked so here he is, my immigrant cat, unafraid, unenthused and uninterested (10).

 

 

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(1)This is a pain in the ass isn’t it? Welcome to my Noli experience.

(2)Title: Impossible Dream: The Marcoses, The Aquinos and the Unfinished Revolution by Sandra Burton

(3)History of the Philippines by Kathleen Nadau

(4)Yep, I found him. Exchanged some emails. He is a really cool dude, inspiring actually.

(5)Turns out the terrain in the island of Panay will just kick your ass if in appropriately equipped.

(6) Shameless yet subtle plug for the other other blog….http://redrising123.blogspot.com/2014/01/book-review-edge-of-terror-scott-walker.html. I won’t mention this often, so if you miss this, it’s on you.

(7)Well, maybe not. Given my track record I might write an anonymous book report on it.

(8) Rigorous testing to ensure electronic signatures are as viable as a handwritten signature. Here is the Code of Federal Regulations – 21 CFR Part 11 – The regulations in this part set forth the criteria under which the agency considers electronic records, electronic signatures, and handwritten signatures executed to electronic records to be trustworthy, reliable, and generally equivalent to paper records and handwritten signatures executed on paper.

(9) Who does not return my emails hopefully because he is busy.

(10) “Undocumented, Unafraid, Unapologetic” was a slogan first used by undocumented DREAMers in 2011 across America to proclaim their status.