Immigration is a topic that has been hotly debated and contested during in this Presidential race, and one that many Americans feel strongly about. It is a subject that is often discussed in broad terms, but rarely brought to a personal level that shows the individuals who make up our country’s immigrants. Everyone has a story and a unique situation, and there is no single solution that will address all of their problems and concerns. However, that is no excuse not to reform our immigration system. I would like to tell one story—my story—in hopes that it will help both parties understand that immigration reform will have a powerful impact for all of us.
“You weren’t born here, you’re not from America and so you’re not entitled to its privileges. You have to learn to wait,” my mother said as she prepared dinner, or folded laundry, or chastised me over the phone, when I was in high school, then college, then a young professional working in New York City, and even just five years ago, when I was a new mother. This was always her response whenever I voiced my growing frustration with the seemingly endless wait for my green card and a stabilization of my immigration status.
My family moved to the United States from the Philippines in 1985 when I was thirteen years old. However, when my parents finally got their green cards, my sister and I were over the age of twenty-one, and back then, immigration law did not cover the adult children of immigrants, leaving us in a legal gray area for more than twenty years. (This loophole has now been closed, and adult children of immigrants are now approved at the same time as their parents.) Our lawyer explained that, although we were in the country legally and were allowed to work, we could not leave the country.
My ambiguous immigration status was not something that affected my day-to-day life. It was only when high school classmates went on school trips to Stratford-Upon-Avon, and college pals invited me to backpack across Europe in the summer after graduation, or my husband and I were trying to plan our honeymoon, that I would be suddenly reminded that I wasn’t quite fully American yet.
(Cue my mother’s reminder that I wasn’t born here and I would have to wait.)
I finally became an American citizen four years ago, at the age of forty, twenty-nine years after I first moved to this country. I will vote in the Presidential election for the first time, no longer a passionate and opinionated bystander, but one whose vote and voice will finally count. And while I have written about my family’s story before in fiction form, I was very reluctant to write this essay.
This time, I couldn’t hide behind a fictional wall, couldn’t hide behind a character’s struggles. I would have to own my experience, and share it publicly. While the immigration system is better than it used to be—you can now check the status of your case online, for instance, something that you were not able to do until the mid 2000’s. Before then, the only way to find out what was happening with your case was to wait for hours to see an immigration officer. Imagine the line at the DMV but a thousand times worse. One of the reasons my case languished was because I came from the Philippines, a country that sends a huge number of immigrants to this nation, and under the current system, countries that do not send many immigrants are favored. For instance, my brother-in-law, who is from New Zealand, was able to get his green card in a year. My sister, who had lived in America since she was eleven, received her citizenship from her foreign-born husband. The sheer injustice of it would have driven any sane person mad.
But the thing is, my mother didn’t have to remind us not to feel like entitled Americans, because we never did. When you grow up as an immigrant here, most of what you feel is grateful. Grateful to be given a chance to have a better life, grateful for a country so vast and diverse as America where so many people from various races and nationalities are able to find a home and a place in the culture, grateful for the generosity of private colleges and rich patrons that funded my education.
As immigrants, citizenship is never a thing we talk about; it’s a thing we try to hide, whether or not we are here legally. We spend so much time trying to blend in, to erase our differences, to not rock the boat—maybe because somewhere, in the back of our minds, the possibility always remains that someone just might ask us to leave. Or so it seems to me.
After all, who I am to say that this country needs me? What immigrant has the confidence to own that as an opinion? There is so much doubt woven into our American identity that even having the documents on our side doesn’t change the story of where we come from, only the ability to tell it.
A few months back, several high school valedictorians have proudly confessed their undocumented status to the world. The stories of Matye Ibarra and Layte Martinez were shared and dissected on social media. I was both proud of and afraid for these young women, for exposing such a vulnerable truth about themselves. Sure enough, a chorus of trolls tried to shame them for speaking out, for wanting more than what they have, for the audacity of thinking themselves entitled to America and its privileges.
Because entitlement isn’t what we are after, as immigrants, it has become almost second nature that we try to give back to the community and the nation that welcomed us here. My late father, a mortgage broker, taught the trade to his office neighbors, young Indian immigrants who know have a successful business. My mother has worked for the American Heart Association for more than twenty years. My sister works in the development office of UCLA’s business school, while my brother, who works in private equity, finds the most joy in his side business, consulting and helping aspirational graduates seeking jobs in banking.
As an author, I run two book festivals that raise money to bring authors to the neediest schools, and have joined and spearheaded efforts to raise money for Syrian children and many national and international disasters. I count myself lucky to be part of such a compassionate and giving community, a stark contrast to the typical response.
Ignorance about foreign issues, obliviousness to suffering outside our country’s shores, is widespread, as so many of us have blinders on when it comes to anything going on outside our borders. As Jon Stewart once joked, “Not knowing where Iraq is on the map is the great part of being American,” but the ability to be so cavalier is not something that we immigrants take lightly.
On the contrary, immigrants are ready and willing to contribute their all to this country, and now more than ever, we need a reformed system to keep millions from being stuck in legal limbo.
Privilege isn’t only for Americans.