Last Thursday was deemed ‘Day Without Immigrants,’ a day where restaurants and schools closed, and people stayed home from work and school in a show of solidarity with the many immigrants of this country. There was an array of strikes, protests, rallies and walk-outs, and of course social media was covering it all.
If anyone followed social media down the rabbit hole of #daywithoutimmigrants or #UnDiaSinInmigrantes, the division of opinions quickly become obvious. On the left were messages of unity and solidarity, supporting the closed restaurants and the students missing class. Many people were identifying themselves as proud immigrants and products of immigrants.
Many companies left messages supporting their staff and workers. On the right were messages of threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement, insulting ‘illegals,’ and complaining they could not get tacos. Days later, dozens of workers across the United States are being fired for participating in this protest. Of course, Twitter has been there to cover it all, presenting yet example of the polarization of our political parties in 140 character messages.
A common thread that began to emerge among conservative tweets was the argument that they really aren’t against immigrants, they just want people to come here legally. They don’t want ‘illegal immigrants’ in the country. The first important point to make is that people cannot be illegal. Jose Antonio Vargas has a TED talk in which he says, “It’s actually legally inaccurate to refer somebody as an illegal, because to be in this country without papers is a civil offense, not a criminal one.” He goes to point out how pejorative and dehumanizing it is.
Furthermore, this response of ‘just wanting people to come here legally’ also lacks a level of empathy and even common sense. It is true people have always wanted to come to America to live out this ‘American Dream’ that we are so obsessed with, which is problematic in and of itself. But it is also true that some people cannot afford the process of citizenship, a process which is lengthy and uncertain on top of being expensive.
And then we have the idea of refugees, a word that has somehow taken on a negative connotation even though this nation is founded on people fleeing religious persecution. We can’t seem to conceptualize this nowadays. There are people coming here because they are running from somewhere else. Why would anyone want to leave their home, to make an often-dangerous trek, to come to a country that nowadays is not welcoming at all? This is captured perfectly in the poem ‘Home’ by Warsan Shire.
The more malicious arguments, which include a higher degree of racism and xenophobia, are the accusations that immigrants steal jobs and commit crimes. However, there are statistics which disprove these arguments on both counts. Back in 2014, a CNN article debunked these myths about immigration. They cited that undocumented immigrants do pay taxes, contribute to social security and do not qualify for welfare and other government issued assistance programs.
They also contribute a decent amount to our economy, over $11 billion as of last year, according to an article by The Nation. The criminalization of immigrants has also been debunked; just this year the New York Times came out with conclusions from several studies proving immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes than American-born citizens.
Not all conservatives are as prejudiced as the left sometimes paints them out to be. They do not always make their points with malicious intent. Perhaps if they knew some of the statistics, which they will not be getting from Trump, they would change their minds. However, the left is not entirely without fault either.
While the liberals and progressives showed overwhelming support for this cause, some of their messages were unintentionally exclusive. They continue to largely operate under the narrative that immigrants are Mexican and Central American, or Syrian refugees, leaving out what is a growing number of Asian immigrants in this country, as well as Europeans and a wide range of people from all over the world.
They showed up to these protests carrying signs which read “We are all immigrants” – leaving out a group which has arguably suffered the most at the cost of America. If we are to show solidarity, it is important that we never forget whose land we are protesting on. As both sides argue over the pros and cons of allowing immigrants into the country, we cannot forget we are arguing on the land we stole from Native Americans.
Twitter also highlighted this odd phenomenon of self-hate among Latinxs who came here legally. Sometimes they are the hardest on these other immigrants. Many Latinxs were posting tweets in Spanish urging other Latinxs to come here legally, and reinforcing how they came to this country “the right way.” This is only among this ethnic group.
Puerto Ricans are a particular Hispanic ethnic group which sometimes take their citizenship for granted. As U.S. citizens with a shared ethnic group full of immigrants, we don’t often stop to think about what would happen if our families had been born in one the nearby islands or in another country or continent. We pride ourselves on citizenship while we are still ‘othered’ by the United States as it is.
The subject of immigration clearly means many things to many people. It is important to recognize the social identities and placement in society which inform those views, whether it be class, ethnicity, race or political affiliations. But we as a society are not yet at a point in which we are really listening to other sides of the same argument.
We are still pushing our own agendas without the full facts and figures. This "selective hearing" has plagued us since the very beginning of this election, and continues to be lost on us as we get further and further into this new presidency. We are moving further from total unity, and closer to polarization, and we are so wrapped up in tweets that we cannot even see it.
