The Brownbag

by Elizabeth Paul, a student at MIT, an American born Indian raised in New York as a Christian.
Worcester, Massachusetts: Old industrial city suffering from neglect and uselessness.
Me: Visiting a friend who goes to school there. Outside in the rain. No umbrella. Wrap a scarf around my head to keep my hair from getting wet. Walking to my friend’s car.
Local mom and daughter: Average, forgettable, overweight. Umbrellas. Pass me by on the street. “Look, it’s a real Muslim.”
Me: Turn around to look. No one there. Realize they’re talking about me.

There is something about this state that I don’t like. Once you can differentiate between students from urban areas and everybody else, things become frightening. I’m not saying that only people from urban areas are smart, but I do think that if you’re not from an urban area, you have to make special efforts to be informed. Because the rest of the world isn’t right there in front of you.

Take the issue of illegal immigration for example. Many people have never met an illegal immigrant. So they have this image in their head. Probably of a drunk Mexican who kills precious, beautiful blond haired, blue eyed girls in a DUI accident. Or maybe the Apu from the Simpsons type who doesn’t take showers and eats with his hands. Certainly you don’t want them to stay in our country if they have broken immigration laws. They are ruining our economy and stealing our jobs. You think that since they are immigrants, they are willing to take jobs for low pay and are therefore taking jobs away from us– the upstanding citizens who are entitled to every wonderful opportunity we get because our mothers decided to pop us out between certain latitudes and longitudes.

You are absolutely certain that this is a valid criterion of judgment for whether a person can enjoy the opportunities, participate in and help improve this beautiful country, or suffer as a second class human with no rights.

After all, if you broke the law, you broke the law.

The funny thing is, you probably do know a few illegal immigrants. Maybe you go to school with them or maybe they’re your next-door neighbors. Maybe they pump your gas at the gas station or maybe they give those free classes in your local library. Maybe she’s the nice lady at the dry cleaners who always gives your daughter a candy or maybe he’s your buddy at the bar who talks about the upcoming election and traveling all over the world with you. You see, you’d never know they were illegal because they don’t fit your stereotypes and they would never tell you.

It probably never occurred to you that no one wants to be an illegal immigrant in America. No one wants to have fewer rights than a dog. To be tied to a leash and to live his or her life in hiding. It is more likely the case that they became illegal because they had to. Because they faced a tough choice between helping their family and breaking the law. (Some of us actually care about others and would put ourselves at risk to help those we love.)

But you would never know because you never cared to ask.

If you are illegal, you live your entire life in constant fear, like a criminal, even though you never harmed anyone. You could be the nicest, sweetest person in the world. But if you are illegal, it means nothing. Every time you hear a loud noise outside, you jump. But you learn to hide that from the people around you, lest anyone suspects anything. Your friends can talk about all the exotic countries they want to visit, but when they invite you, you have to come up with an excuse as to why you won’t go. Because you’re stuck in this country. You could leave of course, but then you’d never be able to come back to everything and everyone you know and love.

You can’t get a job because you have no social security number. So your only choice is to work for that scumbag sleazo who will exploit you in return for cash. Of course, you also can’t get a bank account, so you have to sleep with all your life’s earnings under your pillow and hope to God that no one will rob you. You can’t go to the police if you are robbed because they’ll just deport you. Same for rape, assault. Even when you are sick or injured, you don’t go to the hospital in fear of being deported.

And even if you manage to save up enough and motivate yourself to get an education, it is useless. You could spend your life’s earnings and get a Bachelors or a Masters or even a PhD. You could discover a cure for cancer, or AIDS, or stop global warming, or end world hunger but still, you can do nothing. You can’t get a job and you will never be recognized for your genius. And when you ask why, the answer is clear:

You are not human. According to US law. According to the rest of America.
So get out.

Actually, this set of conditions that illegal immigrants must live through is so terrible and dangerous that it’s as good as kicking them out. If you force people to live in a tiny, barbed-wire cage with feces everywhere and said welcome to America, why would anyone stay? And yet they do. There must be a reason. There must be a reason beyond self-interest. I think that instead of trying to force these people to leave, we should help them become legally recognized. It’s truly a win-win. Why should illegal immigrants be penalized just because they were not born here, but work as hard or even harder than any American?

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