WHAT TERMS DEFINE THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE: RECREATING IDENTITY IN NEW SPACES THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM A WE THE NEWS STORY CIRCLE THAT TOOK PLACE AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM ON AUGUST 12, 2017.
W E T H E N E W S — A U G U S T 12 T H , 2 0 1 7
The story circle explored questions around self re-creation and how us immigrants recreate and struggled with our identities upon arrival to a new country. What terms define the immigrant experience? O was raised in Texas and is of East African descent. Below is a conversation between O, Lizania Cruz and Albert St. Jean.
My name is O and I grew up in Texas. My family is from all over East Africa and I really don’t know how to answer the question that was posed because I... Re-creation, how did [we] recreate our identities? It’s a weird word for me because I don’t think that I can describe my immigrant experience in that way. - How would you describe it?
I’m still looking for the language to describe it, honestly. I think there’s some agency in re-creation, you get to choose the language, and you get to choose the context, and you get to put the pieces together, and I don’t, you know, I haven’t experienced my story enough. I think that a lot of it is just terms being imposed on me and then trying to make sense of that, and trying to find... - Adaptation?
Adaptation, even that...there’s too much agency in that. Just like survival, and a lot of imagination, and... I’m being kind of vague. I think that’s a part of it too; for so long I’ve had to be rather guarded about my story to protect my roots and my family who don’t have status. It’s kind of emotional for me to try to talk about it now. Not just in this space, but anytime I talk about it. To try to find a way to be, to have a sense of ownership of my story. I feel that I’m
always being guarded and always protecting myself, and always navigating through a lot of the politics of being an immigrant. So that was really vague. - That’s actually perfect. -Actually that was excellent. I have so many follow-up questions. How would you describe how you navigate? How do you describe that experience, because I think we all do that in many ways, and to me the re-creation is part of that navigating the system, so that’s why I see that more in that context. How have you had to navigate that story?
How have I been navigating it? It feels so chaotic that I don’t even know how. I mean, at times it’s just been making a lot of mistakes, putting myself out there. I used to be a part of a very vocal part of the immigrant rights movement, and I was out there and trying to fit into a very specific narrative, the dreamer narrative. I found that it wasn’t as liberating and empowering as it seemed. Because you start to use this language of good immigrant, bad immigrant, legal, illegal. Even words like undocumented that are supposedly more humanizing, and just realizing that that language wasn’t created for us, [and] it certainly wasn’t created by us. Then having to create some distance between myself and that movement, but also wanting it to succeed to some extent, wanting there to be policy that actually helps people and give them a path to legalization. I guess I’ve been navigating it, but honestly I can’t tell you how I’ve been doing it. -I also found something that you mentioned that was really interesting, the idea of the sense of agency and the sense that these terms have been imposed to us and are not necessarily terms that... Claiming is not the word, but really own. So in that regard, I mean you mentioned illegal, legal, undocumented…what [are] terms that you think would be more appropriate to our experience? What is really the language?
I’m looking for that answer too.
Recently, I was reading a Blog called “Undocumental” it’s written by a friend of mine who’s a brilliant philosophical thinker, he’s getting his Ph.D right now at Berkeley and he also identifies as undocumented and black. He was talking about the limitations of [using terms] like undocumented, illegal; he uses a term called “illegalized,” which I found to be kind of jarring because, again, it kind of implies that that group of immigrants...that term is imposed on them, it’s not…it’s kind of a weird term. I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of interesting conversations happening around, “What can we actually reclaim?” [Kind of like the boundaries between the language we use for ourselves and community versus the languages that we use to advocate for ourselves, versus the language that is used for us. Honestly I don’t have answer here, I wish I did. I’m just glad that the conversation is being had that we’re not... complacent in it... - I find it interesting the way you put that, because it’s reminding me of something that I’ve never thought about. How people where I’m from, they would always say either you have papers or you don’t. They would never say undocumented, you got papers or you don’t. Because the truth is it’s a piece of paper that determines whether you can be here or not. It’s very insignificant, it seems like, [p]apers? -Yeah. Well that was beautiful, and you had a great answer.
WHAT CAN WE ACTUALLY RECLAIM? SIMILARLY LIKE THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN THE LANGUAGE WE USE FOR OURSELVES AND COMMUNITY, VERSUS THE LANGUAGES THAT WE USE TO ADVOCATE FOR OURSELVES, VERSUS THE LANGUAGE THAT IS USED FOR US.
APPENDIX GLOSSARY —MERRIAM WEBSTER:
FROM GOOGLE IMAGES:
LEGAL:
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT:
1 : of or relating to law She has many legal problems. 2: a : deriving authority from or founded on law : de jure a legal government b : having a formal status derived from law often without a basis in actual fact c : established by law; especially: statutory 3: conforming to or permitted by law or established rules The referee said it was a legal play. Fishing in this lake is legal. 4: recognized or made effective by a court of law as distinguished from a court of equity 5: of, relating to, or having the characteristics of the profession of law or of one of its members 6:
created by the constructions of the law A legal fiction is something assumed in law to be a fact regardless of the truth of that assumption.
ILLEGAL: not according to or authorized by law : unlawful, illicit; also : not sanctioned by official rules (as of a game)
UNDOCUMENTED: not documented: such as a : not supported by documentary evidence undocumented expenditures b : lacking documents required for legal immigration or residence undocumented workers
-IZE (VERB SUFFIX): cause to be or conform to or resemble…cause to be formed into… (2): subject to a (specified) action…treat according to the method of…
UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT:
We the News is a newsstand that distributes and sells immigrant-focused publications and products. It features zines that archive stories and conversations shared by immigrants and first-generation Americans during a series of story circles lead by artist Lizania Cruz in partnership with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. wethenews.net