Sometimes, I feel excluded even within the LGBTQ community. I remember the gay clubs in West Hollywood that would deny my friends and I entrance because of our Mexican matriculation. And I remember the faces they would give me, one of confusion and then of disgust that seemed to be thinking: "Mexican, Illegal, Fake."
How are we fighting for acceptance in the LGBTQ community when many do not accept their queer brothers and sisters who are also oppressed as undocumented immigrants? It was a night like this when I decided to go to the one club in downtown Los Angeles where queer, undocumented, heterosexuals, drag queens and artists are welcome: Mustache Mondays. That night changed my life completely because I met Nicolas Gonzales.
It was a week after my birthday when we finally went out for lunch. He pulled a plastic bag from his backpack with 4 hard shell tacos and condiments, homemade Serrano spicy sauce, sour cream and Oaxacan cheese. He had already conquered my heart.
But what happens when two undocumented queers fall in love with each other?
What followed was not only a new kind of empowerment for myself, but a new commitment to my community.
I decided to come out of the shadows on January 24th, 2012 by taking part in an act of civil disobedience in protest of anti-immigrant laws in San Bernardino County. I was arrested and taken to a detention center. I was asked to confirm if I was a homosexual and was segregated from the other arrested protesters on the assumption that I had AIDS. Being in detention for only a few hours reinforced my decision to continue working for immigrant's rights. I have never felt so moved to stand up for something that I had always been proud about: Being undocumented.
I joined the Campaign for an American DREAM as a guest walker to bring a message of hope and inclusively to LGBTQ members within the immigrant rights movement. Currently, my partner Nicolas and I are walking from San Francisco to Washington D.C. in order to raise awareness and urgency for passage of the federal DREAM Act.
My struggle and voice as an undocumented Latino gay man hopes to bring together not only my LGBTQ community of color but to show how crucial it is for both movements to accept the fact that LGBTQ issues are irrefutable immigrant rights issues. Alone, we're vulnerable. Together, we are stronger. To ostracize one from another is something we can no longer afford to do.
I decided to leave everything behind to support the person I am in love with. Just like my mother and father had the courage to bring me to this country. Thanks to my partner, I saved myself from living in the shadows.
Follow Alex Aldana on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@TheAlexAldana
Major point here: Alex, congratulations. You are doing what great activist do. You are making a revolutionary change that just like Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. and Rosa Parks have done, you are as well doing.
Alex, this is what makes us TRUE AMERICANS. People who fight for "Freedoms" and make them into civil liberties.
Stop trying to diminish the act of being unlafully present in the United States - what is next? A Bank Robber is an "unauthorized withdrawer"? A Shoplifter a "Five Finger Discounter"? A Truant an "Academic Non-attendee"? Give me a break. We have immigration laws and a process for LEGAL immigration (to the tune of 1,000,000 per annum, more than any other nation in the world). Either follow it or be prepared to accept the consequences of your unlawful actions - i.e. Removal/Deportation.
Creedo en lex et ordo.
Reality checkpoint: we are in globalized world now. Laws will be made (whether lawyers or ICE peeps like you like it or not), will be made to EASE immigration flow rather than criminalize every immigrants. I'm sorry but for a minor offense, under the constitution, you're not a criminal--maybe under your eyes as a lawyer and JD lawyer but then again--NOT ALL LAWS are excellent. See, America, will always be at the intersection of immigration and justice. It will never move into a nation of an "official" language or "homogeneous" nation. This is why immigration laws will be always be evolutionary.
And as for work ethics, you sir, should be more professional as a JD lawyer AND ICE agent if you don't want to lose both licenses. ICE is merely an agency like credit agency that just makes money from bails from the hardest working people that feed America: UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS.
I would be careful as to how much you speak since you call yourself a professional.
Is it anything to do with their personal choices or actions?
Or, is it something to do with the water or the air or the food?
Is it something that the EPA or the FDA needs to look into?
Just what makes these areas most vulnerable?
Only we understand what we go through.
Because guess what, even if you were a citizen, all these people that posted negative comments would still treat you like trash!. . . For some reason the sexual orientation of someone can affect their lifestyle??.. Hmm, Anyway.
Si se puede Alex!
FIght for your rights.
Porque aunque seamos ilegales tenemos derechos.......
The lesson from the European Union (composed of countries historically much more nationalistic than our own) is that economic integration inevitably causes ethnic and cultural integration. All EU citizens may move, live in and work in any other member country without a whole lot of bureaucratic fol-de-rol.
This is inevitable in the case of the USA, Mexico and Canada. FYI somewhere between 2 and 4 million US citizens presently live in Mexico.
http://geo-mexico.com/?p=4031
According to Mexico 2010 Census, there are 738,103 Americans living in the Mexican Republic. Mostly, people who come from the USA are students, retirees, religious workers (missionaries, pastors, etc.), Mexican-Americans, and spouses of Mexican citizens. A few are professors who come employed by Mexican companies to teach English, other English teachers, and corporate employees and executives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Mexico
And the DREAM ACT wouldn't make him a citizen. It would just let him stay legally.
If you are here illegally, you really don't have the right to expect all the rights granted actual citizens.
Someone should explain it to him.
An arrogant Illegal Alien who is only brave because he knows that with our current Justice Dept. he has absolutely no chance of seeing our immigration laws enforced.
"demonstrate that their removal would result in hardship to themselves or their U.S. citizen or LPR spouse, child, or parent (the ones who broke the law in the first place by bringing them to the United States illegally), the education requirement can be waived altogether."
http://borderissues.us/2011/07/04/sen-sessions-new-dream-act-is-worse-than-before/