For many of us who are immigrants (or from immigrant families) and LGBTQ, the immigration debate has been a hard and limiting discussion. It's hard because most of the media coverage has told us that the only LGBTQ slant on immigration issues is about arguing for equal green card access for same-sex binational couples in which one of the spouses is an America citizen and the other is not. Until the Supreme Court's DOMA decision fixed that problem, it was an important issue, of course, but the media overlook the simple fact that so many of us immigrants are also LGBTQ, so immigrant issues are LGBTQ issues. They also overlook the fact that there is a lot of LGBTQ leadership inside the immigrant rights movement, whether some mainstream immigrant rights organizations like it or not.
So what is the immigration debate really about, and what has it looked like? In many ways, we are seeing a historic moment when the collective struggle of immigrant communities has seeded a demand for true justice. Why? If you are not an immigrant, imagine that you are poor and have crossed the border illegally to feed your kids. Imagine that you work every day of your life washing dishes in back rooms, or picking grapes for wealthier people's kids, and you still have no basic rights. Meanwhile, your children work hard in their high school in the U.S., only to end up picking those same grapes with you, because regardless of whether they came here at 2 years old or were straight-A students, they still cannot go to colleges or universities here. Wouldn't you be organizing mass mobilizations? Wouldn't you be coming out of the shadows to say you are undocumented? Wouldn't you be willing to challenge power in an attempt to have a better quality of life for you and your family? Well, that is exactly what thousands of immigrants in the U.S. have been doing.
People have organized, and now we have watched as the immigration debate has made its way to Washington, D.C., where it is being translated into a proposal for $6 billion dollars to militarize an already militarized border, while simultaneously funding a plan that whittles away at the number of people who qualify for legal residency. This has made us reflect on what lies ahead for the immigrant rights movement as we get clear about its wins, its compromises, and what is left to be done.
What about all those LGBTQ people who think immigration does not have anything to do with them? Here is why it does. The immigration debate gets to the heart of a conversation about who is a "real" citizen, who is part of our communities, and who can be allowed to stay and live here, and who has to do so through a shadow existence, with no basic rights. Sound familiar? It should. It is a historic dialogue that has talked around and through communities of LGBTQ people, people of color, poor people, people with disabilities, and many others.
On the Fourth of July, we need to know that real independence is interdependence. Real independence requires community beyond citizenship. For all those who live between and beyond borders of all kinds, SONG made this video for you. #queerimmigration