Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature
Jeanine Cummins identified the gringo appetite for Mexican pain and found a way to exploit it. This article was originally published at Tropics of Meta By Myriam Gurba When I tell gringos that my Mexican grandfather worked as a publicist, the news silences
The Trauma Inflicted Upon Migrant Children Today Mirrors The Experiences Of Korean Adoptees
Shared and ongoing histories of war and exploitation necessitate us to fight alongside not only migrant families, but all people engaged in struggle for collective liberation. CW: This essay mentions suicide and r/pe. By Elizabeth Niarhos Increased family separation and child abuse and
On DREAMers, DACA and the Model Immigrant Trope
For all the clamor and the rush to post, protest, and support undocumented people, there are millions of immigrants whose experiences have been erased from the story.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump’s administration announced its decision to rescind the Obama-era policy of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, shaking the nation’s immigrants, especially the 11 million undocumented people. The decision will allow renewals until March 2018 for current DACA recipients to work or study in the US, but the administration will no longer consider new applications. Since then, tweets and posts have flooded social media and people scrambled to change their profile pictures to say, “I stand with immigrants”. Demonstrations were held, reactions have come from members of Congress and prominent religious groups. The decision was even met with a bipartisan-sponsored revival of the DREAM Act, pushed for by Sens. Durbin (D-IL) and Graham (R-SC). Yet for all the clamor and the rush to post, protest, and support undocumented people, there are millions of undocumented immigrants whose experiences have been erased from the story. They are those at the intersections of identities that further marginalize and disadvantage. They are the poor, they are Black, they are trans, they are disabled, they are refugees. They are those whose features and skin tones don’t match the ones on brochures or fliers that activist groups pass out. They are the ones whose stories are not the “rags-to-riches” narratives that appeal to donors. They are the ones already most at risk for deportation. They are the ones who are forgotten. For decades the US has peddled the myth of a meritocratic Land of Opportunity. The lie was spread that if you only work hard enough and pull yourself up, then you too can make your life better. This great U.S. tradition is co-opted and continued by the media in portrayals of undocumented immigrants.Related: DON’T MOURN DACA JUST YET
“Master of None” Brings Diversity and Empathy to Entertainment
Master of None promotes a vision of America that is enriched by the complexities of its immigrant communities, instead of persistent racist narratives.
In Aziz Ansari’s Master of None, Dev Shah is an aspiring actor living in New York City. He’s cute, charming, and a gourmand obsessed with pasta. His love life is equal parts adorable and painful. Oh, and he’s also an American of Indian origin, a fact that shapes how Dev moves through the world, but only becomes a big deal when we look at the serious lack of diversity in television today. Like the Wachowski Sisters’ Sense8, the diversity in Master of None is thoughtfully presented as a natural matter of course of life in NYC. Dev’s best friends are a white dude (Eric Wareheim), a black lesbian (Lena Waithe), and a first gen Chinese-American man (Kelvin Yu). He and his Desi actor buddy, Ravi (Ravi Patel) commiserate over their stereotyped casting calls and auditions. Dev dates women of all ethnicities and types, and through his relationship with Rachel (Noël Wells) becomes a feminist ally — basically, he’s a freaking unicorn. A brown dude as not just a lead of his own show, but a romantic lead at that, is groundbreaking for the South Asian American community. Master of None just aired its marvelous second season on Netflix and it is some serious balm for the troubled soul, in many ways especially because of how compassionately it tackles the issues of being an immigrant in the United States. Like the actor portraying him, Dev Shah is a first generation immigrant who has only known life in the USA, unlike his parents who came over from India with great difficulty. While every immigrant family has a unique story, Master of None thoughtfully shows the threads that bind these disparate life experiences. Related: 9 Desi Feminist Activists You Need to Know
Before You Share Info About ICE Raids on Social Media, Read This
Stop copying and pasting unverified reports about ICE raids. You may mean well, but you're hurting immigrant communities. Do this instead. If you’ve spent any time on Facebook lately, you’ve probably seen people sharing information about places where Immigration and Customs