President Obama’s recent support of gay marriage is receiving an enormous amount of publicity. Whether you are a supporter of gay marriage or not, it is clear that gay rights will be a hot topic of debate in the upcoming presidential election.

Considering the current hubbub surrounding gay rights, I thought it would be relevant to discuss some of the issues pertaining to migration studies and sexual identity. In an article entitled “Queer Intersections: Sexuality and Gender In Migration Studies,” Martin Manalansan argues that the study of U.S. immigrants has been analyzed through a normative, heterosexual lens. Manalansan writes,

The implication seems to be that the nuclear family is the primary model of the transnational family and that heterosexual marriage or heterosexual partnering are only plausible cornerstones of family life with parenthood gendered in static biological terms and motherhood or maternal love, the province solely of biological (typically married) women with children. (2006: 237)

The issue he is getting at here is that information could be lost or misunderstood due to the fact that we judge immigrant success based on a heterosexual family unit. In Manalansan’s opinion, “a critical notion of sexuality enables a more inclusive and accurate portrait of global… migration” ( 2006: 224). Class, race, and economic status have all been taken into consideration when studying immigration. Why then has sexuality has been left out the discussion.? Manalansan argues that researchers and academics presuppose the heterosexuality of immigrants, as well as a desire to conform to normative heterosexual relationships when in the U.S.

The lack of scholarly research given to this topic is indicative of the lack of rights that homosexual immigrants exercise in the United States. For example, if a heterosexual married couple made up of one immigrant and one U.S. citizen decided to live in the United States, U.S. law has legal proceedings enabling the immigrant to become a U.S. citizen. No such help exists for immigrant homosexual couples.

An organization that is trying to raise awareness about queer immigrants and the issues they face is entitled Immigration Equality. Their mission statement is as follows:

Immigration Equality is a national organization fighting for equality under U.S. immigration law for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-positive individuals. Founded in 1994 as the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force, Immigration Equality provides legal aid and advocacy for LGBT and HIV-positive immigrants and their families.

The organization performs various services, specializing in legal services and legal advice for binational (one immigrant, one U.S. citizen) gay couples as well as having “also helped hundreds of immigrants and their attorneys to win asylum in the United States based on their sexual orientation, transgender identity, and/or HIV-positive status”(immigrationequality.org). In addition, according to their website, that there are 36,000 same sex binational couples in the U.S.

Hopefully the work of this organization and work by scholars such as Manalansan will inform people as to the presence of non-heterosexual immigrants in this country. The field of immigration studies might expand its theories, beliefs and assumptions to include sexual identity as determining and influential factor.

Sources:

Immigration Equality 2012. “About”. Immigration Equality. Retreived May 11 2012(http://www.immigrationequality.org/).

Manalansan, Martin F. 2006. “Queer Intersections: Sexuality and Gender in Migration Studies.” International Migration Review. 40(1): 224-9.

After learning of the many injustices undocumented immigrants face on a daily basis, it is hard to not become infuriated. The laws and regulations the government enforces demonize the immigrant, whether undocumented or not, and this affects the way that immigrants are treated in society. Two days ago, I had to listen to a coworker furiously complain about “all the illegal students who are going to college for free.” She was upset because her two children are graduating college with over a hundred thousand dollars worth of college debt with an extremely high interest rate. Instead of being upset about the high costs of a college education, or even the companies who provide college loans with really difficult caveats, my coworker was insistent that her children were missing out on free education because of illegal immigrants. The ignorance she expressed is common in society and creates a hostile environment when advocating for immigrant rights.

Rallies, petitions and protests are commendable but I believe the biggest problem is changing society’s misconceptions of the immigrant. Immigrants are hard working individuals who aim to create a better life for their families. However, the overwhelming belief is that immigrants aim to take advantage of the systems and benefits set in place for citizens. There is also a concern among citizens regarding the growth of the Latino immigrant population in recent years and the increasing popularity of the Spanish language and culture, which is believed to compromise American culture. These concerns spawn hatred and ignorance in society and were the reasons for my coworker’s ridiculous claim.

The problem with these claims is that they have been disputed with research and declared incorrect by sociologists and educators, but the truth fails to reach a mass audience.  The education I shared with my coworker only corrected her ignorance on college admissions but I could not change her hatred of illegal immigrants. What I find is that too often people want to point fingers at another person (or race) and fail to realize that the government and huge corporations are the ones who are responsible for the problems they face. Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, have struggled to assimilate in the U.S. and have made numerous achievements that too often go unrecognized.

According to Dowell Myers and John Pitkin’s (2012) report, assimilation benchmarks – Citizenship, Home ownership, English language proficiency, Job status, Better Income – have been reached by numerous immigrants. Myers and Pitkin reported that “the longer immigrants are here, the more they assimilate, resulting in even greater levels of achievement for their children and sowing the seeds of progress for generations to come” (2010). Second and third generation immigrants often achieve the dreams of their immigrant parents in becoming successful members of society. To have personally achieved three of the five benchmarks, I realize my process of assimilation is still an on-going one. Assimilation is not immediate and it is unfair to judge and criticize immigrants without giving them a chance to attempt assimilation. Ignorance is a damaging curse to the progress of immigrant assimilation and must be tackled.

Reference

Myers, Dowell and John Pitkin. 2012. “Assimilation Today”. Center for American Progress, September 1.Retrieved May 5, 2012 (www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/09/immigration_assimilation.html)

When discussing the deportation and detention of undocumented immigrants, the conversation rarely includes the impact that the actions of the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have on the children of undocumented parents.   From the immediate emotional trauma of being separated from one or both parents, to the physical trauma of leaving their homes, children of undocumented parents suffer to an alarming extent.  The ICE tactic of removal is usually a forceful and violent one in which parents are dragged off in one direction while children are hauled off in another. Goodbyes are rarely afforded to detainees and immediate removal does not allow for time to secure the welfare of the children. If no relative is able to advocate for the children, the ICE’s course of action is to place the children in the care of Child Protective Services until the state can decide their fate. As legal U.S. citizens, these children are entitled to remain in the country without their parents and are placed in the foster care program. In 2011, the Applied Research Center, which publishes the Color Lines website, reported that “at least 5,100 children whose parents are detained or deported are currently in foster care around the United States” (Wessler 2011). The foster care program aims to place these children with available foster families, without regard for linguistic and cultural similarities. Children are forced to grow up in different environments from their own, without knowledge of their culture or ancestry. Siblings are sometimes separated and placed in different homes, creating a second level of separation. The emotional turmoil that these events have on children often go unmentioned as these children are shuffled around in the foster care system.

Parents in detention centers, or those who have been deported, are disconnected from the real world and have no access to their children, family, lawyers or child welfare caseworkers. The immediate detention of undocumented parents severs all forms of communication, which usually lasts for months and sometimes years. The Applied Research Center reported that “ 85 percent of detainees lack legal representation and can be held for months, sometimes years, in squalid conditions” (Wessler 2011). Lacking the means to defend their parental rights over their children only adds to the frustration already felt in detention centers.  The ICE does not aid in providing legal services for detainees, often resulting in many parents missing court dates and foregoing the opportunity to plead their case. Without the parents’ presence at court hearings, the judge, lawyers and caseworkers decide the faith of the children without any contribution from the parents.  “Ultimately, child welfare departments and juvenile courts too often move to terminate the parental rights of deportees and put children up for adoption, rather than attempt to unify the family as they would in other circumstances” (Wessler 2011). The U.S. legal system advocates for children to remain in the U.S. in foster care rather than being deported with their parents because of the parents’ inability to provide for the children after being deported. Once deportation has occurred, reunification seems impossible and very few are able to reconnect shortly after. The emotional and physical welfare of the children of undocumented parents should be taken into consideration and changes to the ICE’s procedures changed to address their needs.

References

Rabin, Nina. 2011. “Disappearing Parents: A Report on Immigration Enforcement and the Child  Welfare System.” The University of Arizona. Retrieved May 5, 2012. (http://www.law.arizona.edu/depts/bacon_program/disappearing_parents_report.cfm)

Wessler, Seth Freed. 2011. “Thousand of Kids Lost From Parents in U.S. Deportation System.” Color Lines, November 2. Retrieved May 5, 2012 (http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/11/thousands_of_kids_lost_in_foster_homes_after_parents_deportation.html).

Over the past few years, Arizona has implemented harsh anti-immigration laws, such as Senate Bill 1070 and House Bill 2281. The SB 1070 law, signed on April 2010 by governor Jan Brewer, would essentially legalize racial profiling since it would allow authorities to stop and detain an individual they believe is undocumented. Arizona’s ban on ethnic studies, which was implemented by John Huppenthal, the superintendent of public instruction in 2011, is officially known as HB 2281. This state law prohibits public and charter schools from incorporating Mexican or Chicano studies into curriculums. In doing so schools must remove books that convey Mexican solidarity and ‘bashing’ of the United States. Law makers are specially targeting classes and courses they believe cultivates an anti-American attitude, fosters unity among ethnic groups which could potentially lead them to advocate for the overthrow of the United States government; in short, “HB 2281 bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government” (Santa Cruz 2010).

Though policy makers are only viewing Mexican ethnic studies as potentially harmful to the United States, in reality the program has proven to help Latino students stay in school. Dropout rates among Latinos are incredibly high, but statistics have shown that Chicano based curriculums in Arizona have dramatically decreased drop-out rates among this group; “Tucson’s ethnic studies program, created in 1998 and initially called ‘Mexican American/Raza Studies,’ has been effective in reducing dropout rates among Latino students, as well as discipline problems, poor attendance and failure rates, teachers said” (Martinez 2011). In Tucson, “about 3% of the district’s 55,000 students are enrolled in such classes;” the number of students in these classes is so few, there does not seem to be much of a threat. Yet policy makers are placing their efforts in banning these programs that so few students actually are part of. Though law makers might argue that ethnic studies are detrimental to America, high-drop out rates are more harmful to the future generations.

Similar anti-immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama, which target Latino immigrants are shown to negatively impact children of immigrants; policies are targeting their parents placement in the United States and now they are targeting these children’s education; “U.S. immigration policy has become more restrictive and punitive as government policies have expanded intervention at the federal and local levels. These changes have both contributed to a hostile anti-immigrant climate, and have placed undocumented immigrant children in an even more precarious economic situation” (Androff 2011: 80). In short, anti-immigration laws have only create a hostile environments for immigrants who clearly have made the United States their home. The law is now being proposed to be extended to public states colleges. Some state officials who supported the ban have admitted to have never entered a classroom with a Mexican studies curriculum, but they based their decisions on banning Mexican studies because “they simply didn’t like the idea of teachers telling students the apparently subversive facts that nonwhite people have at times suffered at the hands of white people, or that people of every color have at times acted with color-conscious solidarity” (Liu 2012). This brings into question, why and how are these policy makers basing their decisions on anti-immigrants laws?

Androff, David K. et al. (2011). “U.S. Immigration Policy and Immigrant Children’s   Wellbeing: The Impact of Policy Shifts.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-2-2012/tucson-s-mexican-american-studies-ban

Informed by xenophobia, in 2010 Arizona’s governor Jan Brewer signed into law a ban on ethnic studies in school districts. But this ban on ethnic studies is not on all ethnic studies, it is interesting and telling to note that the ban only encompasses Mexican studies. Some of the reasons policy makers gave for the ban of Mexican studies was that it promoted anti-American sentiments. Yet under this logic, African-American studies, Native-Americans studies and all the other studies which are under the umbrella of ‘ethnic’ studies would potentially foster the same anti-American sentiments. Yet none of these other ethnic studies were banned. The ban on Mexican ethnic studies in the Tucson district reflects the anti-Latino immigrant stance of Americans society.

I am a child of Latino immigrants and only until I got to college did I have chance to read about my Latino culture and history. Additionally, only until I came to college was I able to read articles and books written by Latino scholars. This was completely empowering to me and for the first time in my school career I saw people like myself in scholarly work. This gave me a chance to imagine the possibility that I too, could become one of these Latino scholars. In schools, euro-centric mentalities are fostered by emphasizing an importance on dominant-white history or history which only views events through the perspective of the colonizers. The banning of ethnic studies in Arizona is completely detrimental to students of Mexican decent. The ban itself can potentially continue to generate and create anti-American sentiments that I have experienced are commonly held among young Latinos. Banning Mexican ethnic studies sends the message that Latinos do not have a history worth learning. Moreover, in my experience going to high school with a majority of Latino population, students cannot connect with the books they are required to read. It was only until we read a book with a Latino protagonist, did my peers actually become engaged and read a book. It is easy for students to stop caring and trying when they are unable to connect with the material. When we have no Latino role models who have gone on to higher education, it becomes difficult to believe that we ourselves can go on to higher education. Banning ethnic studies is only further marginalizing a group of students who are overrepresented in prisons and underrepresented in higher education.

Yet I come back to this point, why only target Mexican studies? African-American and Native-American studies are no different that Mexican studies. All these ethnic studies have a different take on history that does not comply with the dominant white history. This ban on Mexican studies in a border state is directly tied to the xenophobia which is currently present towards Latino immigrants. The number of people coming from Latino American boomed in the last couple of decades. This boom created fear that they were taking over the United States and culture. This ban, along with SB 1070, which would allow officials to stop people they believe are without documents, is not surprising with the current political and economic climate in the United States. In times of trouble, a scapegoat is necessary. With the economy taking a turn for the worse, Latino immigrants have been blamed for taking away jobs, increasing drug related crimes and overall being a burden to the economy. Targeting the education of Latino youth is just another way of sending the message that we have to assimilate into American culture. Full incorporation seems to be what is required of immigrants. Learning about ones culture is empowering and gives agency, but by banning ethnic studies Latino youth are in schools which pressure them to remove any marker of ethnic and cultural difference.

Despite nativist fears of losing English as the dominant language, studies continually prove that English is the preferred language among new generations of immigrants.  Immigrants are the fastest growing student population in US schools, and half of them don’t speak English fluently (Calderon, Slavin, Sanchez, 2011: 103).  Schools are the site of most of the language controversy because of their historical role of socializing children in the American mainstream, making bilingual education a topic of controversy.  Lacking a common culture or common history, the use of English became the essential part of being “American.” By the 1920s language loyalty oaths from children in schools was commonplace to reinforce English dominance (Portes and Schauffler, 1994: 642).  Furthermore, academics believed bilingualism caused confusion and development problems, which has since been refuted (Portes and Schauffler, 1994: 643).

Assimilation studies seek to measure patterns of language loss among immigrants over time.  Language assimilation among the second generation varies with length of residence, geographical location, strength of the ethnic enclave, and socio-economic status (Portes and Schauffler, 1994: 645).  Although ethnic enclaves influence greater retention of the parent language, the general pattern across many ethnic groups in segmented assimilation studies is a preference for speaking English.  The first generation learns enough to get by economically, the second generation will continue to speak their parent language in the home, and the third generation will most likely be monolingual English (Portes and Schauffler, 1994: 643).

In their work Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, Ruben Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes compile a collection of data for segmented assimilationist studies on Mexican, Cuban, Haitian, Vietnamese, and other ethnic groups.  Part of each study tracked language proficiency and preference from 1992-1995.  In all cases, English language proficiency and preference increased among second and third generations (Rumbaut and Portes, 2001).  Each community differed in rates of proficiency due to different social and economic barriers and ties to an ethnic enclave.  Interestingly, the Cuban community in Miami had the highest rates of bilingualism and Spanish language retention, as well as 95 percent preference for speaking English in everyday communication (Perez, 2001: 115).  For some groups, speaking English is associated with higher self-esteem and better performance in school among children on immigrants.  Language is especially important for children in the school setting.  Immigrant parents often push their children to learn and perfect English because it is associated with success (Espiritu and Wolf, 2001: 174).

Ethnic languages have the fastest rates of disappearance than any other country (Portes and Schauffler, 1994).  Today, many immigrants already come equipped with English skills or are quick to try and adapt linguistically.  Depending on class and location, it is easier for some groups to retain their parent language, and studies have shown the cognitive value of bilingualism.  Yet language remains a controversial issue in school policy and supporting English Language Learners.  There is a double standard for immigrant students to drop their ethnic language, while native upper and middle class families encourage their children to learn Latin, French, or German (Portes and Schauffler, 1994: 643).  There is no clear policy for state school districts on identifying or instructing ELL students, and few teachers are trained on how to teach them (Calderon, Slavin, Sanchez, 2011: 103).  On the other hand, public and private schools have foreign language graduation requirements for students and bilingualism is highly valued.  This difference in expectations and treatment between immigrant and ethnic children and native children of language in schools and in society should continue to be addressed.  The studies mentioned above show that bilingualism in schools and language retention in the community does not negatively affect English preference.  Although the number of Spanish and other foreign language speakers are moving to the US, English is not in danger of being lost.

References:

Calderon, Margarita, Robert Slavin, and Marta Sanchez. 20011. “Effective Instruction for English Learners.” The Future of Children. 21(1): 103-127.

Perez, Lisandro. 2001. “Growing Up in Cuban Miami.” Pp. 91-123 in Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America. New York, University of California Press.

Portes, Alejandro, and Richard Schauffler. 1994. “Language and the second generation: Bilingualism yesterday and today.” International Migration Review. 28(4): 640-661.

Rumbaut, Ruben, and Alejandro Portes. 2001. Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America. New York, University of California Press.