![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/children-of-immigration\/files\/2012\/05\/Dream_MayDay1.jpg\")
<\/a>Various placards at the May Day rally<\/p><\/div>\n
For many of them, oppression is when a hard-working student is denied access to higher education, or denied access to federal and state financial aid for college, by virtue of having unwittingly entered the country undocumented at a young age. Oppression can be when they are stopped and asked for their papers because of the color of their skin. Oppression is \u201cthe criminalization of the American Dream,\u201d a student told me.<\/p>\n
The plight of today\u2019s immigrant population in America is quickly being recognized as one of the most important, and most pressing, civil rights issues of our time. From the 1990s to the early 2000s, immigration\u2014specifically from Mexico and other Latin American countries\u2014spiked to record levels<\/a>, and studies have determined that a majority of those arriving during this period have found success and have integrated into the American mainstream. A 2010 paper<\/a> published by the Center for American Progress found that the share of foreign-born men earning median incomes has nearly doubled since 1990, from 35 percent to 66 percent in 2008. During that same time immigrants have bought homes at increasing rates, from 9.3 percent to 58 percent.<\/p>\n Despite these promising gains, the immigrant community finds itself in a position of great peril today. Recent legislative developments in states like Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina have rendered it nigh-impossible to live as an undocumented immigrant, and have even led to the diaspora of immigrants with<\/em> legal status, in those states. The laws that passed are littered with pernicious measures that make it a crime to work in the state without authorization, while empowering the police to stop and detain any person suspected of being in the country illegally, without regard for warrants.<\/p>\n Of these bills, the one that has garnered the most amount of attention is Arizona\u2019s SB 1070. It was passed in 2010 and set off a cascade of reactionary fear-mongering across the other southern states, and today it finds itself challenged by President Obama\u2019s Justice Department before the Supreme Court. The President has repeatedly criticized<\/a> SB 1070 for the potential of racial profiling, arguing that no one \u201cshould be subject to suspicion simply because of what they look like.\u201d Yet, the Supreme Court has evaded any arguments<\/a> pertaining to the discriminatory nature of the law, preferring to assess the constitutional allocation of state and federal power.<\/p>\n Students and Workers march for justice<\/p><\/div>\n At the May Day rally, people whom I asked about the court\u2019s hearings were disappointed that this aspect of the law was being brushed aside. \u201cIt\u2019s the institutionalization of state-supported racism,\u201d one person told me, \u201cyou cannot judge the law without acknowledging this.\u201d Another expressed resentment towards the bill\u2019s \u201cattrition through enforcement\u201d mechanism, which reasons that in order to reduce the undocumented population, the government must create egregious living conditions for those immigrants so that living in the United States becomes undesirable. \u201cIt\u2019s contrary to everything I\u2019ve known about this country; it\u2019s impulsive and irrational,\u201d the student said.<\/p>\n These arguments, of course, fall on deaf ears in the Supreme Court, but for those attending the rally, these words formed a chorus of pride and passion. Hundreds of miles away from the court\u2019s steps in Washington, D.C., the people who gathered to celebrate May Day in Poughkeepsie remained adamant about improving their future and eliminating oppression. No matter each individual\u2019s reason for showing up to the march, the group in attendance was unified in chant: El pueblo vive, la lucha sigue<\/em>. \u201cThe people live, the struggle continues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cImagine coming across a flower\u2014the most precious, beautiful flower you have ever seen\u2026You discover this flower, and you really want to have it, to own it as yours. But just as you lean over to pick it up, someone else … Continue reading <\/a>