No Human Being Is Illegal

I immigrated to the United States from Colombia with my parents and my brother when I was four years old. Although my family and I have been living in the U.S for nearly sixteen years, only my father is a U.S citizen. My mother is a permanent resident, and my brother and I technically live in the U.S under asylum. Through our course readings, public discourse on immigration matters, and my own lived experiences, it is clear to me that U.S society often perceives foreignness and illegality as one, racializes these terms, and exercises dehumanization through this perception of illegality. After all, as Elie Wiesel asks, "How can a human being be illegal?"

In my last post I mentioned Georg Simmel's notion of "the stranger," who exists both within and outside of the dominant social structure, and who imports foreign qualities into the group he has moved to. The stranger is a perpetual wanderer - someone without a place. Mai M. Ngai's "Illegal Aliens: A Problem of Law and History" also reflects on this idea. Ngai writes, "Undocumented immigrants are at once welcome and unwelcome: They are woven into the economic fabric of the nation, but as labor that is cheap and disposable." Both the writings of Simmel and Ngai intrigued me because as an immigrant, I feel I can identify personally with the notion of "the stranger." Like Ngai's undocumented immigrant, I feel both welcome and unwelcome. I am both assimilated and foreign. American and Alien. This realization fell heavily on me one day in high school. Coming from a Latino, immigrant, working class family, I always felt out of place staying at the houses of my white American middle class friends. One day, I entered my friend's house to find a Latina woman in her living room, vacuuming the carpets and watching Univisión. For my friend, having a Latina cleaning lady seemed to be common, and maybe even somewhat amusing. For me, it meant confusion. I imagine this woman looked at me and saw another American kid to clean up after. I looked at her, and for some reason, I saw my mother. I felt conflicted. Welcome and unwelcome from both sides. A stranger.