Dear Fellow Immigrants

Dear fellow immigrants,

Much has been said in recent months of whether as immigrants, and for many of us as non-Black people of color (NBPOCs), we should feel a moral obligation to support the movement for Black lives. Folks have made the case that immigrants and NBPOC broadly are also suffering from racial injustice, and would like greater attention placed on our suffering. Others have argued that many immigrants, especially Asians, suffer from a perception of privilege (partly due to the model minority myth, which is another conversation itself) and thus are ignored in conversations around equity, like affirmative action. Some others make comparisons between the oppression they or their elders faced in their countries of origin and that of our Black communities in the United States.

While some of those may be true, I have learned that our experience and that of our Black communities do not have to be mutually exclusive. It is true that immigrants have suffered - and still do - in America, and face structural obstacles that many others don't. It is true that perceptions of privilege and the model minority myth have perpetuated unhealthy and plainly wrong stereotypes that have misrepresented the experiences of many subgroups (Thai and Laotian immigrants, for example, graduate from high school at lower rates than Latino and Black students). It is also true that our parents and grandparents faced serious oppression back home - and many of them are here because they fled life-threatening suffering. And through all this, I also acknowledge that the immigrant experience is not monolithic - different groups of immigrants experience America differently. I base what I hear on my experience as a first generation immigrant from Asia.

But none of that negates our responsibility to fight for justice for our Black brothers and sisters.

We have an opportunity to lift up our Black comrades while acknowledging our own pain, and our privilege. We have an opportunity to fight for justice for all peoples of color, understanding that Black lives are still disproportionately undervalued by those in power in this country. We have an opportunity to fight for an America that those that came before us pursued and believed in - an America that was, and is still, denied to peoples of color across our country.

We fight this fight not because we owe anything to anyone, but because we believe we were all created in the image of a perfect Creator. We march alongside our Black brothers and sisters because many of us have seen firsthand the consequences of the dehumanization of one group over another. We do this because our pain, and that of our families, equips us to empathize, and to try to understand how to be the best allies we can be.

We do this because the imperative of racial justice and liberation is global. Even in these times we live in, America still holds the political and economic credibility to influence the policies of other nations. Our failure in America to uplift the rights of peoples of color, to heed the voices of our people, and to acknowledge the realities of police brutality has catalyzed other authoritarian regimes believing they could do the same. America's hypocrisy only adds fuel to the fire; it inflames hatred driven by race and color. But if - through the power of our collective voice - our government acknowledges its hypocrisy and responds to structural oppression it has been party to, our fight can be a rallying cry for those around the world of what is possible. We've already seen that: in the U.K., which has long been challenged with anti-Black racism, every player is kneeling in support of Black lives before each professional soccer game. Protesters in Asia have compared notes with those in the U.S. on how to combat police brutality. Of course, these are still symbols and have yet to turn into action, but it shows how a movement that started in America can spur activism the other side of the world. In this intertwined world, we can hope that what starts in one corner of our world can catalyze movements in another.

We do this because oppression begets oppression. We know that systemic racism - the structural, organized oppression - is not just a by-product of race, but of power. When the powerful are challenged in their authority, especially by those seen as the "other" based on race, the insidiousness of structural racism manifests itself into oppression. Our inability to acknowledge the root of slavery as a systemic dehumanization of a people group manifested itself in the internment of Japanese Americans, although to a vastly different degree and scale. The massive crackdown of asylum-seekers and child migrants seeking freedom finds origins in the disproportionate criminalization of the actions of certain people groups. We must acknowledge that the effects are at different degrees - Black folks are murdered by police, for example, at much higher rates, but we know that the oppression and dehumanization undergird all of those actions. We know that oppression, when allowed, spreads like wildfire, because the need for power and control by which it roots, perpetuates like a vicious, unrelenting cycle. Oppression begets oppression, and when we stay silent on someone else's oppression, how do we know they won't come for us next?

We do this because White supremacy succeeds when they can divide and conquer. I believe that the racialized oppression faced by many in our country is rooted in the fear of many White communities that they will lose the power they hold in this country. They worry that whiteness will no longer drive the culture and ethos of our country. But if they can combat diversity by pitting peoples of color against each other, they hope that they can succeed simply because white supremacy isn't fighting against one common enemy, but four or five disconnected, less powerful ones. If we allow ourselves to compare our suffering against one another - and allow us to divide ourselves over it - it hinders our ability to combine our collective power to combat White supremacy. We will not be free from White supremacy until we are all free from it. And even if our pain is different, acknowledging that none of us can be liberated without dismantling White supremacy, grounds us in a collective vision and belief in what the future can hold.

We do this because there is still hope for the America we believed in. No one can deny that many immigrants come to America to escape a similar level of dehumanization they faced in their countries of origin. We know that there was immense, unimaginable pain and suffering that forced many to escape their homes. But I imagine that many of us came to America believing in the promise of life, liberty and happiness, only to find ourselves in a country built upon forcibly removing others from their ancestral homes in bondage. And even after the end of slavery, the dehumanization of Black people still continued with housing and school segregation, the lack of access to build wealth, the systemic, unrelenting police brutality, and on and on. We know that the freedom and liberty that we and our ancestors left our homelands for will never be fully realized until we are all seen as humans. We fight for Black lives because we once believed in the American Dream, and yet we know it is a dream deferred for so many. But if we once believed what can be, we know what we need to do to make it so.

I welcome your reactions and comments.