Comprehensive Immigration Reform Speak Out

Town Hall meeting on Immigration reform, December 18th, in Mission High school at S.F.

Latino Only?

When you watch the news like CNN or FOX, they portray majority of Latino community as “illegal” and “undocumented” people. That’s one way of conservative media creates scare tactic to blame everything on Latino immigrants. But is it true that this is only Latino issue? Well, Latino community has a predominant population of undocumented immigrants, but does that mean it’s only Latino issue? I don’t think so. Then where is the Asian American Community in this picture? The research shows that there are about 2.0 million Asian undocumented immigrants are living in this country. That’s a big chunk of Asian undocumented immigrants. But why is that Asian American undocumented immigrants are so invisible? Is it because they are not aware of this issue? Whatever reason it might be, this stereotype of “Latino only” has definitely affected me both positive and negative way.

I think that the positive side of “Latino only” put API immigrants in a safer zone, where they don’t need to worry about their immigration status as much as Latino immigrants. Don’t get me wrong, API undocumented immigrants are facing enormous challenges but the circumstances are much different than Latino undocumented immigrants. It’s mainly because the people usually weight on Latino Immigrants as “illegal.” They would never think of API immigrants as “illegal” or “undocumented.” This stereotype indeed creates deception to Latino community. In addition, this stereotype of “Latino Only” creates assumption of Latino is only illegal and put them into jeopardy. In contrast to Latino community, API undocumented immigrants are less likely to be discriminated and targeted as “undocumented.”

On the other hand, the negative side is that API students are even more afraid to come out from the shadow. I think it’s because API immigrants are afraid of being discriminated in their own community. For example, it is ashamed to talk about immigration status in the Korean American Community because Korean American people tend to have a social class as well. For instance, my mother was discriminated against one of Korean American citizens because of her immigration status. It is true that most of Korean American community “categories” you and treat you as inferior being if you are undocumented. But let me be clear, this doesn’t mean every Korean American people think this way. Finally, the stereotype of “Hispanic Only” hinders API undocumented immigrants to come out from the public and harder for them to talk about current immigration system.

This is not a Latino issue. This is a nation-wide issue.