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Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
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"It's a cut in your soul..."
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| "It's a cut in your soul..." | ||
| LGBT immigrants speak out Courtesy of Allyship - Special to the SGN On Thursday, May 1, Comite pro Amnistia will hold its ninth annual Immigrant Rights March and Rally, beginning at Judkins Park, 2150 S Norman St, at 4:00 p.m. and concluding at Seattle Center. The following interview is part of a series designed to highlight the intersections of LGBTQ and immigrant identities and issues. The subjects of this series have all been interviewed by Allyship - an LGBTQ and Allies group that believes that all oppressions are interconnected and in the possibility of a world free of oppression. Allyship calls on all members of the LGBTQ community to stand in solidarity for immigrants rights and to come march as part of a visible LGBTQ contingent of the May 1 Immigration Rights March and Rally. More details can be found at www.myspace.com/allyship or by e-mailing allyship@yahoo.com. We hope to see you there! When Seattle's immigrant communities and their allies march this May 1, Vega Subramaniam will be there. Born in Madras, India, she followed her father to the US as a young girl, went to grade school in rural Wisconsin, high school in Philadelphia, university at Penn State, and eventually became a US citizen. Nevertheless, she still feels like an "outsider" both because of her immigrant origins and because she is Queer. "It is something - that in all kinds of major as well as subtle ways - that I fear," she says. "You know the Bush administration has been especially hostile to brown people, immigrants, particularly men, particularly young men, so luckily I am none of those things, but I am brown. So the anti-immigrant actions, the deportation, the locking up, the detaining - all of that wouldn't affect me. But there have been times in the last eight years that I have been worried, because I am naturalized and that means that they could take away my citizenship and send me back home and I never guessed that would be a fear I would have before 2001." For many other Queer immigrants, those who are undocumented, the fear and alienation is even more profound, Vega says. "It's a problem on every level, in terms of getting anything like meaningful employment - what they do is what they can do with out having documentation and so they are stuck there and they don't see any way out." Vega says she knows personally two people in different stages of undocumented status. "They have to be constantly worried about loosing their source of income because if their employer decides that they don't have the money to pay them any more, or don't like them, and one person in particular is in a situation where they can't be out because of their employer, because of their source of income, and it is so hard to watch." "They are typically very out [in other contexts] and it is really hard for them. But [being undocumented] really narrows how much they can be out, what they can do, it really narrows their sense of self. You might think of your self in a very specific way - as a strong, out woman, who is involved in her community and engaged and is politically active and passionate - but in fact, in reality, in your life, you aren't any of those things! It's like a cut in your soul. You think, well she could probably get a degree, but then what, she would still have to find a way to become legal." While immigrants, documented or not, can turn to their communities for support, being Queer often adds an extra layer of alienation. "There is so much homophobia which is stupid and unnecessary," Vega says. "It's so defeating & among immigrant communities, what I experienced is just basic homophobia. From male community leaders, they will not take on - not just not taking on LGBT issues - but also, it feels like, oh, in our culture homosexuality is wrong, there are some communities that have been amazingly supportive, individually, but on a whole, you know...." Vega believes that the LGBT community should take up immigration issue because the issues look exactly the same. "I'm amazed by the rift that exists between LGBT community and immigrant communities, she says. "There is a very similar and parallel attack to immigrants and Queers from Bush regime. I'm amazed that people don't recognize the similarities!" Native-born LGBT folks have a very specific and important role to play, Vega believes. "With immigrants, it's all tenuous, it's tenuous because they often can't speak for themselves, because they may not have documentation, they may be in the middle of a naturalization process or getting a green card and if they are in the middle of those things then coming out, if you are Queer, for example, is not a possibility because ICE, homeland security are looking for any excuse to be exclude you so you don't have a voice and if you are LGBT and a citizen then you have a voice so use it, you have to because they can't." |
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