The Cost of Looking Illegal
Refusing to Assimilate Might Actually be the Path of Least Resistance.
The immigration debates are not about legality. Or about having the right papers. It is about the fact that some people look illegal and some people look legal. (Translation: the immigration debate is about racism).
I was born in this country, but I look illegal.
A few months ago I started the Saree, Not Sorry Project. Overall, the response has been positive. But there is still, of course, some pushback.
Because Indian-Americans fall under the ‘model minority’ it is easy to believe that Indian-Americans are also immune to the violence people face on a daily basis in regards to our country’s border politics. But our gurdwaras have been shot up and our elderly have been attacked during their afternoon walks.
Being legal on paper is meaningless. Papers only have worth if people choose to take a look. So many things can happen before the right papers appear before the right eyes. In some cases, the simple act of reaching for the papers could be dangerous.
The problem we are dealing with is looking illegal — sometimes looking illegal can be packaged with words like ‘exotic’ or ‘foreign’, but these words signify the same exclusionary thinking and highlight the lack of belonging that a person possesses based on their skin color, their eyes, their hair. And, moreover, these words are what guide people towards the road to assimilation.
But assimilation is not the best remedy to this problem. It is certainly an understandable path, but it’s not necessarily the path of least resistance. Assimilation means to “become like.” And so the fight just becomes internal as our exteriors begin to morph into something easier to recognize through a European lens.
For me to ‘become like’ the people who turn to violence at the sight of hijabs, saris, and turbans means that I would have to become scared of myself. I would have to hate myself. I would have to terrorize myself. I’m not going to do that.
