An Untold Truth

In the midst of President Trump and Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea, threatening each other with talk of nuclear arsenals with the sophistication of toddlers, a lot of news came out of North Korean defectors who had escaped to South Korea and told their stories on how they escaped Kim’s tyrannical rule. Their motivations and stories were equally filled with senses of a strong passion for life and freedom, as well as a great sadness in reminiscing upon the dark moments of the past. Stories of public executions, starving until nearly dead and being cramped in small spaces; this was public life. Life was intensely worse in prisons, where people would get incarcerated for the smallest infractions, such as being in possession of a South Korean DVD of a drama, and their families, even if they did nothing against the law, would sometimes get punished too. Those who escaped had to cross treacherous conditions, such as the Tumen River, known for being at subzero temperatures in the winter, and being a deadly drowning site in the summer. This is all to escape to Thailand and China, where they are held in rigorous investigations where they can possibly get sent back to North Korea if caught, and the endure more rigorous investigations in South Korea, totaling to 9 anxiety-inducing months or more of acting like you’re Chinese or Thai and risking your life to seek refuge for basic freedoms.

The U.S. may not be as extreme in the punishments as North Korea, so it makes North Korea sound like a brute and far-off country that contains a level of cruelty that the U.S. in its governing system could never reach. However, the more I hear the heartbreaking stories of these North Korean defectors, there were parallels between their stories and the stories of countless Mexican immigrants fleeing their country to seek asylum in the U.S. They attempt to flee their country from violence (particularly gang violence and harm against women), poverty, and crime for a better life in America, risking their lives to trudge through the harsh terrains of Mexico only to arrive at the border to be arrested and confined in a small space with others of likewise goals. Sound familiar?

The methods used to gain control over immigrants don’t stray too far from the barbaric nature of North Korean punishments, as over the last decade, and increasing during the Trump Administration’s reign, child separation has become more apparent to the general public. As immigrant families come to the border, they are met with hostility, and they force children to separate from their families to be confined in another jail with other separated children for long periods of time (especially to a child). This puts the adults in a heart-wrenching, the guilt-tripping position of their child’s suffering, and the pain from the separation itself, and leaves the child with lifelong trauma from the conditions of the prison, treatment of the guards, and being separated from their guardians at a point when they should be most connecting with them in this developmental stage. We aren’t as different as our tyrannical counterparts, instead, our society holds deep greed for power and money that puts minorities and their suffering at our disposal through mass incarceration and cheap labor, all hidden under the pristine suits, ties, and the showmanship of wealth and happiness that America seeks to display as a success of our government.

In early 2019, news outlets and liberal, even some conservative media alike expressed their outrage regarding this situation and pressured the administration to take down this policy method. Although I was happy to see a country united at a front to take down such an inhumane political method of control, I thought, “This isn’t the end of it.”

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández is a scholar of migration, a tenured associate professor of law, lawyer, and an author, who wrote Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants, that looks more in-depth into America’s mass incarceration of immigrants, how America’s treatment of immigrants has led the justice and prison system to where it is now. In his book, Hernández speaks of a theory called “American Imperialism.” This is the theory that we as a country; our uprising, our government, and our ethos; are all not only different but exceptions to other countries, as Hernández states, “We think of ourselves as special people who have created a uniquely extraordinary country,” (pg. 97). This theory was popularized during the Reagen era, where anyone who was willing to put in the work and sacrifice to in a country like the U.S. was truly American. This myth contributed to the immigration laws put into place but also contributed to this toxic patriotism that many citizens hold today, that anyone who isn’t a U.S. citizen is less than and doesn’t deserve to be a part of the country if they can’t completely assimilate. This is one of the roots that prevents people from seeing immigrants, let alone migrants, be ever a citizen of the U.S. and therefore less than as a human being.

Hernández speaks of America’s manipulation in Mexican politics as a root of the immigration issues we have today. He states, “Sometimes U.S. foreign policy pushes people to despair, like when the United States supported rightwing governments and paramilitary forces in Central America that destabilized teetering democracies,” and the problem with this situation, is the government eventually got more and more greedy/controlling of its citizens, contributing to poverty rates, and therefore crime, whilst the government turned a blind eye to the death that resulted from their ruling (Hernández, pg. 40). This fact was made clear to me through not only this book but also an episode on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver where he actually delved into the topic of immigration. America prevented a possible revolution of a new and emerging government that could have prevented the path in which the country took. America has also had other relations with the Mexican government. During World War II, The United States and Mexico had a guest-worker initiative called the Bracero Program, where Mexico allowed citizens to go to the U.S. to work due to labor shortages from soldiers being sent abroad to fight. Mexico was sending them to avoid an uprising due to poverty and continue governing in a way that allowed the uneven distribution of wealth, and the U.S. got cheap labor, a terribly corrupt win-win for both countries. American employers benefitted the most from this agreement, as they received foreign employees at their disposal, whom they could treat however poorly to profit for themselves since these migrant workers were made so disposable. Hernández states, “The threat of being picked up by immigration agents and put on the next bus to Mexico loomed constantly,” meaning migrant workers had no voice in their treatment and pay because it determined whether or not they were deported back.

Unfortunately, this problem of mistreatment of immigrants has never stopped, in fact, it has only evolved. America has the highest incarceration rate of any country, and it’s fueled by a history of charging minorities with misdemeanors and felonies at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts. I found one of Hernández’s statements very perplexing, where he writes, “Once they have made it to the United States, migrants are again held to a higher standard than U.S. citizens are,” which you wouldn’t consciously think for a population that is consistently treated like less secondary humans, but the statement holds true (Hernández, pg. 100). This higher standard is problematic for numerous reasons. It increase the already present discrimination towards minority groups that is amplified when those minority groups make mistakes (which is only human), it further places disadvantage on minorities where they must work twice as hard for half the reward in any context/situation, and it holds the ability to dramatically increase incarceration rates, specifically amongst the migrant population. Under the Trump Administration, we live in a time where the smallest infractions can get become a means of being incarcerated and deported if someone doesn’t hold the special blue book that is the U.S. Passport. The criminal justice system has also cracked down and has become more strict in its immigration laws, dramatically increasing migrants who are confined and increasing deportation rates. This proves extremely unfortunate to those who may have lived in the U.S. their entire conscious life, but are only permanent residents since they weren’t born in America. Mass incarceration, and child separation in relation to it, are methods of control based on fear mongering, where the general public are made unaware of what is actually going on in prisons, and made only aware of the statistics connected to the issues, making migrants seem like “an invasion” and “absolute threat to safety.”

It’s important that American citizens read into the roots of the immigration issue, in which America played a large part in, as well as the reasons behind the statistics we see regarding migrant confinement and crime rates (they aren’t usually serious crimes) that we see in the media on a daily basis. Developing critical consciousness and dispelling the myth that is “American exceptionalism” will allow us to properly address the issues of structural racism that affect our communities so much.

The majority of students at NGS come from immigrant families and are first-generation American students. Regardless of the immigration status of the NGS students and their families, there is no doubt that they are at a severe disadvantage due to the institutionalized racism that is deep-rooted in our society which can result in the lack of support and resources to navigate the structural ideals that the dominant groups in society have set as standard. The ever occurring segregation that happens in Marin County, where those of the majority of Hispanic ethnicity among the student populations see overall lower test scores due to the disparities in funding and teaching compared to their majority White counterparts, is a reflection of society. NGS seeks to combat that and to eliminate these educational disparities, through personalized tutoring, college preparation, and addressing the individual needs to support the underrepresented students of Marin. The same society that discriminates and dehumanizes immigrants who want safety and refuge in a country that instead that prevents immigrants from seeking asylum, or profits of the backbones of those they deem “aliens” is the same system that suppresses their own citizens of minority ethnicities, but I’m so proud to be part of an organization that seeks to change the very foundation of this system and even the playing field, giving students the resources to fight normalization of dominant groups who determines who benefits and falters under the parameters of society. As Hernández states, “If nightmares can become a reality, why can’t dreams?” (Hernández, pg. 165). I hope that as a tutor, I can aid in this fight to eliminate disparities and fully give my support to students in order for them to succeed and change the status quo for our bettering of our communities and country.