Gendering the Immigration Debate

Second is a piece asking for a discussion over whether the U.S. needs a museum on the national mall to the history and culture of Latinos. Many of the bloggers are positive about the need for this, but at least one predictable comment was posted:

“What have latinos done to contribute anything to the US. I’ll tell you. Nothing, nada. Why should we spend dollars we don’t have for a museum for latinos?
They pour over our borders, pump their women full of new born babies who instantly become US citizens just because they were born here. The 15 to 20 million illegals contribute no tax dollars, but somehow manage to get welfare money and free medical care. When they stop committing international crime of illegally entering our country, then maybe one day they may deserve something like this. And for the US government to even consider it, in the face of the worst economic times since the 1930’s, Is a slap in the face to every American who at least tries to get work, pay taxes, and obey the laws of the country. Latinos do none of these. Instead they should use this money to shore up the borders. We cannot afford any more free rides.”

Let’s connect the dots here. Obama has selected three individuals (noticeably, they are women) who contribute to our national culture and economy; this is the tip of the iceberg — the examples can be found in any city across the country these days. One does not need to look far to find them. Contributions to this country date back to the Spanish colonists. Secondly, in this blogger’s comment, xenophobic fear of the foreign “other” is taking on a gendered frame. Equally present in such commentaries are the masculinized frames–such as the unemployed Mexican hanging in a parking lot to take jobs from Americans. The “anchor baby” construction is the latest example of the “welfare queen” myth that African American women have suffered. It turns out that Latinos (which includes millions of native-born Latinos/Latinas) pay plenty of taxes and Social Security, as do immigrants of all nationalities. The “crime” mentioned here is a violation of civil law, not criminal law, but today’s climate treats our immigrants as presumed criminals. (Witness our own class member who was racially profiled in a recent police stop for doing nothing wrong.)

There is much to discuss about the broader societal context of these issues, including flawed or failed policies such as NAFTA and CAFTA, a history of courting Mexicans for manual labor legally and then closing the doors, a restricted visa policy that doesn’t allow enough visas for the number of jobs needing to be filled, and the coyotes and traffickers who exploit the situation. Closing the border has not worked — it has promoted more, not less, criminal activity. See Lee Maril’s new book, The Fence. Women are among the most vulnerable to these practices. Further, research has consistently found no correlation between immigration and crime; immigrant neighborhoods usually have lower crime rates than other neighborhoods.

How can we see our foreign-born neighbors, teachers, bosses, assistants, farmworkers in more textured ways that recognize the diversity between them, the contributions they make to the country, and the problems that arise from a broken system, not from individuals? Part and parcel are the contributions of immigrant women. As my co-authors, Elizabeth Clifford and Reena Tandon, and I describe in our new book Immigration and Women: Understanding the American Experience, the women usually disappear in the popular imagination of the immigrant, with the exception of the “anchor baby” scenario. But the majority of the housecleaning and home child care work is now performed by women from such countries as the Philippines, there are many Caribbean and Filipino nurses in our health care system, small local businesses and large architectural and law firms are run by immigrant women, and the special vision of these women is enriching our art world. The front lines of immigration-rights activism are boldly led by women. Further, if our country, as our colleague Mona Russell has written, justifies colonialism by judging how other countries treat women, would not this logic be used to welcome “oppressed” women through a gender-sensitive asylum and refugee policy?

I am reminded of the question asked by the United Nations report that our class just read, “Who Answers to Women?” and we might add, “Why is this question almost never asked?”