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What is it like to be undocumented? What is like to be DACAmented? Answers to these questions vary, because there is not one essential undocumented or DACAmented experience. But precarity is the one thing that, in my opinion, undocumented and DACAmented people experience in common. At some point in our lives we have felt that at any moment, all that we hold dear to us can be gone. This is the same uncertainty I experienced during my junior year of high school when I did not know if college was a possibility without being an economic stressor on my family.
For my parents, their “American Dream” was to see my brother and I go to college and to have the opportunities that they did not have in a war-torn El Salvador. By my senior year of high school, I was able to apply and become a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA.
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My experience being a DACA recipient is bittersweet.
The summer after my sophomore year in high school I applied for a summer internship at a museum in Los Angeles. Knowing of their citizenship or social security number requirements, I applied anyways. My application made it through the first round and into the interview rounds. The interview went as I had expected and prepared for, with the usual questions about my interest in visual art, my goals for the internship, and a discussion of the skills I listed in my resume.
At the end of that interview, sitting in one of their contemporary art galleries, I remember one of the interviewers brief remarks, “it seems like you are a good candidate for this.” The other interviewer then turned to me, “do you have any questions for us?” With my status in mind, I figured that was the best time to ask about the stipend. “What if I do not have a social security number?” They turned to one another and the male interviewer said, “We can’t pay you and you wouldn’t be able to participate in the program.” I rebutted, “What if I did not want to get paid? Can I still participate?” The answer remained a no. Flash forward to the summer after my sophomore year in college and I am working at a renowned museum and research institute in Los Angeles. The sweet end of DACA is that I am now able to work, drive and fly.
On the other end, things have not changed – besides my having access to those simple privileges. The Trump administration and its declared war against entire communities – including the immigrant community – has made the precarity of being undocumented and DACAmented prevalent. Our precarious condition, which was in the background during the Obama administration, has now intensified. Our communities continue to be under attack and it is now intensifying with the new administration. The possibility for some of us to lose the things we hold most dear to our hearts has intensified. It is clear that DACA was not a solution to the broken immigration system of the United States. The program was a mere band-aid to the deep historical wound on the immigrant community.
I am in fear.
I fear being up for deportation even with DACA – but what is most frightening is that this is not a new thing in the U.S. Dehumanization of entire groups of people has been a part of U.S. history since its inception. In terms of immigration, we have been here before. From Operation Wetback to the Sensenbrenner Bill, Arizona’s SB 1070 to the threats made by President Trump toward the immigrant community – not to mention the deportation machine that has been kept running. Just like how people mobilized against hateful laws like the Sensenbrenner Bill and SB 1070, the people will mobilize on behalf of those affected by the systemic hatred of the Trump administration.
The mobilizing efforts against the systemic hatred reified by the Trump administration will be ones that continue to be guided by solidarity and intersectionality. Dehumanization is and has been occurring at so many levels in our society, which is why it will take mobilizing at all levels. This is a time when we turn to one another and once again realize that our struggles are intimately tied. As such, our movements will have to coalesce if we are to defend the human rights of Indigenous people, the African-American community, women, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, disabled people, Muslims and all other peoples affected by the systemic hatred of the Trump administration.
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