Immigrant
I am the proud daughter of an immigrant mother.
An immigrant who came to the United States from Guayaquil, Ecuador on a scholarship to study at Tulane University in 1965.
An immigrant whose verbal and written command of the English language, her second tongue, is stronger than most native speakers’.
An immigrant who married my Jewish-American father in 1967 and has lived her entire adult life on foreign shores.
An immigrant who raised two children on those foreign shores.
This is a nation replete with immigrants — and their descendants.
Immigrant does not mean brown.
Immigrant does not mean uneducated.
Immigrant does not mean criminal.
Immigrant does not mean less than.
So many in this country who demonize brave, determined and hardworking immigrants are themselves the descendants of immigrants.
Whiteness, however, allows those same individuals to distance themselves from their immigrant origin stories, and to dehumanize others.
One of the most courageous things my immigrant mother did was never lose sight of her origin story.
She is Ecuadorian — and proud.
What is more, she (and my father) taught my brother and me that we are American and Ecuadorian.
There is absolutely a sense of displacement as an immigrant,
even as the child of immigrants,
but to belong to more than one world,
to speak more than one language,
to call more than one corner of the earth home, is not a deficit.
It is a gift.
As I witness the demonization, persecution, criminalization and dehumanization of immigrants,
I think of my own immigrant mother and my family’s own immigrant story.
I will never allow anyone in this country intend to tell me we are less than.
It is because of my mother’s immigrant story that my family is here.
My family knows who we are and it is precisely because we feel pride in our origin story that we do.
Immigrant means brave.
Immigrant means educated.
Immigrant means courageous.
Immigrant means strong.
Immigrant means whole.
Although there is a rupture that occurs when an immigrant leaves home, it is in recognizing and embracing that rupture that light comes through.
I am the proud daughter of an immigrant mother.
We know who we are.
