“You’re not like other immigrants.”

The five words that will always let me down.

You might deeply appreciate and value my work, but there are limits to how much you care about me.  

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: I don’t feel safe when I am around large groups of other Latinos. It’s not the people, but the predators they might attract.

I will have conversations with proud, Biden-supporting friends about immigration issues. They will argue that immigrants are not entitled to the same privileges as citizens. “But,” they will always add, “You’re different.”

These conversations have made it easy for me not to trust so-called liberals. The difference between getting to know someone who happens to be undocumented and loving them relies on seeing their entire humanity. 

Every person who cares for me and says I am “different” than individuals described in the news does not actually care for immigrants like me at all. At the end of the day, most people that I know and interact with are racist and they don’t even know it. Most people also have absolutely no idea how effectively anti-immigrant policies are cast across every aspect of life in this country today.

Yes, I am not like other undocumented immigrants in this country, which makes me exactly like other undocumented immigrants in this country.

You might look at me and wonder if I look like what an undocumented immigrant is supposed to look like. But that wondering is both a racist and a phenomena that has maintained legal standing in the U.S. for nearly half a century. The 1975 Supreme Court case United States v. Birgnoni-Ponce offers legal cover for border patrol agents to make decisions in their enforcement activities. As Kevin Johnson writes, “United States v. Brignoni-Ponce expressly sanctioned … profiling, so long as ‘Mexican appearance’ was only one of many factors relied upon by authorities in making an immigration stop. Evidence unfortunately suggests that the Border Patrol today persistently relies unduly on race in targeting particular groups for stops.”

Considering the legal support for racial profiling, Angela S. Garcia’s ethnographic research details how undocumented Mexican immigrants in California change their hairstyles and adapt new gaits and postures when walking down the street. They even might pack a white dress shirt to wear after a day of physical labor so as not to look like the day laborer they are. These are the sacrifices of our identity that we make so we can live among all of you. 

There’s a fine line between “passing” in this country—making the kinds of calculated decisions one makes to survive—and being whitewashed. By altering our appearance and behavior to pretend to become “American enough,” undocumented individuals like me excise aspects of our humanity for your comfort.

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: I don’t feel safe when I am around large groups of other Mexicans and Latinos. It’s not the people, but the predators they might attract. It’s a fear of the consequences of socializing in places with other people like me. People coded as possibly undocumented in the eyes of the U.S. authorities. It is my reality.

If I go to a taco truck and there are a lot of Mexicans there, I don't feel safe. When I was recently looking for a place to live, people would tell me, “Oh, there is a large of Latinx community in this part of the city,” assuming that would be a selling point. However, I cannot afford to live in a Latinx community.

I can't.

Solidarity remains at the heart of immigration and human rights battles across this country, but I can't afford always being anxious. Living in Latinx communities right now means being triggered 24/7. That’s what this country does to people like me. 

Propina

“No, no quiero ser esa mujer / ella se fue a un abismo”