National security rhetoric has historically been used to target Asian Americans
By Martin Kim and Paul Estuar
There were three cars of us, a mix of advocates and lawyers who had driven up a dusty road to the border wall near San Diego. We were on public land. We were not breaking any laws. Yet we were stopped twice…. we were asked to roll down the windows of our vehicles and questioned on our U.S. citizenship.
This is the first entry in a three-part series on Asian Americans and the southern border. As immigration continues to be a major issue particularly during this election year, we intend to shed light on its complexities.
“The southern border.” I’m sure you’ve seen that phrase in news articles or heard it in conversations about immigration. The phrase is often juxtaposed with certain imagery—hundreds of people waiting in makeshift camps or approaching the rusty border wall—and an accompanying message of danger, fear, or threat.
Take a step back from that charged imagery. Think now of a relative or loved one who immigrated to the U.S. For Asian Americans, that should be relatively easy: the vast majority of our community is an immigrant or a child of an immigrant. Can you reconcile the discomforting way people talk about immigrants with the loved ones in your life?
Truthfully, it is easy to compartmentalize the people we know from the people we don’t. Easy, perhaps, to think that harsh immigration policies won’t affect our communities. But that would be a mistake.
The trap that has been set up for our communities is simple: we could accept the harmful rhetoric around recent arrivals, promote or push for restrictions on immigration, and support increases to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) authority and funding. However, to do so would not only hurt our own communities, but also ignore the moral weight of our community’s history.
It is all too easy to slip into the trap of making a distinction between “us” and “them,” between settled immigrants and the newest arrivals through the southern border. After all, the southern border has not historically been the preferred entry point for Asian immigrants; the trek is dangerous, and even getting to the southern border can be difficult. But while anti-immigrant narratives are usually applied to Black, Latine, or Indigenous immigrants who make up most immigrants seeking refuge at the southern border, it is foolish to believe that these narratives—rooted in the ugliness of white supremacy—will not also be aimed at our families and loved ones.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric explicitly casts certain immigrants as welcome and others as criminal, disloyal, or national security threats. That kind of language is familiar to Asian Americans. Our history shows us what happens when overly broad authority meets racist ideas of who is and isn’t a national security threat. In the late 1800s, Chinese immigrants faced the first ever immigration law that excluded immigrants based on race and national origin, a law that was based on racist ideas of who could and should be American.
It was the same racist ideas, cloaked under the guise of the “national security” rhetoric, that led to the forced imprisonment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans by the U.S. government in incarceration camps during World War II.
History repeated itself after 9/11, when the “national security” term was used again to target Muslim Americans as well as Sikh and South Asian Americans who were inaccurately perceived to be Muslim.
More recently, we’ve seen “experts” and policymakers wondering out loud whether new immigrants, especially those from China, are “spies” sent to infiltrate the U.S., as well as other anti-immigrant groups baselessly claiming that this increase in migration is part of a drug-smuggling operation linked to China. These dangerous accusations mirror racist language that has been used to denigrate other recent immigrants.
Despite our long history of fighting against alienating language and rhetoric, there are voices urging Asian Americans to reject the most recent group of immigrants coming to our country. The voices encourage us to ‘other’ ourselves from new migrants, including those from Asia, so that they suffer from the same racist narratives and practices our families endured, simply because they take a new path to the same destination. Don’t be fooled. Those voices do not have your best interests at heart.
Our next blog will discuss the new migration trends and the challenges of our current immigration system.
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Martin Kim is the Director of Immigration Advocacy at Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC.
Paul Estuar is the Director of Litigation at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL).
Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC has a mission to advance the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and to build and promote a fair and equitable society for all. Visit our website at advancingjustice-aajc.org.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL) is the nation’s largest legal and civil rights organization for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). Founded in 1983, AJSOCAL supports over 15,000 individuals and organizations annually. By offering free legal help, engaging in impact litigation, conducting crucial research, and advocating for policy change, AJSOCAL prioritizes the most vulnerable members of AAPI communities while fostering a robust advocacy for civil rights and social justice. Offices are in downtown Los Angeles and Orange County, with satellite offices in Sacramento, ensuring accessibility for all. www. AJSOCAL.org