More than a pair of arms

This past fall, after the passage of the harsh anti-immigrant law in Alabama, reports of the negative “unintended consequences” of the bill began appearing in the popular media. Articles described the crops rotting in the fields, since all the undocumented farmworkers that usually pick them had fled the state. Advocates for immigrant rights have picked up on this phenomenon as evidence of the failings of the Alabama law; pointing out that the state’s economy relies on undocumented workers to do the jobs no US citizens want to do.

Arguments like these, which describe an important niche immigrant laborers fill in the US economy, are commonly used by immigrant rights advocates across the United States. “They just come here to work” and “they’re not even taking jobs US citizens want,” are common refrains. While it is certainly important to make these statements in order to expose the hypocrisy of US immigration law, when taken alone they fall far short of providing an accurate description of immigration in the US today.

The fact of the matter is immigration is complex. Immigrants come to the US for a variety of reasons; yes, to find blue-collar employment to make money to feed their families, but also to escape violent situations at home, to reunite with family members, or to seek additional opportunities for self-expression and personal development. The undocumented immigrants I know in the states are a diverse bunch – they are artists, philosophers, healers, students, and business owners. They are contributing to their communities in a variety of ways; everything from picking tomatoes to painting murals along our city streets to reviving our downtowns through new local businesses. The value of each individual immigrant stems not from some monolithic set of characteristics ascribed to her, but from her own unique character and contributions.

When the US “Bracero” program began in the 1942, it aimed to bring Mexicans into the US as contract workers to fill domestic labor shortages in the agricultural and railroad industries during World War II. The title of the program made it clear what value the US government saw in Mexican workers – they were only a “set of arms.” In 1945, when the war ended and the troops came home, many braceros were ousted from their jobs and ordered out of the country, even if they had established families or tight community ties during their time here.

It is time we recognize that immigrants in the US are much more than just a “set of arms.” As it concerns blue-collar workers, this means not only confronting the hypocrisy of the US immigration and economic systems, but also fighting to shake up those systems so that all workers in the US, including immigrant laborers, have access to fair wages, safe working conditions, and bargaining rights. For our immigrant neighbors, it means recognizing their value as human beings, in all their complexity.

In the immigrant rights community, “just coming to work,” has been widely accepted as a legitimate reason to immigrate to the US. But there are many other reasons people migrate and many different ways immigrants contribute and prove their worth within US society. In Alabama, the state is suffering not only because it has lost farmworkers, but also because it is losing mothers, grandfathers, singers, chefs, parishioners, and teachers. Truly meaningful social change for immigrant rights must take into account the diversity and manifold contributions of immigrants in the US. To be able to effectively fight for that change, we must expand our conversations to include a more open and frank discussion about the complexity of immigration today.

Cross posted with open borders blog