What happens to the Nameless?
The question of immigration holds within it an underworld of turbulent truths that are destabilizing the ideals of liberty, fraternity and equality that govern nations. Cloaked beneath her nation’s laws, the citizen has rights to its promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But for the immigrant, those unrecognized by the state, the rights to these promises are fought for through improvisation – as they negotiate through informal sectors of the economy, carving out livelihoods in abject situations.
At the beginning of the 2010 news cycle, international news agencies got a glimpse of an immigration story soaked in sweat and tears in Rosarno, Italy. A truth emerged amidst the violent riots, after years of exploitation, dejection, and poverty. Over one thousand African immigrants each equipped with his/her own story of struggle and disappointment, took to the streets of Rosarno raging against the shooting of a Togolese immigrant - symbolic of the racist attacks they constantly endure. The xenophobia, meager wages they earned as fruit-pickers, the degradation, and the abject circumstances in which they toiled simply added fuel to the flames.
After the riots were quelled, these nameless immigrants were then taken to detention camps in Rome, Italy, and their fates have since been veiled in obscurity. They have been sent to that blank space reserved by states where the nameless occupy. Who knows what will happen to them? They are powerless, without rights to Italian land, without names. Let’s hope their stories don’t end up like those revealed, after years of cover-ups, in a January New York Times expose: Nery Romero committed suicide in 2007 at a detention camp in New York after being denied pain medication for his broken leg; Boubacar Bah, a Guinean immigrant, died two years ago in an immigration detention cell in New York, screaming in Fulani, “They are killing me, they are killing me,” as guards failed to give him urgent medical treatment for his skull fracture.
And as those injustices facing the African diaspora made national headlines in early January, the tragic earthquake and its aftermath in Haiti beg the question, "How can we right these wrongs? How can the international community respond in times of great need?" We are heartened by the solidarity rapidly building among local Haitian immigrant communities and their neighbors to organize upcoming fundraisers, concerts, and vigils. We see hope in the generous outpouring of donations from the Bay Area community.
But we must caution ourselves against imposing our own assumptions of need without listening and empowering those in focus. The overmilitarization of much of the Haiti aid effort, along with overblown reports of looting and violence, only scare off genuine relief efforts. Such inaccurate reporting has perpetuated racist stereotypes of those in the African diaspora and Africans themselves, compounded by American hysteria after a Nigerian's alleged bomb-plot in December.
The American media is rightly focusing on the tragedies and, yes, the resiliency in Haiti. The Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano has hit the airwaves to declare that tens of thousands of undocumented Haitians in the U.S. will now have the chance to get Temporary Protected Status for eighteen months. Yet most of the
American media has not taken the chance to explore why Haitians have emigrated to the U.S. in the first place and how they have been treated upon arrival to America.
Now is the time to listen. Now is the time to honor voices of the African diaspora. Those who have emigrated from Africa must be given equal rights in their new homes, whether in Italy or in the U.S. Racial profiling must not be their first welcome from U.S. Customs agents, nor should it be part of our national security response in the aftermath of the bomb-plot. Haitians deserve urgent relief with a priority voice in the rebuilding of their nation. Now is the time to name the unnamed.
*The African Advocacy Network (AAN). The AAN is a project of Dolores Street Community Services, providing social services to African immigrants in the Bay Area.
(Media contacts: Joe Sciarrillo and Priscilla Ankrah. This piece was authored by the AAN staff.)
415-503-1032 (office), 415-320-9963 (cell)
Fax: (415) 282-2826
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http://www.sfimmigrantnetwork.org/
Some articles referenced in this op-ed:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/19/actor_and_activist_danny_glover_on
(Danny Glover, discusses the militarization of some aid efforts)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/world/europe/11italy.html?emc=eta1
(Xenophobic attacks, riots in Italy)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/us/10detain.html
(ICE cover up of immigrant deaths)
