La Kemster

Battling Silence

First, I was illegal

An identity given to me

By a socio-political complex

Hell-bent on forcing me to

Reject my notion of self.

 

Illegal is illegal, they said –

More than my age

More than my gender/sexuality

More than my humanity –

I was now this thing, an ‘it’

No longer a human being.

 

I stay silent.

 

Then, I was a dreamer

An identity that built

A collective consciousness

And finally made me

Part of an ‘us.’

 

I was put on a giddy high

Of dreams deferred

Of “I have a dream”

Of a rainbow of caps & gowns.

For we are the dreamers,

The mighty, mighty dreamers.

 

Never mind those whose dreams

We are not acknowledging because

They do not match our own.

Never mind those who will not make it

Far enough to don a cap and gown.

 

Suddenly, a proclamation:

“But we are all dreamers,”

documented or undocumented.

 

I stay silent.

 

Then I was undocumented

An identity borne of the realization

That I am more than just legislation,

That this new piece of paper

Would not magically heal the wounds of the struggle

Wrought by lack of papers to begin with,

That to drive home the assertion that

No human being is illegal,

We must first stop referring to ourselves as such,

That dreams without concrete, effective action and empowerment

Would not serve my growth.

 

Again, it was said:

“But we are all undocumented,”

united in this struggle.

 

I stay silent.

 

Then I became unafraid,

Unashamed,

Unapologetic –

About my immigration status,

About refusing to bow down

to rhetoric & political punting,

about choosing a movement over a campaign,

about acknowledging the full, wide, deep and beautiful

spectrum of the undocumented experience,

and about reclaiming my voice and

demanding that it be the only vehicle

through which my story is told.

 

This time though,

We were not “all unafraid.”

Instead, I was being divisive,

I was being stubborn,

I was selfish, petulant,

I was Radical.

 

Once again labeled an “other”

In the delicate world of “Us”

I called home.

 

I stay silent.

 

At the end of the day,

Though our many struggles and experiences intersect,

And you say we are all dreamers,

My dream of existence in a society

That still views me as illegal, as an it,

Has yet to come true.

 

You say we are all undocumented,

Yet I am the one who has to justify,

In a court of law,

The right to call the dirt I walk on

And the air I breathe

My Home.

 

Can I not claim an identity of my own,

Without it being co-opted, rebranded,

Misinterpreted and censored

by those who are not affected?

Those who support, understand,

Sympathize, fight alongside,

But who are not undocumented?

 

If you truly support me,

You would understand

the importance of my words,

for they are one of the few weapons I own.

 

If you truly support me,

You would understand,

The necessity,

In a world in which

I am constantly told I have no rights,

To have an identity to call my own.

 

If you truly support me,

You would understand that

My struggle is not about you.

 

If you truly support me,

You would understand that

We both lose

When I remain silent.

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