By Lisbeth Coiman
Like a long distance runner, I travel solo at a fast pace, between villages, delivering my message:
Latinx immigrants are here to stay. We are an increasingly large group of people in all shades of brown, with complex identities product of the ethnic amalgamation that the process of colonization brought upon us.
We are hardworking and resourceful people who seek nothing else than to build families and make our contribution to the society we now call home. From time to time you may see us a bit broken, a bit absent minded. That’s our longing for something that will never be again.
We are here with our own emotional baggage, with our own biases, just like any other citizen of this country. But we are quick to learn, to adapt, and to contribute our distinctive beauty to this great nation. We are here to be part of this community. We are happy to join you in your office, neighborhood, in your gathering places. We hope you embrace us. However, we are also ready to create our own unique communities.
We know better than to say no to any opportunity, no matter how small. But don’t mistake acceptance of reality for lack of ambition. Parents willfully become servants so our children don’t have to, so we can push our offspring through Medical School or a career in Arts and Humanities. We tell our children, “when you go to graduate school,” as oppose to “if you graduate from high school.” It doesn’t mean we live our dreams vicariously through our children. It means we have a clear vision of the future, and it doesn’t end with our retirement.
My message also spells Allyship. Don’t play politics with us. Don’t use our lighter skin to seed hate or create divisiveness. Most of us are escaping pain and suffering and can easily recognize the oppressor. Although some of us chose to identify as white–because of internalized self-hatred, a product of the colonizers’ pervasive message against the enslaved people from Africa all over the Americas–most will chose the side of justice and place a protective shroud over the shoulders or our black brothers and sisters, or Native Americans, or any other marginalized segment of the population of this vast land.
Those of us who vote, will do so against hate, dogma, and totalitarianism because we have seen it. We know that it doesn’t matter on what side of the political pendulum it sits, the wrong kind of government will destroy a once powerful country.
See us. We work, pay taxes, move forward. And we vote.
Here is a short list of resources for self-education for Allyship
McDowell, Deborah E. The Changing Same
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me
Wood, J. Luke et al. Teaching Men of Color in the Community College: A Guidebook
Kendi, Ibram X. How to be an Antiracist
Wilma, Mankiller. Everyday is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women.Anything and everything written by Mankiller, and don’t take her last name lightly.
https://mydocumentedlife.org/ (Founded by Carolina, then college student in the UC system, now Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology in UCLA), this is the number one resource for undocumented students across the nation, providing a wealth of information for those seeking to advance themselves or their children through education.
Read Black, Native American writers, Latinx, Muslim, LGBTQ writers. Immerse yourself in arts and culture of under-represented people of color.
Lisbeth Coiman is an emerging, bilingual writer wandering the immigration path from Venezuela to Canada to the US. She has performed any available job from maid to college administrator, and adult teacher. Her work has been published in Hip Mama, the Literary Kitchen, YAY LA, Nailed Magazine, Entropy, and RabidOak. She was also featured in the Listen to Your Mother Show in 2015. In her self-published memoir, I Asked the Blue Heron (Nov 2017), Coiman celebrates female friendship while exploring issues of child abuse, mental disorder, and her own journey as an immigrant. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches ESL and dances salsa.