The Liberation of Immigrants
For RC Teachers and Allies
WHO ARE IMMIGRANTS?
Immigrants are anyone who has moved to a different country. They may be refugees who are forced to leave in order to escape dangerous and life-threatening situations. They may be asylees fleeing political persecution. They may be migrants looking for work and ways to make a living. They may be forcibly taken from their homelands and taken to another country. They may be students looking for better educational and work opportunities. Others move as a result of love and marriage and personal reasons. Every immigrant's story is different and complex.
Immigrants are very diverse. They come from all over the world with different cultures, languages, and religions and settle in many different countries. All over the world, refugees and immigrants have built viable communities, reenergized cities and economies with their talents, hard work, innovation and enriched countries with their different cultures and perspectives on reality. Yet, throughout history, immigrants and migrants have faced widespread discrimination and exploitation. They are targeted with xenophobia and racism and scapegoated for economic downturns in both the Global North and South.
The worldwide surge in anti-immigrant fervor in the 21st Century is led by growing global right-wing populist movements which blame immigrants for the economic and social upheavals from collapsing capitalism. These movements have won national power or become powerful enough to force mainstream governments to adopt their policies, in the U.S, across Europe, increasingly in Central and South America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and to some extent, India. These governments and movements stoke anti-immigrant sentiments by portraying immigrants as a drain on the country’s resources, restimulating people's undischarged insecurity around survival and accusing immigrants of threatening the country’s cultural identity, superiority and way of life.
The movement of People of the Global Majority from the Global South to the Global North has been on the rise due to the effects of Western imperialism, including economic dominance, social-political and cultural imperialism, the result of colonization that has impoverished immigrants' country of origin, as well as untenable living conditions and weather-related disasters due to the effects of global climate change.
The right-wing attack on immigrants is coupled with policies that accelerate climate change by promoting the use of fossil fuel while rolling back climate protection actions and policies. As a result, Oxfam reports that due to weather-related disasters 30 million people are displaced each year. Those affected are largely from the Global South, from countries that have contributed the least to the global climate crisis.
IMPERIALISM & COLONIALISM
Immigrant oppression cannot be fully understood without understanding capitalism expressed through imperialism. Historically, imperialism took the form of colonialism, which dominated and subjugated much of the world, genociding indigenous population, engaging in slavery, extracting resources and imposing Western sociocultural political values and white ideologies to displace local norms and values. Between the 15th and early 20th centuries, 80-84% of the world was under colonial rule, including the entire Americas, all of Africa except for Ethiopia and Liberia, and most of Asia and West Asia.
Even after attaining independence, wealth continues to be transferred out of the Global South through economic imperialism via economic dominance and control through unequal trade treaties, embargoes, illegal sanctions and illegal tariffs, manufactured debt dependency and currency devaluation. People in former colonies are displaced by privatization, rural poverty, and job elimination through structural adjustment programs imposed by the World Bank and IMF. These programs require borrowing countries to privatize, end subsidies and controls, liberalize trade, reduce worker protections, and discourage environmental protections.
In addition, wars fueled by divisions and animosities between different groups that were nurtured during the colonial era add to the large scale migration of people to the Global North.
Lastly, social-cultural-political imperialism remains pervasive through the dominance of multinational corporations and Western media. Multinationals promote consumerism as well as influence dietary habits and social values, while Hollywood films and television programs promote western political ideals and culture as superior to indigenous and local culture and values, colonizing the minds of the Global South and propelling migration northward.
RACISM
For People of the Global Majority immigrants the oppression is both the racism they face on a daily basis and the sense of always being on the outside, never fitting in because of ascribed “otherness” based on the color of their skin, different culture, religion and national origin. Global Majority immigrants are separated from each other by internalized racist stereotypes and propaganda.
Throughout history, immigrants of the Global Majority have been the primary targets in the Global North. However, white immigrants were also targeted. In the U.S. and Europe, Eastern, Central, and Southern Europeans—including Italians, Irish, Slavs, Spaniards, Poles, Hungarians, Jews, and Greeks—were often considered racially inferior, unassimilable and were discriminated against. They gained acceptance into whiteness largely through assimilation, which often meant distancing themselves from their ethnic identities, adopting anti-Black racism, restricting their children’s relationships with Black and other Global Majority people, excluding them from their neighborhoods, and participating in the preservation of white supremacist structures. .
Today, immigrants of the Global Majority are the primary target because, they are often the most vulnerable and more easily identifiable, making it easy to mobilize xenophobic and nativists sentiments.
THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE
Most people do not choose to leave their homelands, family and friends unless life has become unsustainable or they were forcibly taken from their homelands. People sold into slavery or trafficked, refugees, asylum seekers, climate migrants fleeing climate disasters, people escaping war and political persecution, and immigrants seeking for ways to make a living leave under circumstances beyond their control. The journey can be treacherous and terrifying at worst, and complex and confusing at best.
Most immigrants come with little. They have few connections in the new country, often do not speak the language and are unfamiliar with their new environment. Finding their way through this maze to establish themselves is not easy.
Immigrants are exploited for their labor wherever they go. Anti-immigrant rhetoric makes their labor cheaper and more vulnerable to exploitation. By demonizing undocumented workers, their labor becomes cheaper and thus a vital part of the profit formula for employers. By separating undocumented workers from the rest of society, they have no means of organizing or protesting for fear of deportation and thus are easier to control and exploit.
The current anti-immigrant rhetoric scapegoats immigrants and particularly undocumented immigrants, without disclosing the imperialist, capitalist and racist forces that fuels it. Without understanding the context and foundations of immigrant oppression, people are easily swayed to believe anti-immigrant, xenophobic and racist propaganda, while immigrants internalize the anti-immigrant rhetoric and project it on to each other, rather than seeing the systemized oppression that it is, undergirded by greed and racism.
ASSIMILATION: A KEY MECHANISM OF IMMIGRANT OPPRESSION
All immigrants are under pressure to assimilate into the broader society. Assimilation is the systematic process by which new immigrants are forced to adopt the dominant society’s ideologies, perspectives, values, standards, dress, behavior, language, etc. in order to be accepted. It requires giving up one’s unique culture, language, traditions, perspective and connection to one’s country of origin.
The assimilation process is not overt but often subtle and stressful. People are forced to give up “big parts” of themselves and not notice that they are being forced to give up anything. Assimilation is most successful when there is no awareness that it is happening and therefore there is no resistance. In fact, most immigrants blame themselves when they are unable to fit in.
Assimilation not only separates immigrants from who they are, assimilation also
means accepting and adopting the dominant culture's racist, anti-immigrant ideologies
and other oppressive distress patterns. In white dominated countries, as each wave of white immigrants assimilated, their connections to their home country, to their families across the oceans were severed and they lost their culture and language. As they assimilated and blended into the dominant society, they began to adopt the same anti-immigrant and racist attitudes towards newer immigrants and immigrants of the Global Majority. Assimilation is the process of consenting to oppression and taking on oppressor material against ourselves and each other.
For People of the Global Majority immigrants in white dominated societies, assimilation
is racism. They are seen as too different, alien and unassimilable. It requires giving up who we are - our unique culture, language, traditions, perspective and connection to our community - for the illusive promise of fitting into and being accepted into the dominant white culture. Assimilation forces us to set aside, hide or give up integral parts of ourselves in order to fit in: what we eat, what we wear, what holidays we celebrate, how we speak, how we relate to each other, even what our names are. Assimilation conditions force immigrants of the Global Majority to accept white expectations of who we are and misinformation about other People of Global Majority groups.
EFFECTS OF IMMIGRANT OPPRESSION
Immigrant oppression has left immigrants with many feelings and patterns. However, oppression is not new. These feelings and patterns come from the legacy of colonialism as well as present day immigrant oppression.
Immigrant oppression effectively keeps immigrants in the shadows. It makes us go “invisible” and reluctant to bring attention to our status as immigrants or children of immigrants for fear of being targeted. Even in RC, openly working on being an immigrant can feel scary, as though we are making ourselves a big target by talking about it.
Immigrant oppression makes us feel:
- Targeted, terrified and insecure:. We feel vulnerable, fearful and
watchful for the next potential attack that could come from any direction. We are
scared to show ourselves, or speak out or take up space. - Overwhelmed: There are so many new things to learn and get used to, new challenges to solve, attacks to deflect, etc.
- Urgency: We feel urgent about what needs to be done because it may impact our safety.
- Isolated: We have had to rely mostly on ourselves, doing things on our own and don't expect outside help.
- Outsiders: We feel unwanted, out of place, unable to fit in the adopted
country. We feel marginalized, unacceptable, not valued and dispensable. We also don't fit into our home country anymore, because of how we have assimilated patterns from our adopted country. We feel that we don't fit or belong anywhere. - Less than: less than whole, less smart, less significant, less capable.
- Insignificant: We often don't trust our thinking, second guess ourselves and don't think we can change things because we don't think we know enough, no do we think that it is our role to change things.
- Hopeless: Immigrants are hopeful people. It was the vision and hope for a better life that propelled immigrants and refugees to overcome all kinds to barriers to make it to the new country. However, the weight of anti-immigrant oppression and racism has left many immigrants, particularly immigrants of the Global Majority feeling defeated in the face of the oppression.
- Bad about ourselves: We internalize the xenophobia and feel we are not quite right and not good enough, as though there is something wrong with us, our people, cultures, traditions and language, and it is our "fault" that we don't quite fit in.
WHAT IMMIGRANTS NEED
Supporting immigrants is about our intertwined liberation. It means reaching to mend those places within ourselves where we have been separated from others and hence, our own humanness and power. Immigrants need allies who will not be intimidated by our difference, and who can really see and provide space for all our difference as something to be celebrated and embraced.
We need allies who can hang in for the long term and won't give up on us when we disappear because life got too challenging or we got scared. Remember we are used to people leaving us, and us leaving people. Staying with us is a big contradiction
We want you to stay curious and care about the world. Learn about what is happening in other parts of the world and the connections to your country. Learn about the country, sociocultural, political history and culture of the co-counselors you want to ally.
DIRECTIONS FOR ALLIES
Work on how you got separated from us immigrants by the oppressive society:
- What is the propaganda around immigrants you have absorbed? How were different communities of immigrants portrayed by your family, school, media, etc.?
- How much contact or exposure did you have with immigrants and immigrant communities growing up?
- How were immigrant neighborhoods viewed? Did you ever go into immigrant neighborhoods and festivals? Why or why not?
Discharge to reclaim your own immigrant roots, no matter how many generations removed you may be. Assimilation has disconnected you from yourself, your roots, history, traditions and language. Discharge on your ancestor’s immigration stories as though their stories were your own, in order to connect to immigrants for your own liberation and to reclaim what you have lost.
If you are not a descendant of immigrants, you have heard the stories of immigrants and what they had to go through:
- What if you have to live their lives, face the challenges they faced? What choices would you make? How would it feel?
- Or, imagine yourself having to move because life has become unsustainable.
- Where would you go?
- Who would you take with you?
- What would you bring? What could you bring?
- How would it feel to leave everything you know behind?
- What might the journey be like?
- How will you set up your life once you get to wherever you were going?
Discharge places where you feel different from, better than or more deserving. Actively speak out on behalf of immigrants and to protect immigrants in this anti-immigrant climate to build trust and solidarity.
FOR COUNSELORS OF IMMIGRANTS
Remind us of our strengths and power. The decision to move and settle in an unknown place takes vision, determination, planning, courage, persistence, flexibility and strength. Remind us of the richness of our different cultures and languages. Encourage us to discharge on, notice and claim our strengths, not just discharge on how bad we feel. Remind us that we are changers and movers and to work on reclaiming our power, significance and move towards the center.
Encourage us to tell our stories and discharge on every piece of the immigrant journey and the attached feelings. What made us leave? What did we have to leave behind? Some of us did not get a chance to say goodbye, or had to leave family behind, including children. Some of us were happy to leave and had big hopes and dreams. Either way, it's important to encourage discharge on the separation, our hopes and whether these were fulfilled.
Support us to fight the pressure to assimilate. Help us reclaim connections to ourselves, our people, our history, our culture and our language. We need to discharge on the beauty of our culture and traditions as well as where things were irrational, since all cultures reflect beauty as well as distress. We get to discharge on our people's history. Remind us to discharge on the effects of colonialism, how it affected our lives and our minds.
Remind white immigrants to work on all the above. White immigrants mostly feel unseen because they can blend in. Don't assume white immigrants are NOT immigrants and therefore don't have immigrant struggles. Assist white immigrants to work on internalized racism towards immigrants of the global majority.
DIRECTIONS FOR CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS
This is particularly powerful work for the 1.5 immigrant generation: children of immigrants who migrated with their parents. These early experiences are where the hurt got laid in and function similarly to other early hurts.
Notice and discharge on what it took for your parents to decide to move. Notice the good life they have been able to build and how they and you have been able to handle many challenges elegantly. Tell your parent's stories and discharge on what you know. Discharge on what you don’t know, the questions you have and figure out how to find out.
Tell every detail, such as:
- If you left with your parents, what do you remember of your life in your country? What was good, what was hard? What or who do you miss?
- What are your memories around having to leave? What was the journey like for you? Where did you land, where did you live?
- Did you have any choice about leaving or where you ended up living?
- How did you make friends? With whom?
- What did you have to hide, not show, or give up in order to fit in and be accepted?
- How did your parents change after immigrating? How did your relationship with them change?
- What was your role? Did you have to become the interpreters and/or take on more responsibilities than is expected of non-immigrant children?
- What was it like to watch your parents try to build a life? What did your parents teach or not teach you of their traditions and culture?
- Did you feel different from other kids? What made you feel different? How did other kids respond to your difference? Or did you just feel that your difference was invisible?
- What was school like? The first day of school? How did your teachers and other students treat you? Were you able to speak English?
- What was the early assimilation like? What was the pressure to assimilate like?
Cheng Imm Tan
November 2026