Differing opinions on what it means to be American and a history plagued with prejudice and bigotry have always spurred true and meaningful immigration reform in America. Paired with the political weaponization of fear and economic desperation, the idea of new faces — more specifically, new brown faces — gets mixed reviews.
Immigration has always been a problem in America, but recently it has exploded in a way that is truly detrimental to American progress and our image of a nation of liberty and inclusiveness.
This recent ignition of fear-based resentment to change can be pinpointed to one man and one idea. But before I present him, I want to talk about a man who exemplifies the reason why America, by design, is stronger with diversity and stronger with color.
Manuel Cuevas is a Mexican-born designer known for dressing talent acts from Hollywood to Nashville. He immigrated from Mexico to California in the early 1950s.
“I was afforded tremendous opportunity when I moved to California in the early 1950s — I met people who helped shape my career and had experiences that put me on a path toward the success that I have experienced throughout my life,” Cuevas wrote in a recent guest column published in The Tennessean
“I love the fact we are given opportunities and that you can be successful,” Cuevas said at his Nashville shop in June. “I try to do my best as a human being, as a citizen and by just being me.”
The reality about the fundamental reason for American immigration always seems to be ignored. People see America as a place where life is better due to social and economic liberty. From the the late 19th century to now, that has not changed. Why is it bad that people want to come to America to better themselves?
It is at this point that the other man comes into the picture.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” President Trump said in his campaign announcement speech in June 2015.
“They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” This is how Donald Trump introduced his idea of immigration reform.
It was at this moment that immigration reform changed from finding a bipartisan way to assure borders are safe and new immigrants are welcomed properly to the bolstered irrational fear of everything brown.
The concept in and of itself is ludicrous: an entire population of people is dangerous because of the actions of a few? If you think that’s stupid, wait till you hear his solution.
“Mexico was just ranked the second deadliest country in the world, after only Syria. Drug trade is largely the cause. We will BUILD THE WALL!” tweeted Donald Trump in June 2017.
That’s right — a wall to divide our country from a singular threat, another group of human beings. In essence, it really doesn’t get more American than that — color-based exclusion, a tale as old as America itself.
But time seems to tell a different story when it comes to the southern border.
According to a recent Business Insider Business Insider article border apprehensions in 2017 dropped so low that authorities only recorded 16,588 arrests that March. So far in 2018, they recorded 50,308, an increase, but one that still remains relatively low in the context of the past four decades.
The wall, in essence, does not represent the solution to the ageless problem of border security. Rather, it represents the visceral fear of an America that is becoming more brown than white.
According to the Census Bureau, 2013 marked the first year the majority of American babies under the age of one were nonwhite.
According to a recent Vox piece entitled “White threat in a browning America” by Ezra Klein, the government predicts that in 2030, immigration will be the main driver of new growth in America. About 15 years after that America will transition into a time where non-Hispanic white people will no longer be the majority.
America is opening a new chapter in demographics and politics, the resistance to a more inclusive and accepting immigration policy is just the last big push to reject change.
The wealth of culture, ideas and ethnicity in America is what makes it great. To build a wall when we are just beginning to tear down racial barriers in America is counterproductive to the American image of a country for all.
Frankly speaking, immigration reform that secures us, but includes all, is what we need and what we should want.
Justin Franklin is a 19-year-old political communication sophomore from Memphis, Tennessee.
