Skilled vs. unskilled is a construct to justify exploitation

Image Description: photo of U.S. militarized border with metal bars and barbed wires, a car headline shines through from the other side casting shadows of border patrol officer and other humans

Since Eric Adams’s ignorant comments about “low skill workers,” I have had a memory come to me that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

Sometime in 2016, I was invited to speak at a predominantly Latine city college on the topic of immigration and borders. I prepared speaking points connecting structural racism and oppression to exclusion and surveillance in order to highlight how the U.S. immigration policy was set up to perpetuate oppression and suffering. I planned to talk about how even though it seems like we have always had border patrol, the first U.S. border patrol was actually established as recently as 1924, with the purpose of enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Act by patrolling the U.S./Mexico border to make sure no Chinese people entered. I planned to talk about how arbitrary borders were and how disconnected one must be from the core of humanity to call a human being “illegal.” I planned to talk about the historical and present role the U.S. government has been playing in placed like Central American that destabilized communities, created underlying conditions for migration, and then dehumanize and reject migrants when they arrive.

Before my speaking event, I talked on the phone with the faculty member who invited me to speak. Let’s call her Nancy. I shared the outline of my talk, and Nancy was happy with it. She didn’t ask many questions about it, and instead, she was curious about my personal immigration story. I shared that while I experienced a lot of pain and trauma on my immigration journey, I did have the privilege of being able to immigrate based on my father’s H1B visa.

Nancy: What does your father do?

Me: He is a researcher. He studies nano particles.

Nancy: Wow he is a scientist! Was that how he got a visa?

Me: Yes. When he initially got a visiting research visa, my mom and I were denied visas. I was 9 years old and I was separated from my dad for 3 years.

Nancy: That’s horrible! I can’t believe they did that to you!

Me: Yea, it was hard. But “they,” as in the U.S. government, have certainly done many other horrendous things.

Nancy laughed a little and agreed.

On the day of my talk, I got up in front of the audience and started to present my slides. A few minutes in, Nancy asked me to pause and said, “actually, would you share a bit about your personal immigration story?” I was reluctant. I didn’t want to. It was not directly relevant to the content that I actually wanted to speak about. But I didn’t want to create an awkward moment in front of the audience, so I very briefly shared.

Nancy interjected and said to the audience: can you believe that?! Her dad is a scientist and they couldn’t even get a visa!

I froze. I looked out to an audience of predominantly brown faces and I was frozen. Here was this white woman, who believed that she was on the right side of history, who thought she was advocating for her students, many of whom have lived experiences with immigration, who was trying to show support and sympathy for my story, but who did not realize that she was simply reinforcing the oppressive walls that U.S. immigration policies have built.

U.S. immigration policies are oppressive precisely because their writers wielded their powers to draw a boundary line through humanity and to determine who was deserving and who was not. These policies were built on the idea that some human lives are not worthy of safety, community, care, and protection. Often, these boundary lines are drawn based on the “prestige” of jobs ranked under racial capitalism.

Nancy was outraged that my family was denied visas when I had a “scientist dad.” What Nancy did not say out loud was that she wouldn’t have felt the same if my dad was a farm worker. She would be much more willing to accept my painful family separation if my dad had a job that made us less deserving.

I stood in front of the audience frozen because at that time, I couldn’t find the words I needed to express my feelings. What Nancy said was so confusing to me because it sounded like a statement of support but in fact, it hid an underlying value system that was fundamentally incompatible with my own values.

This memory came to me now, in 2022, to serve a purpose. As the pandemic rages on, as the New York mayor makes claims about “low skill workers,” as ableism rages on, as toxic individualism rages on, I reaffirm that our work is fundamentally about dismantling boundary lines drawn through humanity. Because we all deserve safety, community, care, and protection.