May 30, 2024
Written by Meha Srivastav, Victim Services Program Manager
This May, Mosaic Family Services is proud to celebrate the culture, identities, and experiences of Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities in the United States. We recognize the rich and complex history of AANHPI migrants’ journeys to the U.S. even precedes the first established English colony. From 1587, when Filipino sailors arrived in California through Spanish trade and colonization, to 1811, when the first Native Hawaiians permanently settled in the US. This migration flowed through the 19th century as Chinese laborers toiled on the transcontinental railroads and Punjabi farmers in the fields of California, and onto the 21st century, as the AANHPI immigrant population within the U.S. surpassed 22 million people.
Although AANHPI populations make up the second largest and fastest-growing immigrant group in the U.S. today, they have faced significant discrimination both in their immigration journey and once they’ve settled in the U.S. The Page Act of 1875 is a prime example of such discriminatory laws. This law prevented Chinese women from migrating to the U.S. to join the existing population of Chinese male laborers under the racist and misogynistic pretense of preventing the ‘importation of women for the purposes of prostitution.’ From history, and our more recent present, we know that Asian and Pacific Islander immigrants have often been targets of racist and xenophobic policies, especially during periods of war and disease.
On the flip side, many people only consider the successes and privileges of Asian Americans, coining the idea of a ‘Model Minority’. This term was originally created to blame Black and Latinx communities for their own systemic oppression, intentionally placing them behind a small group of highly educated Asian immigrants who were newly admitted to the U.S. Undeniably, this ‘myth’ benefits some of us who belong in dominant AANHPI groups, such as Chinese, Indian, Filipino, and Japanese immigrants, who have the highest populations and median income levels of AANHPI immigrants at large. However, the Model Minority myth is a false representation of the entire picture: Asian Americans have the highest wealth gap of any racial group, with Indian and Filipino communities at a median of 119k and 90k respectively, and Nepali and Burmese communities making the lowest median income, at 55k and 44k, respectively.
We are used to the narrative about Asian immigrants flooding this country, accepting jobs using skilled employment-based visas, and flocking to Silicon Valley to work at high-paid tech jobs – but the immigration system is very disparately favorable to AANHPI immigrants, depending on their country of origin, socioeconomic class, education background, ethnicity, caste, religion, and other identity factors.
Overall, there are 1.3 million undocumented Asian Americans in the U.S. who potentially face deportation, with China, India, Bangladesh, and Nepal being amongst the top 10 nationalities of people that are removed from this country. It is especially important to recognize the enhanced harm and policing that specific AANHPI immigrants within the larger group face due to racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia.
Between 2002-2003, around 14,000 Arabs, Muslims and non-Muslim South Asians were detained and deported due to the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric and scapegoating of Brown people that happened post 9/11. Southeast Asians, particularly refugees from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, have greatly suffered due to racism in the criminal and immigration enforcement systems – they are 3-4 times more likely than any other immigrant group to be deported for past criminal convictions.
In conversations about immigration and AANHPI communities, Pacific Islanders are often left out. About 17% of whom are foreign born, with the largest populations from Fiji, the Marshall Islands, and Tonga. These immigrants disproportionately experience separation from their partners and children, with 98% of those who were born in the Marshall Islands and deported back reporting separation from their children. Along with Southeast Asians, Pacific Islanders also have the highest deportation rates for criminal convictions.
How does this pertain to Mosaic’s work, as an organization that serves refugees and immigrant survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking? From decades of serving survivors of violence, we know that violence does not start from an isolated incident – its foundations lie in multiple overlapping systems that contribute to, condone and/or exacerbate the stressors that AANHPI – amongst other BIPOC – communities face in the U.S. Such systems include the immigration, child welfare, and criminal legal systems, which are stacked against poor, immigrant communities of color, members of which are more likely to be disbelieved, arrested, separated from their children and even deported for trying to report the violence they experience to authorities. (You can read one such account of an incarcerated Cambodian survivor named Ny Nourn here.)
Along with honoring the legacy of AANHPI communities in the U.S., it is important to recognize the violence they have faced at the hands of racist and xenophobic immigration policies and deportation practices throughout history and into the present. This knowledge – which has been brought to light by advocacy from incarcerated AANHPI survivors and refugees, and modeled after the transformative work of previously incarcerated and detained Black and Latinx advocates – should be applied to our work as advocates for immigrant survivors of violence. This will not only help survivors stay safe but empower us to combat xenophobic policies and systems.
During May and beyond, we need to actively listen to AANHPI survivors and advocates about what policies and practices best help prevent violence in their communities. History teaches us that the people experiencing harm are the ones best equipped to stand up to harmful institutions and challenge them – as immigrants, especially those who are most marginalized by unjust laws and policies, have always had the courage to do.