Recently, I came across this Web site/blog: aapidream.com. It is a class project for students from the University of California at Los Angeles, meant to be a venue for young Asian immigrants, who arrived in the United States with their parents, but have no rights as a citizen of any country.
The national discussion of the DREAM Act focuses almost exclusively on Latinos, with anti-immigration rhetoric directed against Mexican immigrants and their children. It’s hard to think that people of this country — the beneficiaries of one of the most egalitarian constitutions in the world — should direct venomous vitriol against children. But, the fact that this act hasn’t passed speaks to the fact that during tough economic times, politicians and the public turn xenophic.
What largely gets ignored during the discussion — for or against immigration or for or against the DREAM Act — is the fact that the current anti-immigrant environment has also had a detrimental impact on immigrants of all ethnicities and countries of origin, including Asians.
This Web site gives voice to the children of Asian immigrants — some who are the refugees of war, famine, poverty, and political torture. While many immigrants have come to the United States seeking improvement in their economic status and standard of living (what’s wrong with that?), their children had no choice on whether to leave their home countries or not. They came to the United States as wards of their parents, and grew up as Americans in U.S. schools and experiencing American culture. But under current laws, they have no rights and no country.
