Someone was asking me what I thought was the worst thing that might happen to me if the bad thing happens in 2 weeks.

Adrianna Tan

I was like well I’m not a visible immigrant where I am, no one’s going to come literally deport me, but based on past experience with 45: it’s the overnight erosion of services

Cruel things happening randomly; suddenly hard to get status or sudden change of immigration status unexpectedly

Adrianna Tan

Immigration services destroyed, impossible to get certain visas or certain visas don’t exist anymore suddenly

I mean the whole reason we are here on one income is coz Trump made it impossible for dependents of work visa holders to work (luckily my wife wants to go back to school)

For immigrants like me: not actual literal deportation

But a sudden erosion of all the opportunities we came here for

Adrianna Tan

If I were still on a work visa I would be very nervous, but as a result of recent job loss that forced me to start a business and sponsor myself under something else, we are actually in a much better place to deal with whatever comes our way on this front

More than anything I just resent the precarity of having to plan our lives around.. not macro-economics, but macro-politics that largely just center one man’s insatiable cruelty to others

Adrianna Tan

Remembering a convo I had with my debate coach in Singapore when I was 14. He’d studied in a top school in the U.S. I asked him what he thought of the place. He was like ‘it has the best.. and worst.. of everything.’

Starting to think he may have been on to something

Adrianna Tan

Yes the border crisis is pretty bad under both parties but I also know that:

When a trans person from China walks across the southern border they are very likely to receive papers, under the current system. The current system is horrible and cruel, but the hundreds of thousands of people doing the ‘runxue’ through the Darien gap have a glimmer of some hope.

I do not think that Trump 47 gives anyone hope.

Adrianna Tan

Despite the immense cruelty and utter fucked up ness, this place is also where I have encountered tremendous kindness. My community is here. Everything I love is here. I don’t want to have to leave. 4 years ago I felt I would be okay to go if I had to, but now I absolutely do not feel that way.

atsuzaki

@skinnylatte i still have a mild, but pretty grounded-in-reality fears of irrational racist moves ultimately leading to deportation tho.

with shit like the random muslim ban, or DoJ falsely accusing a bunch of Chinese professors of being a fucking spy, the bar has dropped as low as back when they used to prosecute and deport people for being “suspected communists”

Jason Lefkowitz

@skinnylatte There is a scene in the (hit or miss) 1992 Richard Attenborough movie “Chaplin” that stuck in my head.

Charlie Chaplin is out riding with his friend and fellow movie star Douglas Fairbanks, around the time of the first Red Scare. Chaplin is an immigrant and a left-winger. Fairbanks mentions that the FBI has been sniffing around about Chaplin’s loyalty. Chaplin says he loves America. “It’s a good country underneath, Doug.”

“No,” Fairbanks chuckles sadly. “It’s a good country on top. Underneath… that’s what starts showing when we’re scared.”

Rachael Ludwick

@skinnylatte Something that is really weird feeling as someone born here but with pretty critical views of my own country is this balance of knowing just how awful the US has and can be, but also how much good there is which is also (partly) why so many people want to come here. It is just such a weird uncomfortable feeling.

Adrianna Tan

@atsuzaki true

Adrianna Tan

@r343l I’m directly comparing my immigrant experience to all of the other countries I could have picked. That I have lived in. I know that everywhere else when (not if) fascism comes around, I have absolutely fuck all rights as an immigrant. Even fewer than here. I absolutely do not want to fight fascism in a new language, too. (I’ve already learned too many. I’m tired.)