Deporting Cambodian Refugees // Aoki

Deporting Cambodian Refugees

Following the effects of IIRIRA on Cambodian immigrants and refugees. 

Deportation is a scary thing to hear when you are an immigrant of any status. You think you are constantly questioning your safety and chances of getting deported. Many immigrants are refugees from countries where they escape political or military oppression. So to be sent back to the place you worked so hard to escape from is terrifying. Under our current administration, the threat of deportation has become even more terrifying as news stories are filled with people getting snatched from their own homes, children of undocumented immigrants being lured by ICE and taken away. It's scary and people feel unsafe. I grew up in predominantly latinx/chicanx communities and I had several friends who were undocumented. I have a friend now, whose family got deported back to Mexico when she was about 11 years old because of the lying lawyer who was working on her parent's naturalization case and his corrupt case files. Everything they had built and worked for gone in the blink of an eye. It hurt me and really made me resent whoever's in charge, those who have the power to do such things, because how dare they? For the law? For justice? Justice is suppose to be blind; I guess is to the truth and not to color.  

Aoki

Richard Aoki was a Japanese-American civil rights activist from Oakland and was one of the founders of the Black Panthers - I found this really cool. He lived his childhood during the Japanese internment in a concentration camp with his parents and younger brother. In the film, Aoki debunks the myth that Asians are quiet and passive, clarifying that the Japanese people were outspoken and fought against their oppressors in protests and rallies. Despite having lived through difficult conditions and times, he was not discouraged and downhearted and the experiences really shaped him to be a proactive catalyst for change. He went to UC Berkeley where he was a member of the Asian American Political Alliance. This group not only provided a voice for the Asian American communities, they were strong advocates and supporters of other groups of people of color. 

He grew up in Oakland after being released from internment. There he garnered a reputation for being a badass. From the way he was portrayed in the film, I would have really loved to meet him. He was down to Earth, honest, and passionate. I think his work is inspiring and that we, as witnesses to these daily acts of racism, discrimination, prejudice and hate, should work to be catalysts for change within our communities, homes, campus, etc.. Our gestures don't have to be as grand as Aoki's, but small things do add up.