You come. You work. You leave. A Story of Modern Exploitation. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services created the American visa system to provide migrants with an opportunity to settle in America. But for many visa holders, this dream has become a false promise. Around 2 million Asian Indians wait in line to get…
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The current political climate in India, fueled by the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), remains non-inclusive of the diverse ethnic, religious, and economic backgrounds present in the country today. The CAA, passed in December 2019, allows non-Muslim immigrants in India who are originally from Muslim-majority nations to more easily gain…
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English is not my first language. It’s also not my second language. I grew up listening to and speaking an amalgamation of three different Chinese dialects: Mandarin, Cantonese, and Fujianese. Most children play with dolls and teddy bears – I spent the first four-and-a-half years of my life playing with combinations of these three dialects.…
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Summers were once my own.Now I spend themChasing someone else’s dreamsTo fulfill unspoken obligations… Unspoken obligations which bind meLike the feet of my ancestorsBack in my homeland China. “Become a doctor,” they say,As if there is no alternative. But didn’t they come to America,The land of the free,In the pursuit of liberty? Liberty’s served best…
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Come yonderTo the land of opportunitiesWhere the brave, free, strongDwell.Come yonder, to the land of the westWhere modern, progressive, democratic thoughtPersists. Come hither and experience the hierarchy ofRace and class and sex. Some are born lucky,They are the kingsWho reap rewardsFrom the pawns’Labor of early dawns. The place where the dirt-poorCan rise to the top?Or the…
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California is expected to formally apologize for Japanese Internment Camp during WWII with the HR-77 bill. The infamous Executive Order 9066 forcefully expelled 120,000 Japanese Immigrants to the Manzanar Internment Camp in California, among others in remote places. The would-be human rights crisis in today’s standards was fueled by American patriotism, despite America also being…
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