Family Reunification
“We want members of families. We do not believe that it is better to admit a man, no matter how well educated, to be separated from his family and to live here by himself. It is better neither for the country nor for him.” – Rep. Richard Parker (R-NJ), 1897
“…the United States has been built by immigrants from other countries…humanitarianism itself calls for action to bring about a reunion of immediate family members under preferential quotas.” – Vice-President Richard Nixon (R), 1960
“I believe that the most important immediate objective of immigration reform is the re-uniting of families. There are many new citizens in America whose immediate families are in other lands, waiting patiently to join them…We have a social obligation to bring these families together.” – Senator John F. Kennedy (D), 1960
“The family relationship is the most important standard of all in this problem of priorities in immigration, and parents of U.S. citizens should be included in the high priority list.” –Representative John V. Lindsay (R-NY), 1964.
Speaking on behalf of the 1965 Hart-Celler bill, “Under present law, we are requiring the separation of families—indeed, in some cases, calling on mothers to choose between their children and America.” – Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach (D), 1965.
Family Reunification was supposed to be a key goal of U.S. immigration policy throughout the 20th century.
My parents made it here because the U.S. invested in health professions education for the good of their citizens.
My five-year-old sister was not allowed to join them.
That’s her, in the picture. July 16, 1980. She is saying goodbye to Mommy. She doesn’t know when she’ll see her again. Mommy is pregnant with me, and will give birth to me in October. By the time my sister is reunited with our parents, she has two little sisters who were born in chilly North America. She is left with my mom’s family in the Philippines. There they are, surrounding her, my grandmother (Lola), directly behind her, Tita Lina to the side. They care for her as they do their own children. Still - “it’s a lot of, I guess, choices were made so we could be together.” - my mom.
Prospective Immigrants, Please Note.
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
Reunification
I’m the baby in the picture. We’re in my aunt’s Stuy Town apartment in NYC, My older sister has just arrived. My younger sister, the baby, has been left in Canada because she was too young to travel. We will be reunited soon. My father will work as a doctor to this day. We will grow up a nuclear family with ups and downs and everyday traumas. Lots of laughter. Support to pursue our creative and academic dreams. We’re bringing a healthy next generation. Our story is happier than most.
The false comparison of
Family Reunification
vs.
Chain Migration
“The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.” –President Trump, State of the Union, Jan. 30, 2018.
I’m going to be honest - I don’t want to write about this. We are currently in the 2nd Trump administration, and yesterday’s news brought fresh hell, with ICE agents pointing guns at a mother and her two children, forcing their way into the apartment. But this is why we have to learn about, record and analyze the past, especially when the past is still present.
In 2017-2018, President Trump encouraged and supported forced separation of migrant children from their families. Pictures of agents pulling children from parents’ arms and placing them into overcrowded metal cages. There were no measures to reunite them.
Using the term chain migration is a way to villainize immigrants. Chain migration and family reunification are two terms that refer to family-sponsored visas. Like the one that sponsored my sister. I remember a time - not long ago, the early 2000s - when certain politicians were focused on the family (and the organization by the same name was deeply influential on the Republican party). In that era, the news was about gay marriage and how it would ruin traditional notions of nuclear family.
Our country has many truths, but certainly one of them has to be that this was never a democracy. That this was a hope of democracy, an enormous, an enormous hope for true democracy, and that it failed many people from the outset and it’s failing more people now. - Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich said these words in 1995. For me this was the era of Angels in America, wearing AIDS ribbons because actors were doing so on the Tonys red carpet. I was fifteen, in drama club, concerned more with boys and trying out for West Side Story than the political world.
My family and I benefited so much from the model minority myth, a myth perpetrated to pit minorities against each other. We lost sight of who was really benefiting from the myth.