Pubdate: Mon, 21 Jul 2014
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2014 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Authors: Phillip Agnew and Isabel Sousa-Rodriguez
Page: 14

THE LIVES OF CHILD REFUGEES AND AMERICAN YOUTH BOTH MATTER

The Root news site's Keli Goff recently wrote about child refugees
fleeing violence and poverty in Central America and seeking refuge at
our border. Unfortunately, she supports deporting them, while claiming
that we have our own black children to care about first, citing recent
violence in the streets of Chicago.

One of us - Phillip - grew up in the same Chicago that Goff says she
wants to protect, while the other - Isabel - is a young immigrant who
came to this country as an undocumented child fleeing violence in
Colombia. In seeking justice for all young people, we are committed to
building united social movements that fervently proclaim, "Our lives
matter."

Every one of our lives matters, whether we are black, white or brown,
queer or straight; whether we crossed the border, or our ancestors
came as indentured servants or on slave ships.

We reject the notion that African-American lives should matter to our
president and policymakers while the lives of unaccompanied child
refugees fleeing devastation in Central America shouldn't. In both
cases, the children are surviving or fleeing violence rooted in our
failed policies, like the so-called war on drugs.

In fact, young people across this country are suffering because most
of our politicians do not act as if our lives matter. If they did,
education would be a primary investment over the failed foreign and
domestic policies that have only contributed to our criminalization.
If our lives mattered, America's immigration policy would prioritize
family safety and unity instead of prioritizing border militarization
and profits for the private prison industry.

In the 1980s, families fleeing Central American civil wars between
guerrillas and U.S.-backed dictators landed in cities like Los
Angeles. Youths who had just witnessed the horrors of war in their
home countries faced the reality of America's streets during the
height of the war on drugs. Many joined gangs, feeling that they had
no other recourse to protect themselves.

Instead of being treated as if their lives and their trauma mattered,
these young people were deported back to countries where the only
people they knew were other young gang members. As a number of
researchers have observed, the U.S. deportation regime helped turn two
small street gangs started by young refugees into transnational
criminal organizations operating across Central America with partners
in the U.S., eventually creating the ripples of refugees we continue
to see today.

The story of young African-Americans on the South Side of Chicago is
not that different. Since the early 1900s, black families had fled the
lynching and racial violence of the Jim Crow South, only to be met
with redlining, unemployment and racial segregation in Chicago.
Without adequate jobs and political power, many young people who had
witnessed the horrors of Jim Crow also began forming gangs to protect
themselves from the violence of a society that continued to degrade
them as either criminals or cheap laborers.

Instead of being offered adequate education and opportunities to
thrive, these young people were subject to mass incarceration. The
criminal justice system, also fueled by the war on drugs, turned
Chicago's small street gangs into national organizations by releasing
inmates into a society with no adequate infrastructure for their
reintegration and rehabilitation.

As young people who have grown tired of politicians pitting us against
each other, we stand together to build up our collective power. Our
communities are not pawns to be picked up and maneuvered whenever it
fits political strategy. Our work and our vision are not anchored to
the politics of scarcity perpetuated by those who live in abundance.

We will not be divided. We will continue fighting together - from
Chicago's South Side to the Gaza Strip to Central America's Northern
Triangle - holding accountable all who help to line the pockets of
those who profit from our suffering.

The Root

Phillip Agnew is executive director of Dream Defenders. Isabel
Sousa-Rodriguez is youth organizer for the Florida Immigrant
Coalition.
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MAP posted-by: Matt