Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities

1. The Differential Visions of Queer Migration Manifestos

chapter 1 the Differential Visions of Queer Migration Manifestos For a brief moment in 2009, Shirley Tan and Jay Mercado, a binational lesbian couple living in California, became household names.1 The couple fought for Tan’s right to stay in the United States after she was denied political asylum and, apparently unbeknownst to the couple, placed in deportation proceedings. Tan, a native of the Philippines, and Mercado, a US citizen, eventually learned that Tan was to be deported. They had been together for twentythree years and parented twin boys when Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived at their home in late January 2009 and took Tan, a self-described housewife,intocustody.Afterreceivingatemporaryreprievethroughaprivate bill introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA), Tan delivered testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 3, 2009, urging senators to support the Uniting American Families Act. In her testimony Tan pled on account of her “American family,” her “two beautiful children,” and the fact that the couple’s heterosexual neighbors saw them as their familial “role models.”2 Undoubtedly, this was a sad story, and the gendered nature of the couple’s relationship (a housewife and a breadwinner), theirsuccessfulchildren,andtheirsuburban,middle-classlifestyleledLGBTand immigrationrightsorganizationsaswellasthemainstreammediato broadcast the story as another example of the country’s broken immigration system, the problems of marriage inequality, and the value of all “American” families.3 While this extensive focus on a binational same-sex couple was a first for the mainstream media, Tan’s testimony built upon the predominant strategy of storytelling used to link LGBT and immigration issues since the 1990s. Before the situation with Tan and Mercado, this strategy had resulted in the 2006 publication of a widely distributed report titled “Family, Unvalued: Discrimination , Denial, and the Fate of Binational Same-Sex Couples under U.S. Law,” producedbyHumanRightsWatchandImmigrationEquality.4 Publishedamid the intensity of the 2006 immigration rights and justice marches, as well as the onslaught of state legislation and ballot measures designed to narrowly define marriage, the nearly two-hundred-page document represents the first extensivereportlinkingLGBTstruggleswithimmigration.SeverallargeLGBT and immigration rights organizations financially supported its preparation, includingtheNationalGayandLesbianTaskForce,theLambdaLegalDefense andEducationFund,AmnestyInternational,andUCLALawSchool’sWilliams Institute.5 Moreover, the report is published on the websites of prominent immigration sites, such as the American Immigration Lawyers Association and Asylum.org, and prominent LGBT groups, including the Human Rights Campaign . In line with Immigration Equality’s long-standing rhetorical strategy, “Family, Unvalued” argues that the central concern that LGBT rights proponents should have with immigration pertains to the ability of legal residents and US citizens to legally sponsor their partners for immigration. Secondary concernsincludetherightsofLGBTasylumseekerstobeabletoreceiverefuge in the United States and the importance of ending the now-defunct ban on the migration of HIv-positive people. The report’s virtual silence on the plight of undocumentedmigrants,therightsofmigrantsnotpartneredwithUScitizens, and its overwhelming emphasis on binational couples implies that immigration should be a concern for LGBT people because US LGBT citizens’ rights are violated under current immigration law.6 It offers little reason for migrants or migration activists to support LGBT rights. And not surprisingly, it attempts to ameliorate the threat that LGBT people and their migrant partners pose to the nation by relying upon normalizing frames.7 To be sure, “Family, Unvalued” is a strategic document that was designed to promote a normative vision of LGBT and immigration politics in order to appeal to powerful people like federal lawmakers and influential supporters of LGBT and immigration rights. And as a result, with its entirely inclusionary aims, it offers the narrowest terrain for coalition building between LGBT and immigration activists.8 Although this report was widely distributed and received immense support, it was not the only document produced by the exi22 • ChaPter one gency created in the political milieu of the mid-2000s. In fact, as mentioned in my introduction, three organizationally produced manifestos linking queer politics and migration politics were also written and distributed in 2006 and 2007,andanother,inspiredbytwoofthosemanifestoswaspublishedin2011.9 As manifestos—statements that dramatically emphasize the necessity of the “now,”10 these documents reflect unique coalitional moments emerging from the energy and exigency of the 2006 immigration rights and justice protests. Becausemigrantissueswereinthepublic,thosewhofearedtheycouldbeleft out of any serious debates forcefully entered the scene to set their own terms for migrant justice. Manifestos are an ideal genre to create such a rupture. As the manifesto from the Audre Lorde Project (ALP) puts it, “We have prioritized our work with undocumented folks...