Virtual Homelands: Indian Immigrants and Online Cultures in the United States

4. Desi Networds: Linking Race, Class, and Immigration to Homeland

Chapter Four Desi Networks Linking Race, Class, and Immigration to Homeland Konrad Aderer’s short documentary Rising Up: The Alams centers on a Bangladeshi Muslim immigrant couple, Mohammed Alam and Sultana Jahangir, as they fight the U.S. government’s effort to deport them. In the shadow of enhanced , post-9/11 security measures, the concept of home figures as a central narrativetrope.The film,producedin2005byLife orLiberty,anonprofitmultimediaprojectthatsupportsimmigrantrights ,beginswithscenesoftheAlams in their apartment and concludes, eleven minutes later, with them as part of a publiccommunityprotest,marchingalongsidethousandsofothersthroughthe streets of New York City. The narrative highlights the role of the working-class SouthAsiancommunityorganizationDesisRisingUpandMoving(DRUM). ThegrouphelpstheAlamsconfronttheirfeelingsofconfinementandisolation andempowerthemselvesthroughcommunityactivismandcoalitionbuilding with other immigrants and people of color. In a powerful scene in the film, we see Sultana Jahangir addressing a roomful of immigrant activists and community members with the following speech: “I’m a member of DRUM—Desis Rising Up and Moving. And I want to talk to you today about the injustice to immigrants being done in this country. Bush and John Ashcroft have disappeared so many families from all over New York City. We are here today to tell Bush and the Republicans to go home [emphasis mine]! We’ll never be afraid. We’renotgoingto be afraid.We willcontinue to fightyourunfairlawsuntilwe have human rights and justice for all immigrants in the U.S.A. Justice for all!” 116 Chapter Four While the film was made available for purchase through the DRUM website for a short period following its 2005 release, since 2013 it has been available for free viewing on the YouTube channel DesisRisingUpMoving. The film’s opening sequence begins within the domestic setting of the immigrant household—a backshot shows the silhouette of a young girl looking out of an apartment window onto the world outside, followed by a shot of the younggirlwritingatatable,squeezedintothetightlyorganizedapartment.The girl reads her narrative aloud. “I am Alisha. I live in New York City. My father’s name is Mohammed . . .” She is assisted by her mother, Sultana Jahangir, who attends to household chores while following Alisha’s writing. The scene shifts tothepublicspaceofaNewYorkCitystreetwherewefirstencounterMohammedAlam .AsaBangladeshiMuslimimmigrant,whosepredicamentunderlies the narrative of the film, the introductory framing of Alam is important. We see Alam at his job, driving a city cab; we are soon told that it has been his sole source of livelihood since he arrived in the United States eleven years ago. As wewatchAlamatwork,thefilmencouragesustoviewtheintertwinedcontexts of the needs of American labor and the needs of immigrants in America. MohammedAlambeginstonarratehowaneventfollowingthe9/11attacks changed his understanding of the United States as his home, and we return to the Alams’ residence. With his wife seated next to him, Alam recounts his participation in the Special Registration Program run by the Department of HomelandSecurity.Initiatedin2002aspartoftheNationalSecurityEntry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), the program included a voluntary domestic registration by noncitizen males over the age of sixteen who had come from oneoftwenty-fivecountries(twenty-fourofwhichhadpredominantlyMuslim populations) named by the U.S. government. Registration involved going to the local office of the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), getting fingerprinted,photographed,andinterrogated.1 Alamdescribeswhathappens at the INS office: his passport is seized, he is searched by an INS official who calls him a “fucking Muslim who is no good,” and he is thrown into a holding cell. Alam recounts the horrific moment of recognition. Instead of being considered loyal for participating in an act meant to safeguard the country he consideredhishome,hewasviewedasathreat.Hewasforcedtostayovernight in the cell and denied access to a phone to communicate his whereabouts to his family. As the night unfolded, Alam says, he was shaken by the reality of his vulnerable location as an outsider within the United States. His adopted country had transformed into a threatening presence. Facing the prospect of deportation at the time of filming, the Alams nevertheless communicate their intent to fight for their right to stay. 117 Desi Networks Rising Up, bymoving backandforthbetweeninsideandoutside,homeand street, reminds us of the inevitable interweaving of household and homeland, familyandnation,privateandpublic.Thisdynamiccontinuesintherestofthe film as we see Sultana Jahangir and Mohammed Alam in various private and public settings—an indoor meeting with DRUM members planning a protest , walking down a street flanked by police, riding the subway, doing chores at home. While the confined apartment could be read as a metaphor for the isolation and restrictions experienced by the Alams, more pertinent is the fact that the immigrant home is not represented in a stereotypical way, where the household is bounded by the private culture of the...