Immigration and Women: Understanding the American Experience

9. “Misbehaving Women”: The Agency of Activism

| 207 9 “Misbehaving Women” The Agency of Activism Haitian-born Marleine Bastien sits behind a desk in her busy Miami office of the organization Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami/Haitian Women of Miami (FANM), which she founded and directs. She has just finished an interview with a newspaper journalist, and her assistant reminds her of an upcoming meeting—signs of the many demands on her schedule. Posted behind her on the wall is a bumper sticker that states, “Well-behaved women rarely make history .”1 In the previous chapter, we met artists who are simultaneously engaged as political and social activists. Marleine is an individual whose “master status ” across her adult professional life has been that of an activist—advocating most centrally for the rights of Haitian and other immigrants—yet she has been known to draw on the power of the arts when the need arises. For example, she opened her talk at a September 2002 conference on women and immigration at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, with an original poem. The poem began with the following lines: Who are we? Who are we? We are the women of the world Lost in a foreign land Shamed, denied, violated, arrested, tortured, lapidated, maimed, intimidated crushed, victimized, abused by those in power in the countries that gave us birth we are the wives, fiancées, sisters daughters, mothers forced to leave our motherland in conditions not fit for human beings . . . 208 | “Misbehaving Women” Marleine Bastien’s lifework found its grounding in the conditions of this poem. The scenarios to which the poem alludes continue to be familiar ones—especially to women (and men) who have come from Haiti. Long among the most disparaged stepchildren in American immigration and refugee policy, Haitians have faced uphill battles pushing their way to American shores. Later in the poem, Marleine uses the words “sweet arms of mother liberty” in an ironic tone, mirroring that same hope that Lithuanian-born activist Emma Goldman had romanticized almost a century earlier: The dream of being comforted By the sweet arms of mother liberty Kept us going, hoping Then reality sinks in Our dreams are shattered Steel sounds of shackles Hug our ankles Leave scars deep in our flesh Scars that last a lifetime Activism and Women Throughout history, activist movements have been dependent on the work and leadership of women. Yet historical records rarely acknowledge that dependence, and societies may only recognize it in retrospect—if they recognize it at all. In the early twenty-first century, for example, new scholarship has revealed the breadth of women’s activities that galvanized and supported the American civil rights movement of the 1960s2 and the Polish Solidarity movement of the 1980s.3 And although Dolores Huerta cofounded the National Farm Workers Association in the United States with acclaimed labor organizer César Chávez, it is Chávez’s name that has become the more recognizable one. The reasons for women’s involvement as activists are myriad , ranging from the significance of the causes for their lives and those of their families to their already existing civic community roles, to discrimination and particular needs related to being female, to the logistical need for women to take over activist tasks while the male activists were jailed. As this book is being written, an immigration rights movement has gained momentum across the United States with the integral leadership and support of foreign-born women. Observers are noticing that the critical female factor in the movement has largely escaped public comment—underscoring | 209 Figure 9.1. Marleine Bastien (Photo by Nick Decius, Nick Quality Photo Studio) 210 | “Misbehaving Women” the ongoing erasure of women’s visibility in public discourse over activism and social change. The media, in fact, have profiled the basses and tenors but rarely the altos and sopranos. Yet the movers and shakers in the immigration rights movement are as likely to be female as male. They are behind the scenes and behind the desks; to remain true to the metaphor, they are conducting , accompanying, stage managing, and inhabiting the front and back rows of the chorus. Further, these are not new parts for them. Long before they had the right to vote, women were leading the charge when it came to causes that affected them as immigrants and as women. Historically, immigrant women have been behind a range of movements for change in...