Queering Migrations and Citizenship

What does Queer means?

Queer means originally prejorative for gay, now being reclimed by some gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons as a self affirming umbrella term. Extremely offensive when used as an epithet.

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Queers migrate from every region, but the essay particularly adress migration from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador and the Philippines. The essay specifically talks about the lives of queer migrants and what they have been through as a migrant in U.S.   U.S created sexual norms that are gendered, racialized and classed. Lesbians and gay men were legally barred from migration to U.S. The ones who come to U.S mostly kept their lives and expreriences hidden. In 1990, the ban on lesbians and gay men lifted and in 1994 Attorney General Janet Reto deemed that lesbians and gay men were eligible if they apply for asylum and if they had been presecuted for sexuality. Lesbian, gay, trans, and queer migrants continue to face difficulties. 

The text gives the meaning of queer as; "queer is used to mark the fact that many standard sexuality categories were historically formed through specific epistemologies and social relations that upheld colonists, xenophobic, racist and sexist regimes" (xi)

Queer Immigration and Citizenship: A History of Exclusion

 A History of Exclusion part of the essay overviews the history of U.S immigration control system. The term control system was formed to delimit the nation, citizenery, and citizenship. U.S government generated a "regular" immigrant control and the refugee/asylum system. In late 19th century regular immigration control, which means that sovereign nations have right to control the entry of the noncitizens into their territories. This system of control is made to require labor to maintain and reproduce and the nations will be able to turn the immigrants down as they want.

This system is carried out in a discriminatory manner. U.S immigration control has discriminated the immigrants based on sexuality, gender, race, class, and other factors. 

In 1917, some scholars date lesbian and gay exclusion people labeled as "constitutional psychopatic inferiors" were first barred from entering the U.S.

This category included "persons with abnormal sexual instincts" as well as "the moral imbeciles, the pathological liars and swindlers". 

The 1952 McCarran - Walter Act banned the people who have psychopathic personalities. This Walter Act targetted lesbians and gay men and the U.S Senate report related that "the Public Health Service has advised that the provision for the exclusion of aliens afflicted with pschopathic personality or mental defect which appears in the instant bill is sufficiently broad to provide for the exclusion of homosexuals or sex perverts."

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in 1950s and 1960s banned the psychopathic personalities and men and women who they thought they were or might become, homosexual.

 In 1965 the immigration law recodified the lesbian and gay exclusion, this time under the ban on "sexual deviates".

In 1990 the exclusion on sexual orientation removed from the immigration law but lesbian and gay immigrants still faced with substantial barriers and there is no realization in equal access. 

For example; the two most common ways to become a legal permanent resident (LPR) are through direct family ties or sponsorship by an employer. But lesbian and gay relationships unlike heterosexual ones are not legitimate for legal permanent resident.

This is reinforced in 1996 by the Defence of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a relationship between men and women for domestic and immigration purposes. Binational gay and lesbian couples can use the student, tourist and work visas to keep them together but because the financial troubles they ended up seperating or moving to a third country. 

A South Asian lesbian Grace Poore left her home to avoid marriage but ended up marrying a man to have a right to stay in U.S. 

In 1987, U.S immigration law added HIV to the list of dangerous, contagious diseases for which immigrants should be excluded and required and the immigrants must test negative for HIV. Immigration and Nationality Act exclude all HIV positive noncitizens from the U.S.

Lesbian and gay exclusion was a broader federal immigration control regime that is to ensure a "proper" sexual and gender order. 

In 1875 Page Law excluded the Asian women who are thought to be coming to the U.S for "lewd and immoral" purposes. Working class Chinese women were also affected by the law because it is presumed that they were all entering the U.S to work in sex industry, and U.S try to exclude them.

Heteropatriarchal families wanted immigrant women to enter to the U.S with a male protection who seemed "respectable" and could provide support. Also the immigration law provisions against women coming to the U.S for prostitution. The law includes the ban of sexual behaviours and having sex outside of marriage.

Alejandro Velas in 1910s been denied her entry to the U.S becuase she was wearing men's clothes and she has been suspected if she is a lesbian.

In 1920 Ladies Agreement ended the migration of Japanese women getting married with a white American men because it threatens the U.S white supremacy. 

Asylum Seekers

Noncitizens entry has also structed by refuge/asylum system which developed after World War II and in 1990s courts considered and issued the rulings about the significance of gender and sexual identities and practices in establishing eligibility for asylum. Refugee/asylum system is close to the immigration control. Asylum seekers are actually qualified for international protection. 

The market citizens can also become affected by the immigration control and slightly over half of all civil and huan rights violations identified by the American Friends' Service committe in a five year study of immigration control practices at the U.S - Mexico border region were perpetrated against Latinos who were U.S citizens or legal residents. 

Although citizenship involves rights and obligations that are avaliable to all members of national community in the U.S and elsewhere, citizens who are not white, male, able-bodied, property owning faced with difficulties in being a member of a national comminity. "The 1790 naturalization law reserved U.S citizenship for free whites only, and it was onlty 1952 that all formal racial barriers to citizenship were dismantled".
United States and other countries create "bridges for migration". The migration is not usually people from the poorest countries, but also from countries U.S has had close historic tie. People from Mexico, Philippines, and South Korea, who have steadily migrated when during periods of economic growth in their own countries. 

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LIBERATIONIST NARRATIVES AND REVISIONS

Queer’s searching for freedom in USA but without oppressions they experienced. USA is like land of freedom in which they hope to find new opportunities.Also they are seeking an asylum from the persecution in USA. In 1997, Martin F. Manalansan IV, in his essay he refers to Filipino immigrants who are searching for freedom and they trial for escaping from oppression shaped by a legacies of Us colonization related to economic and political relationships between the USA and Philippines. Philippines were not only searching for freedom in USA but also they were searching alternatives for the circumstances in Philippines. As Manalansan points out about queer migrants like “Queer migrants not simply as sexual objects, but also as racialized,classed,gender subjects of particular regions and nations that exist in various historic relationships to US hegemony”(pg. xxvi). 

   

This issue is also transported to a global field constructed by historic heritage and modern forms. Scholars including Manalansan search for a various way of freedom in USA but this does not mean that they can find it. This searching for freedom and long history of searching it includes connected groups includes ethnic and racial groups, poor and working people,queers and women. Even until 1990 its forbidden for them to enter USA they face undetectable and appreciable discriminations in the immigration system. Olivia Espin studied on how racism,sexism,language,homophobia and this issue of legal status affect Latina lesbian immigrants and for her “Latina migrants frequently and themselves caught between the racism of the dominant society and the sexist expectations of (their) own communit(ies) as they struggle to negotiate identity and community”(pg.xxvi). For Manalansan migrant certain groups cannot be seperated from the bounds and global history. Anne Maguire’s “The Accidental Immigrant” confirms obstacles for lesbian immigrants in feeling USA as their home even fot those who English speaking and white. The ILGO (The Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization was founded to appeal the certain worries of immigrant Irish lesbians and gays. Maguire sums up by saying the parade “is where we our “coming out” took place in Irish America and where we told that we did not belong, nor were we welcome”(pg. xxvii).

“ILGO also resonates with struggles over “out” lesbian, gay, bi, trans, (LGBT) and queer participation in other major ethnic and national parades, such as the Indian Day Parade” (pg.xxviii). Grace Poore explains the fear of the immigration control authorities leads some of the queer immigrants to constraint their activities and associations “We understand why some of us never march on the outside of Gay Pride contingents in case of cameras. Why many of us fear going into bars in case of a raid. Why we only do radio interviews never have our photographs taken”(pg. xxviii).

 As a result of this queer migrations lead to a political activism make people realize and analyze this issues. Queer migrations also contributed to cultural work  like the play of Guillermo Reye called Deporting the Diva, David Roman defines this as “remained undocumented and unexamined”(pg.xxviii). 

·         Roman’s analyses bind  Jose Munoz’s framework of “queer acts” with Lisa Lowe’s theory of “immigrant acts” and this is evaluated by Roman like “both expand theatrical representation and demand critical interrogation of race,gender and sexuality as these intersect with histories of displacement and migration” (pg.xxviii).

·         “Lourdes Arguelles and B. Ruby Rich have charted “the construction of an anti-Castro campaign (in the United States) predicated on Cuba’s repression of homosexual rights” (pg. xxviii).

·         “Such an investigation would need to address not only the points raised by Arguelles and Rich, but also how queer asylum seekers” testimonies are elicited in ways that reinforce dominant nationalism and imperialism without necessarily leading to sanctuary for the individuals concerned”(pg.xxix).

·         “Queer migrants also experience jeopardy based on their status noncitizens a jeopardy that has significantly intensified since the events of September 11,2001” (pg.xxix).

·         John D’Emilio emphasizes the importance of integral immigration after World War II, “when demobilization, new employment opportunities, and the increased sexualization of commerce drew tens of thousands of gay men and lesbians to major U.S. cities”(pg.xxix).

·         Kath Weston explains the “Great Gay Migration” to cities. Gays, lesbians and other identities constructed around urban’s relation symbolics seems as gay issues in the city while converting cities into regions of particular comunities and political power.

·         Lisa Rofel wrote about the men from Beijing, China, who call themselves gay and  are non white and from the middle class and are queer migrants roled as an evidences to globalization’s modernization,westernization and homogenization. “But Rofel challenges challenges the equation of globalization with Westernization and globalization. “As she suggests, globalization is never simply a matter of Western standards entering China or other countries “as an unimpeded cultural flow” that results in homogenization”(pg.xxx).

·         It is redeveloped as “migration as liberation” (pg.xxxi).

 DISCIPLINING QUEER MIGRANTS AND QUERRING RACIAL/ETHNIC                                                                      COMMUNITIES 

Part I: Disciplining Queer Migrants defends historical,strustural analyses of norms and cultural discourses and institutions that influence migrants living in USA.

Part II: Queering Racial/Ethnic Communities defines lives of  queer migrant’s well ethnographic and sociological studies in Miami, San Fransisco, New York which are particular settlement cities for permanent U.S. immigrants.

·         Tim Randazzo’s essay provides a history in 1994 contrary to carceral’s work saying how persecuted gay men, lesbians and transgender people made eligible for asylum applying. “Randazzo shows it also signficantly participates in multiplying distinctions and in equalities among queers nased on gender,race,class and national origin”(pg.xxxii).

·         “Focuses on cases involving Mexican-origin queers, the essay shows how the discourses and practices for processing asylum claims perpetuate, colonialist and binarized conceptions of sexual,racial,gender, and national identities even while transnational processes U.S. and Mexican people,communities, and cultures into ever closer contact”(pg.xxxii).

·         “As these authors suggest the asylum system’s role in perpetuating colonialist imagery has material consequences for U.S. -- Latin American relations, U.S. Latinos, and Latin Americans seeking asylum in the United States”(pg.xxxii).

·         “Siobhan Sommerville focuses on McCarran Walter Act of 1952, which established the framework through which immigration and naturalization remain controlled today, Sommerville inquires into the shifting links between racial and sexual controls in the production of U.S. citizens through naturalization”(pg.xxxii).

·         Eric Rand concludes the essays first part with the thougt about Statue of Liberty(also mentioned as Lady Liberty in the text) as its being an erotic icon and its reclaiming a national symbol’s hegemony into history of queer, situated and centered queerness of the narratives of mainstream immigration.

·         “Part II complements the first part by providing complex analyses of how queer migrant individuals and communities negotiate disciplinary and regulatory structures while simultaneously crafting identities, communities cultural forms and political activism” (pg.xxxiii).

·           The essay also shows the history which has been undiscovered and rejected.

·         “They enormously complicate our understanding of citizenship as lived practice versus legal rights and obligations and the dynamic interplay between these forces”(pg.xxxiii).

·         Cuba and Miami,Florida exists as critically related areas in Susana Pena’s essay.

·         “ Pena analyzes the 1980 Mariel exodus from Cuba as a means for understanding both how queer migrants histories become silenced within official records and how queer migrant histories become silenced within official records and how queer migrant cultures develop”(pg.xxxiv).

·         Manalansan mentions that for those men, citizenship is not the point of “birthright or of romantic dissidence but about survival”(pg.xxxv).   

·         In spite of the fact that citizenship is also debated for these men as whether this all queer men are legal citizens or all migrants are heterosexual. 

Some Video Links To Look At Related To The Subject:

http://vimeo.com/69580628

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lERDjzLjFAw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1piGEAuphOY

 Discussion Questions

• What do you think about asylum system ? Does it have an effective role on queer immigrants or what functions does it have besides sustaining the colonialist image ?
• Do you agree the idea that Queer Migration is powerful and effective enough to eliminate racism besides sexualization ?
• How does migration shaped by sexuality?

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                                                                         Works Cited

Luibhéid, Eithne. Queer Migrations: Sexuality, U.S. Citizenship, and Border Crossings. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2005. Print.

"UrbanDictionary.com." Urban Dictionary. Web. 22 Dec. 2014. <http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=UrbanDictionary.com>.

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Gözde İpek 

Özge Başak