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This post was mentioned on Twitter by VivirLatino: New on VivirLatino: #LGBTCIR = Coalition Fail? http://vivirlatino.com/2010/02/28/lgbtcir-coalition-fail.php...

They do care because when youre gay you don’t exist in immigration law. SO for exampleif immigration reform passes tomorrow and the new laws allow me to bring my spouse legally from another country, that won’t apply if my spouse if female. So whether you like gay people or not, they have to have the same protections as everyone else when the legislation is written, or you’ll still have people left out.

point taken, but there is a way where both groups of people can get what they want simultaneously. If we build an effective immigration system at our service and not at the service of profit, there might be no need for “someone to go first”. It can be done. And on another note, i hate to tell you but it wont be long before Latinos and other decendants of recent immigrants may not need your approval because we’ll be a majority. that’s also a (as you put it) FACT.

Well, Anthony, as another Toni, one who claims both Native and Settler privilege, from a history of both long ago immigration and recent (my grandmother is from Morocco, let me note one thing.

They are not illegals.

I live in Phoenix. My children are Mexican-American, all of them born here, their parents born here, their grandparents born here, and you know what they get called?

Illegals.

I was arrested for assault and battery multiple times in my youth. You know what I was called?

Illegal.

Illegal is an insult, akin to saying the F word or the n word, and your veiled ethnocentrism inherent in it’s use is more frequently called racism, and it’s neither just nor kind in it’s application.

They aren’t here illegally, Anthony. They are here seeking the things that you take for granted, and they are here making the life you live possible, even without your spouse.

And note that as far as this trans gal is concerned, he is your spouse. And when you say “illegals” you are saying *him*.

You are saying me — who can outrank you on any list of privileges or oppressions you want to choose save the education one –and you are saying my kids and my grandkids (who are soooo cute!), and you are saying the person you love and want to have in this country with you.

That’s wrong, Anthony. On so many levels.

Yes, its wonderful that you support a path to Citizenship, and one of the things that came out in that is what I’m quoted as noting above.

We — that is, the LGBT community — don’t plan on letting our needs be forgotten. And that includes things like UAFA — and we want to see it as part of the whole comprehensive immigration reform, because as far as we are concerned, it’s not reform and it’s certainly not comprehensive unless it includes us.

But of what good is that fight going to be if we call the people who are supposed to be helping us — who *will* help us — to achieve that are being told at the same time we ask for their help that they are just a bunch of illegals?

If you’d been in that room, Anthony, you’d know the answer, as that’s what we were being told, and that’s why this post is here for you to comment on.

How does one forget one is gay exactly? Where does one hide that away? When a hate crime happens against an LGBT Latino is it because they are queer or paperless? Why the fuck does it matter? We are not ranking oppressions here ok. Thanks

Can we also stop talking like Latinos are not part of the LGBT community? This is a huge part of the problem in the wider mainstream LGBT movement. POC, including Latinos are talked about as if we are not part of the LGBT community.

Mustering support for relationships that are considered “illegal” by dismissing human beings as “illegal” is poor strategy, even if you really feel this way.

Stepping on those who would aid you in your cause is poor form, and will get you poor results.

Some of you posting here should spend some time with that if the moral rectitude of the arguments presented here do not sway you.

in other words, one of the big problems with dealing with mainstream LGBT is that they try so hard to frame ALL LGBT issues as exisiting within the framework of marriage rights. when LGBT issues in other communities are far more complicated and do NOT fit in any way into the neat framing of “marriage rights.”

We’ve covered undocumented queer families that are dealing with the injustices of an immigration system that does not recognize their families–so I think that marriage rights are important–but at the same time–we’re ALSO dealing with incredibly pressing concerns like the *racism* and *sexism* that keeps single brown mothers under constant threat (cuz yeah, we got us some queer single brown mothers, too, mr. mainstream LGBT man)–like our queer teens being suicidal because they can’t be open about their queerness–and they can’t even see a therapist without worrying about being reported.

I mean–what does marriage equality mean to a queer brown mami who can’t take her u.s. citizen children to the doctor because she may be deported without them? Who can’t take her wife to the doctor with their kids without fearing deportation?

We need to stop framing LGBT movement as “marriage equality” movement–and then I think the space might be opened up where we can all begin to talk about things in a more complicated nuanced and maybe even cross coalitional way…

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One more thing: Thank You. For the motivation the good old fashioned arguments and subsequent motivation that sprung out of the several discussions we have had. This contributed to the level of work that I undertook in my asylum case. Thanks again.(also hones the skills of written persuasion.)

Thanks Dyssonance

[...] that are a step up from the current criminalization and detention heavy policies but still have a long way to go on being really representative of our the entire immigrant community. Tags: Comprehensive, [...]