analysis
The Un-Model Minority Desi, queer and undocumented in America By Sandip Roy
Beyond H1B
“We don’t think of South Asians as border crossers,” says Priya Murthy, the former policy director for the advocacy group South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). Desis don’t realize that according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statistics there were approximately 240,000 undocumented Indians in the United States in 2011. “That makes Indians the seventh largest undocumented population in the U.S.” says Murthy. Murthy and Ram both spoke on a panel about immigration reform at DesiQ, a recent conference on LGBT South Asian issues in San Francisco. Immigration reform clearly matters to desis in ways beyond H1B and family backlogs. India and Pakistan are among the top 20 countries whose applicants filed for DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals which offered temporary relief for people like Ram who came as children. The number of immigration detainees who are Indian nationals has almost doubled every year between 2009 and 2011 rising to 3,438 in 2011. Ram knows that many desis do not have much sympathy for the likes of him. “There is this perception that they came here the right way, whatever that is. And we broke the law.”
A Coup and a Passage
Ram was born in Fiji in 1986. After a military coup there tensions erupted between the large population of Fijians of Indian origin and ethnic Fijians.
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“There was a rush to move out of Fiji. A lot of my relatives moved to Canada and Australia. We were fortunate to get visas to come to America,” says Ram. His parents knew a man who was bringing batches of people to the U.S. He assured them that once they landed in America he could get them a green card. The family sold their property to pay him. They didn’t realize that the cards the Bupendra Ram speaking at the DesiQ conference in San Francisco. man got them on Alvarado Street in Los Angeles moment, I can be taken away from my parwere fake. ent, friends and the only home I have knows “When our visa expired after six months, as a child,” he says. we realized we had fraudulent papers,” says He remembers his parents having to Ram. struggle with low wage jobs because they Bupendra Ram joined the ranks of Amerdidn’t have papers. His mother had never ica’s undocumented. He was not even three worked in Fiji. Now she had to. His older years old. sister had to take on a parental role. “My parents had these $5 an hour jobs,” DREAMer says Ram. “My mother was like this typical There’s been a push to allow people like aunty. Except she was going to work on a Ram, who came to the United States as bus, seeing druggies shoot up with needles.” children, a path to citizenship through the They eventually found jobs at the airport DREAM Act. The idea is that those who but after 9/11 they were laid off because came as children are out of status through no new rules required proof of citizenship for fault of their own. those jobs. At 23, Ram decided to come out and Photo credit: Puesh Kumar
B
upendra Ram is a minority within a minority within a minority in America. He is desi, queer and undocumented. In other words he is living proof that when it comes to immigration, the South Asian story is not just about H1-B visa quotas. Ram remembers trying to do immigration outreach in Southern California’s Artesia, also known as Little India. One passerby was perplexed. “He said ‘I am not Mexican,’” chuckles Ram.
be a DREAM activist and go public about his status in the hope that personal stories would break through stereotypes about immigration. He says he wanted to show people that immigration reform was not just a Latino issue. Ram says he’s gotten incredible support from Latino activists but remembers once going to a fundraiser and feeling terribly excluded. “There were tamales and hot chocolate and music,” he says. But it wasn’t his culture. He wanted to tell people in his own community the anxiety of growing up undocumented in America. “I have to live a life in America that’s not guaranteed. At any
The Honor Roll
Ram worked hard almost as if he was compensating for his lack of papers. Honor roll in school. Volunteering for the March of Dimes, UNICEF and breast cancer research. He graduated in the top 5 percent of his high school. But when it came to college he couldn’t qualify for financial aid because he had no papers. Many colleges regarded him as an international student and thus subject to higher tuition fees even though he had lived almost all his life in California. He eventually graduated with a Business Administration degree from California State University at Fullerton—the first member of his