Anti-Immigration, Model Minorities, and Emigrating Blame

Photo by Humberto Chávez on Unsplash (via the Unsplash License)

It's no surprise to anyone up to date with current events that there has been a rampant rise in anti-immigrant sentiment within the last five years, you are no stranger to the rampant rise in anti-immigrant sentiment. Spearheaded by some of the strongest and most diverse nations like the USA and UK, the reimposition of conservatism has seeped across the world, leading, not only to racist conflict, but also intra-immigrant tension. The external fabric of conservatism seems to shallowly resonate with a lot of diaspora and they often comply with it for internal affirmation rather than political integrity. The venomous spread of anti-immigrant policies also means that everyone tries proving their belonging in a new country as more urgent than another’s. There is a sudden self surveillance that takes place in terms of benefits claimed, languages publicly spoken, labour competence: all measurements that are usually weaponised by the right as anti-immigrant rhetoric, leading to an undeniable othering of ourselves. 

While immigrants latch on to these strict criteria as a method of protection and survival, the right operationalise them as things that decide people’s displacement. However, this compliance with conservatism makes immigrants complicit in their own suffering.

Cultural Fossilisation

For many immigrants (not all, because this is not a generalisable problem, but a specific one), conservatism is conviction. It is a safe rule book that has been instilled into them culturally, for many, dating back to the year in which they left their countries. This is understood by something called cultural fossilisation which refers to immigrant attitudes being frozen in the version of their country they emigrated. This means that the values they hold as indisputable ways of life are intrinsically linked to a cultural way of living, even if that link has long been weakened by time. Their home countries may not endorse what they take as gospel and have, since, forsaken them either legally, culturally, or both. 

The stringent adherence to these phantomic paradigms also stems from the immigrant insecurity of not being close enough to their home culture. This, I find to be quite a futile strife though, since moving countries inherently means adopting a hybridised identity. You cannot exist as purely your ethnic or national identity when you will inadvertently exist as a combination for both, however the expectation to balance both parts of your identity (imposed by people in, both, your home and settled countries) is often overcompensated by overly prescribing to values that seem morally and culturally uncontested as the correct ones.

Politics and Fiscal Conservatism

Fiscal conservatism is an easy step to take from there, which is actioned through voting. Immigrants start imagining themselves as overly-assimilated citizens of a society in which they are still not fully naturalised, just because they are in the pedestalised country they have always wanted to be in. This means voting for conservatives like Rishi Sunak who are not only anti-working class but also anti-immigrant, despite being a product of immigration themselves. 

He is not the only one either. Time and again, whether it was Priti Patel, or recently even Nicki Minaj, immigrants have repeatedly sided with the oppressors in joining brigades which shallowly aspire to a purist version of countries originally built off the backs of migrants. This is often because immigrants are expected to be grateful to the people who have let them become a part of their country. This gratitude is remodelled as blind conformity to very dated ideals which are antithetical to their immigrant existence in these foreign countries to begin with. 

When we start grading ourselves on a scale of most to least useful, decent, or acceptable, we are subscribing to laws that undercut our own rights. These rights were originally devised for the accessibility of immigrants who needed to leave their countries, which means we are only allowed to exist in the settled country based off liberal policies in the first place, and while we are left struggling in the pit, trying to out-diaspora each-other, there are revolutions being spun to indiscriminately shun us all from the land we’re fighting each other on. 

A ‘Pure’ Nation

Supposedly left-wing parties are officially launching statements like “To settle in this country [the United Kingdom] forever is not a right, but a privilege.”, even though immigration and, more importantly, the root-cause of immigration most times: colonisation, is in the very fabric of this country. There is no “pure” British culture, just how there is no purely British population. Everything is a by-product of participation from or exploitation of other countries, whether it is labour, heirlooms or even cuisine, yet the ultimate marker of success and security seems to be built on the myth of an independent country. Britain has historically never been an independent country, which is also why it got the worst end of the bargain after Brexit. It cannot exist on its own, which is why its buying into a faux system of self-sustenance is only detrimental to itself. 

Much like alpha masculinity, alpha nationalism is also burning bright and fast right now. Just how women are seen as threatening to an impossible ideal of hypermasculinity, immigrants are seen as threats to a nationalistic body of a country. Of course, these two forms of radical right-wing ideology work hand-in-hand. There is an inflated anxiety around the difference between people’s identities, even if there has been relatively peaceful assimilation between these different communities in the past. This has led to things like ICE arresting documented Americans on the suspicion of them being undocumented immigrants even though they aren’t, just because of heightened panic.

Religious Identity

The conflation of religion with conservative politics is another driver of misplaced political outrage. The Bible doesn’t ask America to be free of people of colour, just how the Quran doesn’t systematically teach homophobia; the coordinated rise in fascism, however, would suggest otherwise. It is not that religious scripture is inherently violent or even actually supports everything radical that conservatives claim it does, but it is their staunch marketing of that which has brainwashed non/lesser-believers into buying into their bigotry and consequently bigoted politics. Indoctrinated immigrants and conservative leaders, then, hold hands in the name of God and work towards stabbing us all out of the laws we have spent decades making progress with. 

Epistemic Conservatism

The progress we have made is also credit to the historically intertwined fights for equal rights, like the Bristol Bus Boycott (1963), Rock Against Racism & Anti-Nazi League (1978) and Southall Race Riots (1979), where multiple communities came together to protest for each other’s rights. Progress is made through solidarity and multiplicity, but now, there is a constant avoidance of subversion and revolution in immigrant communities so as to not be “too loud” and betray their performance of the model minority. 

The burden of their own identity is enough of a differentiating factor, so the only way they can seek a relatively “normal” experience in a white-majority country is to erase their proximity to other marginalised identities, whether it is neurodivergence, disability, transness, or any other factor which affects their and others’ labour power in a country where their entire respect is calculated off of their labouring ability. To aid this, we need to exercise our memory and make a willful effort in remembering the roots of how we got to where we are now. 

This stress on labour productivity by both immigrants and policy-makers alike has resulted in terrifying policy changes, like recently with the Indefinite Leave to Remain where the five year requirement has been increased to a ten year requirement in order to get closer to British citizenship. A policy like this essentially remodels conditions of slavery for workers and their families whose lives are indebted to their sponsors and employers for the duration till they gain their ILR. This is just one of the many frightening legal changes that are being rewritten to illegalise immigrants who come to this country seeking shelter, income and safety.

So, what now?

Something we cannot conflate is the blame for the rise in conservatism solely towards immigrants when, at the end of the day, it is always a political structure imposed and maintained by national governments. Still, change only begins from an individual level. Immigrants cannot be caught up in trying to one-up each other when we collectively have a bigger fight to fight.

 In a political climate dominated by far-right sentiment, I believe the only cure is to be radically liberal. I do not specifically mean on the political compass, but more importantly socioculturally, on every plane, by becoming doting allies of the right’s favourite scapegoats, whether it is Black people, trans people, immigrants, people using benefits, disabled people, neurodivergent people, the list is endless. Having tough conversations and continuously unpacking our conservatively informed ideals is the only way to achieve The Immigrant Dream, where we finally get to live in a society free of fear and jingoistic fanatics, replaced with socioeconomic stability and political protection for all of us.

---

Edited by Hania Ahmed, Creative Editor