Recently, while Jamie was gardening with her daughter in their front yard, a white man stopped his big SUV across from their house. Leaning out the driver’s side window, he pointed to their yard sign “ICE OUT of Our Neighborhoods,” and asked: “Have you seen ICE in our neighborhood?” Jamie replied, “No, but we need them out of ALL neighborhoods.” He shot back that “ICE is keeping murderers and rapists out.” When Jamie responded that it was a false characterization of the people ICE is targeting, he drove off.
It’s not just that he did not agree with the sign or with Jamie, or that he was compelled to express his disagreement with their yard sign, or even that he had no real desire to have a conversation. Instead, what stayed with us was the asymmetry of the encounter. His privilege allowed him to interrupt a peaceful evening between a mother and her daughter with false, ignorant, and racist accusations, then drive away and continue with his day. For him, the encounter lasted only seconds. For Jamie and her daughter, the emotional impact endured long after he disappeared.
It reminds us of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation hearings. Christine Blasey Ford testified under oath that he sexually assaulted her as a teenager. Kavanaugh denied the accusation. Whatever one believes about the competing accounts, the testimony highlighted a familiar asymmetry: an encounter that is profoundly traumatic for one person and recalled with detail many years later may be experienced very differently — or not remembered at all — by the other. Those with greater power or privilege move on, while those on the receiving end carry the psychological consequences for years or decades.
Similarly, when we consider immigration policies in our current times, we see that same asymmetry, where those exercising power use violence at their disposal and move on without consequence, while those subjected to policing, harm and incarceration bear lasting consequences, is being experienced at high volume. Currently, in the U.S., there are over 60,000 immigrants in detention, including children and families, and many have been denied access to healthcare and education. Their “crime” is being an immigrant, a person of color, and/or adjacent to those demographics. Our federal government is targeting them in an era where we prioritize profit over people. It is only in our recent history that there has been this overwhelming population imprisoned due to immigration status, in privatized prisons that were created for this very purpose.
Detainment of immigrants has deep historical roots. When Angel Island was used as an immigration station, thousands of immigrants passed through between 1910 and 1940. Due to the anti-immigration laws and sentiments, particularly the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Angel Island was known for detaining immigrants anywhere from days to years. Poetry can be found on the walls of Angel Island documenting the experiences of Chinese immigrants who spent long periods of time awaiting their fate.
History tells us that many people are being punished for trying to survive, to live in a world that perceives them as less worthy of protection and safety. Those pushing increased violence and funding for ICE and people like the entitled white man in Jamie’s neighborhood seriously impact the people they exercise power over.
The white man in Jamie’s neighborhood may not have made a threat or gotten out of his car, but now a bold, racist white guy knows where Jamie and her family live. He probably didn’t think about his impact. He may have even enjoyed his hit-and-run harassment of people he considered inferior. In contrast, Jamie was left stewing, turning over, and feeling guilty for not saying what she should have said. She wanted to call him out for his anti-Black racism, which is at the heart of ICE incarcerations. She wanted to shout that he prioritizes prisons over people, and he would rather incarcerate Black and Brown people than confront his own racism and xenophobia. She wanted to say that none of us are free until all of us are free.
But in that moment, when she was enjoying some downtime, she was not prepared. Jamie didn’t have the words. She didn’t capture his license plate. She might not even recognize this unremarkable white middle-aged man if she saw him today. But he lingers in her thoughts, in her fears, in her daughter’s memories.
A few days after the white man intruded on Jamie and her daughter’s peaceful evening, Joyce experienced a similar violation. She was walking near her home, hoping the fresh air could help clear her mind from the mounting racist attacks on so many Brown people in her life. It was a dry, sunny day. Suddenly, liquid struck the left side of her body—her head, hair, face, arm, and the phone in her left hand. A passenger in a car passing by had doused her with liquid.
Like Jamie, Joyce could not photograph the car quickly enough to identify its license plate. She later replayed the moment in her mind, regretting the split second she spent wondering what had been thrown at her and wiping off her phone before trying to photograph the fleeing vehicle.
The incident also resurrected earlier traumas: being spat on by a stranger in the street, having objects hurled at her from passing cars, and being struck painfully by a paintball fired from a moving vehicle. For the person in the car, throwing the liquid was likely an unintentional, thoughtless act lasting only seconds. For Joyce, it became another instance in a lifetime of racialized harassment, reinforcing the vigilance, fear, and psychological burden that victims of such attacks often carry long after the perpetrator has driven away. She also experienced a fresh wave of trauma as she called the police. The call to police brought back memories of a death threat made against her when she was an elected government official a few years ago. Despite identifying the person responsible, the police declined to take action. Reporting the most recent assault meant reliving not only the attack itself, but also painful memories (and current reality) of a carceral system that unfairly imprisons many but also fails to protect us.
These instances are not the first and most certainly will not be the last. For some, the consequences have been even more devastating, even fatal. The pattern is the same. What is fleeting, thoughtless, and inconsequential to the aggressor leaves lasting consequences for the targeted and their communities. This asymmetry should trouble us all.
Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Everyone deserves food, clothing, and shelter. Everyone deserves to be able to work in their front yard and walk in their neighborhoods without being viewed with suspicion and animosity by neighbors. Everyone deserves access to education, healthcare, and civil rights regardless of where they were born or their immigration status. Until all of this is true, and until we can be proud of our democracy, we must resist. Stand up to those who would limit our freedoms. Join us with signs in your front yard, social media posts, t-shirts that shout: ICE OUT of our neighborhoods. And let ICE OUT be more than a slogan about problematic immigration enforcement. Let it represent a rejection of the culture that allows some people to inflict harm and move on while others are left to carry the consequences.
Jamie Cho, Ph.D., is an educator, researcher, and advocate for equity and justice in early childhood education. Joyce Shui, J.D., earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and her law degree from New York University School of Law. She is an attorney, children’s book author, and civil rights advocate.
