Most of the immigrants being deported from the U.S. by the Trump regime today are Latine, from Mexico or Central America. But many immigrants from other nations live in the U.S., and their stories are not often heard.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Tabitha Sookdeo, executive director of CT Students for a Dream, which works mostly with young immigrants. Sookdeo herself is West Indian and she recently convened a meeting in Hamden, Connecticut, to bring together black immigrants from various countries to discuss their experiences and how they might increase collaboration with others at risk of abduction and deportation by ICE agents under Trump’s oppressive policies.
In Connecticut, for example, Jamaicans are on the list of top 10 nations whose citizens are targeted for deportation. Here, Sookdeo talks about the differing experiences of African Americans and other members of the African diaspora, whose lives were shaped in distinct ways by European colonizers from England, France and the Netherlands.
TABITHA SOOKDEO: I’m originally from Guyana in South America and I grew up on the island of St. Martin. And as I have been in the organizing field — especially in the immigrant organizing field — there is a lot of comfort in organizing, especially with immigrant rights in Spanish-speaking communities, and really not as much within West Indian communities because of course there are black folks who are Latino, for instance.
But then also you have this other subsection of folks from the Caribbean and folks from South America who might be English speaking, they might be French speaking, they might be Dutch speaking and they don’t necessarily have access to the same types of resources — one or two. There might not be as much of an intentional way of doing outreach in the community. And so it was something that was really important to me because of my own personal background and from things that I’ve seen on the ground as well.
MELINDA TUHUS: I mean, are you in touch with a lot of immigrants who fit that description who are not Spanish speaking?
But at the end of the day, we still see these trends. Within my culture, I think within West Indian culture particularly, there is this cultural sentiment that you keep your business at home, don’t speak about it, don’t talk about your status, don’t talk about the issues that you’re going through and that really flies in the face of organizing when you are leaning upon your direct experiences. And so I think a lot of it, too, it’s a cultural shift, too.
MELINDA TUHUS: Do you see the same issues around the country, not just in Connecticut?
TABITHA SOOKDEO: I think it’s throughout the United States, I would say. There is an incredible organization that’s called Undocu-Block, and so they focus on the issues of black undocumented immigrants, and they do a great job. They’re in D.C. but they have chapters across the nation. And then there is another organization that’s called BAJI that stands for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. And so they do a lot of work around racial justice as it intersects with immigration. But besides these two organizations, there a not that many large orgs that focus on these issues, but the issues persist. They persist throughout the nation.
MELINDA TUHUS: You had mentioned earlier that it was important to have a conversation between black immigrants and African-Americans, people who were born here because there were some differences. Can you say more about that?
TABITHA SOOKDEO: When we talk about race, it’s a huge topic. And so, whenever we are talking about race within America, there is a difference in the ways that anti-black racism shows itself. And so anti-black racism as a global concept I think is quite understood.
But in America, there’s this specific white-black duality that is quite different than the rest of the world — I think also compared to the Caribbean and to South America — and by that I mean there are more nuances perhaps that we talk about in the Caribbean. At times, we can “other each other,” whether if it’s the African community to the Caribbean black community or it’s a black Caribbean community to the African-American community. And so it’s really just a larger conversation to be had that is incredibly nuanced and that we don’t really have a lot of space to do so.
And so we partnered with the African-American Society and so much of this work is doing that and to delve into those issues.
For more information, visit CT Students for a Dream at ct4adream.org.
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