E X P LO R AT I O N S
Seeing Both Sides of Immigration
by Lourdes Lee Vasquez, writer, p
roducer and director of The Immigration Paradox documentary
I
n 2004 I participated in a California protest asking for a fair wage
for Taco Bell tomato pickers, who,
at the time, and possibly still
now, happened to be undocumented
immigrants and therefore were being
of my comfort zone and walk over to
the “opposing” side to find out for myself why they were against the side I
was standing with. Little did I know
they also had their own think tanks,
experts, and scholars who provided
all sorts of facts and figures that
will emphasize one side or the other.
The question that you need to ask
yourself is who frames your world for
you? And do you choose the framing? And I don’t mean, ‘Oh, I choose to
exploited.
From that moment on, immigration became my topic of interest. I
began to recognize the exploitation all
around me and see dreams that had
come to a halt. Migrants were being
blamed for all of the country’s woes,
which I knew was not right.
I reached out to think tanks,
experts, and scholars on immigration
in order to get the facts straight and
make a well researched documentary
that would end up proving my case.
One day in 2007, while attending
another protest, I decided to step out
them with facts and statistics to prove
me wrong. And in no time, it became
a circular argument that was taking
us deeper into an abyss.
As Dr. Alan Gomez, a philosopher
and historian explains: “One of the
things that we don’t recognize is that
we are fighting over the meaning of
facts. Do immigrants take jobs away
from Americans? Are immigrants a
drain on the U.S. economy? Is America being overrun by immigrants? Are
immigrants not interested in becoming part of society? Do immigrants
not contribute to society? There are
watch Fox News.’ No, the question is
what are you omitting in the choices
that you make? And it’s those omissions, where I think the debate is
taking place.”
I realized I had not reached out to
understand, but rather to prove my
point, and by that I was omitting their
stories. I knew I needed to change the
approach for my documentary.
Admittedly, I found it very difficult to empathize with someone
who was dehumanizing and criminalizing the very people and information
I chose to surround myself with. In