I have found the silver lining in a very dark cloud. The illegal alien costume sold online by Target and Walgreens has, in its profound despicability, provided me with an opportunity to teach my children about the value of truth and human dignity.
Halloween is my favorite holiday. My kids and I get to pretend that we are somebody else, wear a crazy costume, shock and surprise people for one day and then safely return to the comfort of our homes, our lives and our personal identities.
What I will tell my children that we don’t get to do is mock the experiences of millions of members of our communities by perpetuating the lies and stereotypes as reflected in the illegal alien costume. While some have observed that the extraterrestrial mask dehumanizes undocumented immigrants, perhaps even more dehumanizing is the creation of a generic costume that suggests that all undocumented immigrants are not only criminals but that they are all the same, indistinguishable. The “funny” part is the combination of an obviously fake green card that cannot disguise the alien status, which is evident in the mask, get it? The “alien” is simultaneously trying to slip one by but not smart enough to outwit the state, and is therefore imprisoned. End of story.
Absent from this generic orange pantsuit story are the complicated personal, social and political experiences of real human beings facing difficult circumstances with extraordinary courage. Absent are the specific experiences of the Guatemalan workers of a kosher meat plant who were arrested in a raid in Postville, Iowa in 2007 and unjustly charged with identity theft, despite the fact that most did not even know what a social security card was. Absent is the story of Flor Crisóstomo, a factory worker turned activist who was arrested in a raid in Chicago in 2006 and sought sanctuary in a Methodist church in 2008, which she just left his week — at risk of deportation — to continue a new phase in the struggle for the rights of all undocumented immigrants. Absent is Rigo Padilla, a model student and community member who came to the U.S. as a young boy, committed the youthful indiscretion of drinking a few beers at a party and then upon driving a few blocks back to his house, was stopped by police, and is now facing deportation to a country that he barely remembers.
Also absent from this story is a state that has been far from benevolent or neutral, importing labor from south of the border while failing to find a just way in which to regularize and legalize this flow; attempting to criminalize undocumented immigrants when they have only committed a civil violation; empowering local police to act as immigration officers, leading to the deportation of thousands of people who are racially profiled, stopped for minor infractions and then deported; and placing detained immigrants with common criminals in privatized prisons, where they often face harsh conditions and egregious human rights violations.
The truth is that I know too many faces, too many names, too many stories of detention, deportation, family separation and pain to “get” the generic illegal alien joke. Perhaps you know some too. It is time to teach our children that there is nothing laughable about the uncertain fate of 12 million people and their families in a context of increasingly restrictive immigration policy, egregious human rights violations, massive fear, annual family separation and financial devastation of hundreds of thousands who are not wearing a mask, but are in fact exposed and vulnerable every day of their lives, cannot escape their circumstances, and cannot rely on the comfort provided by slipping out of a costume.
This year just before Halloween, I will do something different. I will take my boys to the national Mexican Museum here in Chicago to visit the altars created to commemorate the Day of the Dead, a Mexican tradition designed to remember a person who is no longer with us, allowing us to reflect on the inevitability of death while contemplating the precious value of life. There, we will remember not only the dead in our families, but the 104 immigrants who have died in detention, the thousands of people who have died trying to cross the border, and the two young immigrant men who were beaten to death for being immigrants, Luis Ramirez of Pennsylvania, and Marcelo Lucero of New Jersey.
I will tell my sons that these people were human, not alien, that their lives were as valuable as any others and that their tragic deaths should never be forgotten, not even on trick-or –treat day. I want them to learn that there are some things that we just don’t laugh about.