Participant-Observation
By E. Roe-Fehrman

I ask myself, how does it feel to be stared at for the color of your skin or the length of your beard? To be stopped at airport security while others go through and leave you behind? To be gawked at nervously while riding a plane? To be told "go home" while walking along the streets of your town? To turn on the television or internet and find politicians calling your religion, one of the world's oldest and most established, a cult?

How does it feel to live in constant fear that someone may beat you, your son, daughter, father, or mother for skin tone, style of dress or accent? How does it feel to know that no matter how hard you study and work, no matter the unique potential your teachers find, you have no access to higher learning because of where you were born? How does it feel to have your new baby, your dream child, labeled "anchor baby?" To know that your mother may not return home at the end of the day because she was taken while working?

How does it feel to know that each time you leave your house to drive to the store or to drop your children at school you may be pulled over and asked for documents, I.D.s, papers? How does it feel to know that at any moment you could be deported to a strange land that was once, maybe, familiar but no longer home? How does it feel to see your place of worship burned? Or painted with a swastika?

How does it feel to see your neighbors march against your existence? They veil their intent thinly but you know the true meaning behind their words. They scream "the constitution doesn't apply to you people," "terrorist," and "murderer." They say things like "they wipe their asses with their hands," "they're dirty," "they carry disease across the border to us," "they come here and take our jobs."

How does it feel when your children come home crying because they've been called names like "terrorist" or "Mexican" (using it like a dirty word)? How does it feel when over-pressured teachers sometimes view your kids with annoyance because of test score benchmarks while hoping, so hoping, that instantly these children will grasp the culture behind those all important test questions; fear constantly present for their jobs?

And how does it feel when you've picked produce 12 hours a day in the scorching heat and you return home to be met by volunteers handing you boxes of fruits and vegetables for your family because you can't afford them? How does it feel to be charged more rent because of how you speak and where you come from, to be paid less for the same reasons? To be ignored post-flood by your landlord while others born and bred here get immediate attention?

How does it feel while getting your graduate degree, working in a career, speaking out, to be labeled "oppressed" simply because you choose to wear hijab? How does it feel to be raped and beaten and question whether or not you should call the police? Will you be the victim or the criminal?

The voice for this telling, for this writing, should be the one experiencing, the one who knows. I have witnessed these things; observed, noted and photographed. These are your neighbors, my neighbors, and they have something to share if we will listen.

This Illegal Immigrant Brain Surgeon worked as a Tomato Picker

E. Roe-Fehrman has a BS in Cultural Anthropology, has published on immigrants in the South and the barriers they face, has interned in advocacy for immigrant and refugee rights and currently works in advocacy for victims of domestic violence. She lives in Franklin, TN with her husband and three children.