More Than A Magazine, A Movement
This holiday could give us a chance to start over with a national conversation on immigration that is unifying, rather than polarizing.
Such a conversation starts with identifying shared values and employing active listening. This is also an opportunity to bring our values as feminists to the table.
The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.
This week: Romania’s massive coronavirus outbreak; Afghan families forced to sell their daughters; the aftermath of COP 26; where is Peng Shuai?; Sweden may get its first woman PM; and more.
The campaign “The Humans Who Feed Us” by Justice for Migrant Women (J4MW) aims to humanize the immigrant workers who bring the food to our tables. J4MW shares profiles of workers who migrated with everyone who eats—from well-known restaurant to college cafeterias.
Michelle Wu is not the only daughter of immigrants to blow the doors open in Boston this election—so did her campaign manager, Mary Lou Akai-Ferguson.
Born in Japan, raised in East Atlanta and only five years out of college, Akai-Ferguson is far from the typical political consultant. But we shouldn’t be surprised: As daughters of immigrants, Akai-Ferguson and Wu fit a pattern of high achievers.
We were undocumented immigrants from Brazil living in a small apartment in Queens. As a girl, my mother’s parting words to my brother and me were the same every morning. “I love you. Have a great day. Be invisible.”
Today, I’m an American citizen, the second lady of Pennsylvania and the founder of three nonprofits that support underrepresented communities. But I still know in my bones the terror of living in the shadows.
It’s time for the Senate to step up, pass the Dream and Promise Act and stop using Dreamers as bargaining chips.
Since August, tens of thousands of Afghan allies left behind have struggled against the new, oppressive Taliban government. The U.S. has the means to help our allies, and the Biden administration should take measures to ensure the protection and safety of innocent Afghans.
Taliban nostalgia threatens 20 years of progress for Afghan girls. The lives, aspirations and rights of girls are not just getting lost in the mix—they are actively being squashed.
How the U.S. responds will be a true test of whether the Biden administration’s stated commitment to gender equality applies in practice and beyond rhetoric. We don’t need another speech or more photo opportunities. We have enough promises. What we need is for President Biden to galvanize real action. Afghan girls deserve nothing less.
In an 1893 speech examining the U.S. relationship with Haiti, Frederick Douglass said: “A deeper reason for coolness between the countries is this: Haiti is [B]lack, and we have not yet forgiven Haiti for being [B]lack or forgiven the Almighty for making her [B]lack.”
U.S. Border Patrol agents rounding up asylum seekers with whips while thousands more languish under a bridge in the unrelenting Texas heat make it clear: 128 years after Frederick Douglass’s speech, his words still ring true.
“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. … No one puts their children on a boat unless the boat is safer than the land.”
Recent expulsions of thousands of Haitian migrants showcase how far the U.S. has to go on immigration reform.
The proliferation of Haitian migrants at the Mexican border did not begin under this administration. But for Biden, this represents not only a missed opportunity to distinguish himself on immigration, but also an egregious lack of humanity and regard for Black lives in the Caribbean.
Born into a Tamil, Catholic family, poet Divya Victor spent her childhood in India, her teen years in Singapore, and now lives and works in the United States. Her latest poetry collection, ‘Curb,’ is an unflinching exploration of the inequities that the South Asian community face in the United States.
