Now, let’s face it. I’m not a professional political activist. In fact I’d say I have around about a seventh-grade understanding of American government and maybe (at a push) a second-grade understanding of American history. If someone asked me how a bill becomes a law, I would tell them to search for Schoolhouse Rocks on Youtube. It’s safe to say that I have never even considered writing to a politician before.
I was really motivated to do something when I started getting these appeals from Immigration Equality on Facebook to support the DREAM Act. In short, it’s a piece of legislation that would provide the children of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, provided they prove they can positively contribute to society by completing either two years of active military service or two years of college. The logic behind the bill is that these children are not at fault for their parents’ decision to bring them to the USA and, having lived their entire lives creating a home in the USA, it is unfair to send them ‘back’. Senator Dick Durbin, a representative from my homestate of Illinois, is one of the driving forces behind this bill.
First, let me say that, in principle, I welcome the progressiveness of this DREAM Act. I support anything that leads to a diverse and educated society. I agree that these children had no control over what brought them into the country and that it would be cruel to remove them to a context where they do not belong.
At the same time, I resent what the DREAM Act represents. I can’t help but think “How dare this bill come before legislation that would provide equal recognition for me, a legal American citizen?” It didn’t feel right that politicians were lobbying to extend the civil rights associated with American citizenship to an entirely new genre of people, but were content to ignore the LGBT families who are excluded from the system in spite of our citizenship. I got angry and motivated.
With my sites set on Dick Durbin, I decided to do a bit of background research to understand how best to approach a letter (thanks Wikipedia!). In short:
Richard “Dick” Durbin is a Democrat Senator representing Illinois. He’s a popular lifelong politician, elected to the House of Representatives in 1982 and moving into the Senate in 1996. He became the Democratic Whip (Assistant Leader) in 2004 and serves as the chairman for the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.
Brilliant! He’s high up the political totem pole, he’s chairman of the committee that currently holds the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), he’s active in the movement to fix America’s broken immigration system and he’s not completely opposed to LGBT issues.
I sat down and wrote him a letter. It started with a paragraph showing my support for the DREAM Act and asked him to extend that support to UAFA and to use his influence to raise visibility for this important issue. I poured out, in no less than 1,000 words, just how important immigration equality was to me and my family and emphasised how the current legislation actually doubly discriminates against us. I submitted it to his website and, because it says priority is given to Illinois residents, used my mother’s postal address.
You can imagine my surprise and initial delight when I received a response in less than 24 hours.
Unfortunately it was a standard form response telling me all about the DREAM Act and thanking me for my support. The only paragraph that remotely addressed what I had asked was purely coincidence:
“There are thousands of young people across our country who believe in the promise of America. What they have to offer makes us a stronger nation. I will continue to work for the passage of immigration reforms, including the DREAM Act, that are tough and enforceable but also fair and consistent with our nation's values.”
I might be naive about a lot of things, but I knew Senator Durbin wouldn’t actually read my letter and that the response would come from a staffer. But I also believe that staffer has a responsibility to at least read beyond the first paragraph of a lengthy, heartfelt correspondence. It would be an understatement to say I was infuriated to receive a reply that not only ignored 90% of what I had written, but thanked me for supporting a bill that sort of feels like it’s slapping me in the face.
But there was a ray of sunshine way down at the end:
“Thank you again for your message. Please feel free to keep in touch.”
So, I re-submitted my original letter to Senator Durbin on the 8th December 2010 – this time including an opening paragraph that read something like this:
Dear Senator Durbin,
I recently wrote you an incredibly heartfelt and personal letter detailing my ongoing struggle as part of a bi-national same-sex couple. Your reply was wholly irrelevant to the content of my letter and the points I asked you to address. It is clear that whoever read my letter never made it past the first paragraph. I am re-submitting my letter below in the hopes that whoever receives it this time has the respect to at least make it to the end.
I got notification that the letter had been received and am still awaiting a reply.
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