[OPINION] How it feels to be a Fil-Am in Trump’s America 

I unlocked a new American experience this weekend. We had to move some stuff and I drove a pickup truck for the first time. Not just any truck: a Dodge Ram 1500 eTorque Heritage Classic Laramie edition, with the ability to tow 12,750 lbs (6.375 tons). And now I feel like I understand ‘Murica and Americans more.

You see, when you are bigger and more powerful than everyone else, they all just get out of your way. At one point, I was about to miss my exit, so I cut across three lanes of traffic to turn right. Nobody honked. Nobody yelled or gave me the finger. They all just got out of my way. 

That would never happen in my Lexus.

Another thing I noticed is what I didn’t notice. Now I understand why the average American doesn’t really care about pedestrians, the environment, children, the elderly, the poor, the sick, the immigrants, the foreigners with funny names, or anyone else. It’s like they don’t even register. When you are sitting up high in the cab of your pickup truck overlooking everything else, things like that are not even in your field of vision.

The pickup truck is a metaphor for America. When you are so big and powerful that everyone is intimidated by you, they’ll just get out of the way and let you do whatever you want to do.

Empire strikes back

By now we’ve all gone through various emotional states since November 4, and it’s not like there are January 6 patriots that are going to ride in. Somehow, there were no allegations of fraud in this election.

The avatars for this round? Elon Musk, a South African immigrant who violated the terms of his visa by founding a startup with his brother without proper work authorization, and spent millions to ensure his spot as one of the minions in Mar-a-Lago.

I also see why Gen Z thinks Ohio is a little sigma. Honestly, I accept the stigma, since our Ohio senator JD Vance (not his real name; he transitioned after law school) thinks that stopping immigration will make companies hire Americans and pay higher wages. Either he doesn’t know or care that we already do this during normal employment based immigration applications. 

And, of course, as inevitable as the empire strikes back, we have the return of Donald Trump, who conservative Christians worship as if he were one of them, with multiple divorces, scandals, and skillful use of bankruptcy to escape debts as evidence of his acumen. Like Arnold Schwartzenegger, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and more, he embodies the id of America: the cowboy streak that doesn’t want the nerds telling us what to do.

When fear works

People are emotional, not rational. I get that emotion sells, and that people these days think that using law, data, and facts to argue is arrogant, but fear apparently works. It got Trump elected.

Fear also washed over immigrant communities, as even green card holders and naturalized citizens wondered if they would be among the brown people targeted by the vaunted mass deportation plans.

Love him or hate him, Trump made it okay to speak your mind, so now people are emboldened to say how they really feel, no matter how wild. People are using language straight out of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. None of this hatred is new, but it hits different now.

As a Fil-Am walking around, especially as an immigration lawyer who looks Chinese, I can tell some people feel like they can try and bully us around. Others act nice to your face, but when you walk in and add color to an all-Caucasian room, you can sometimes tell they changed the topic or got quiet when you walked in. 

Joking around is part of American culture, but it’s not as funny when the jokes are about you. And even if they include you in the joke, saying you’re “one of the good ones, we didn’t mean you” — it feels filthy.

Sometimes the bullies win

As Asians (only a Fil-Am would call us Pacific Islanders, just like typing “PI” to mean the old colonial term of Philippine Islands and not a famous cuss word is also a sign of a Fil-Am), we are often taught to be self-deprecating, to be humble, to downplay our individual selves and emphasize the collective whole.

But to survive in America, you need to be American and take up space, like a pickup truck. Whether on the basketball court, on the road, in the office, or wherever you live and work – it’s obvious that Americans respect people who are aggressive more than people who are meek.

To thrive in America, you need to assert yourself. I tell immigrant clients this all the time – you are not less than anyone else. Often, you are more, since we have to fight harder. The proof is in the pancit though – Filipino Americans are higher educated and higher earning than the average American, let alone the average immigrant population. 

People lie, numbers don’t

Despite what social media thinks, we’re also not that at risk for deportation – of the 1,192 Filipinos currently in removal (out of over 4 million Fil-Ams overall), only California (411), Illinois (211), New York (106), New Jersey (96), Florida (65), and Texas (40) have significant numbers of Fil-Ams at risk of removal. I’ve already communicated this to my contacts with the Philippine embassy, as we plan seminars on knowing your rights and immigration education.

Did you know that there were 17 times as many Canadians, 4 times as many Indians, 3 times as many Chinese, twice as many French people, and over 150% as many British people deported as Filipinos over the past 10 years?

To solve the problem we must understand the problem, and for us the problem, at least in immigration, is how long it takes for legal immigration from the Philippines. We hear a lot about the multiple decade wait for adult sons and daughters and siblings of US citizens, but did you know it now takes over 2 years, often 2.5 years for an American citizen to bring their spouse from the Philippines? 

For green card holders, more like 5 years, which is also the expected wait time for an EB-3 green for a Filipino nurse. I now see a lot of nurses planning to go to the UK, NZ, or Australia while waiting for their priority dates to come due, and some portion of those will end up staying there.

But wherever you are in your immigration journey, whether you’re an aspiring immigrant (pro-tip: study something STEM), waiting for your immigrant visa, or already here in the US as the first or second or third generation Fil-Am, you need to realize that to thrive in America today, you need to be more American.

Take up space, assert yourself, don’t let yourself get tricked or bullied into being the nerd who does the athlete’s homework in school or at work or at play. Fight for your rights because you do have rights, but you often need to keep fighting for them here in Trump’s America.

This might be an era where the villains win, but to beat them you need not be intimidated. Be inspired to be greater than them. – Rappler.com

Jath Shao is an immigration attorney in Ohio who fights for his clients with law, data, and the experience of having a winning record through the first Trump administration, no cap, all rizz. Follow @attorneyjath on social media for the truth about American immigration law.