I travel back home to Hong 
Kong every summer to visit my 
family and it always feels uneasy 
leaving my dad and his family 
when summer ends. However, 
it feels a little more uneasy and 
heavier this year as I walk into 
the security gates to leave my 
dad. As I currently write this 
piece on my 20-hour flight back 
to Michigan, I’m reflecting on 
my identity as a documented East 
Asian immigrant, retracing all 
of the sentiments on my journey 
that led to today – seeing my dad 
alone in Hong Kong as he works 
to support our family in the 
United States.
I grew up in a humble middle-
class family in Hong Kong. My 
mom’s side of my family gradually 
moved to the U.S. through family-
based documented immigration 
during the 1990s and 2000s 
to 
start 
Chinese 
restaurant 
businesses for a living. Naturally, 
my mom wanted to give me a 
chance to have better education 
and opportunity in the U.S. as 
well. We became permanent 
citizens (green card holders) 
in 2003, but we did not move to 
the U.S. for a long time after we 
received our green card, because 
we were not emotionally ready to 
go through such a drastic change.
My mom eventually moved 
to the U.S. by herself in April 
2011, getting everything settled 
for me to come to the U.S. half a 
month later. Unfortunately, her 
green card was confiscated by 
the 
immigration 
department. 
Immigration 
officers 
interrogated my mom for seven 
hours in a monitored room at the 
Detroit Metropolitan Airport. 
They said she had a “lack of desire 
to settle in the U.S.” because she 
didn’t settle in the U.S. for all 
these years after she received her 
green card. She now holds the 
status of a “temporary resident,” 
and she had to hire an attorney 
to fight for the slim chance of 
getting her green card back.
Ever since I can remember, 
it has been an ongoing and 
indefinite fight for her residential 
status. She has had five court 
hearings already and the court 
decision 
has 
always 
been 
deferred. Long story short, she 
might exhaust all her effort and 
money to lose her U.S. resident 
status at the end, and none of 
us know how much longer this 
fight will continue. She could’ve 
just left me in the U.S. and 
reunited with my dad in Hong 
Kong the day her green card was 
confiscated, but she never gave 
up and still chose to take the risk 
to care for me. I would ask my 

mom why she insisted on fighting 
a battle that leads to nowhere 
and she would tell me, “The 
hardships along our immigration 
journey mean nothing, because 
we believe it will be worth it at 
the end for you and your brother. 
It is always worth it to help you 
along the way to pursue better 
opportunities. Don’t worry too 
much.” For that, I am beyond 
grateful for my parents.
My 
mom 
wanted to make 
fair for both me 
and my brother. 
She still wanted 
to 
give 
my 
younger brother a 
chance for better 
opportunities 
in 
the U.S. like I had. 
So, she applied 
for my brother to 
go to a Christian 
school 
as 
an 
international 
student this year, 
paying thousands 
of dollars to give 
him 
a 
better 
education. Living with my dad 
for his whole life, my brother 
finally left Hong Kong to the 
diaspora, because my dad had to 
continue his job in Hong Kong 
to sustain our family financially 
overseas.
When I had to come back to the 
U.S. for the new school year, my 
dad and I walked to the security 
gates in silence. I could feel his 
heavy feelings of taking on the 
responsibilities of supporting our 
entire family, but he put on his 
calm demeanor and his fatherly 
figure on the outside as usual. 
He smiled and said, “Son, don’t 
stress yourself too much when 
you go back.” My heart aches 
to see my dad holding back his 
vulnerability when we depart at 
the airport. Since I came back 
to the U.S., my parents have 

constantly been in my thoughts 
because of all the changes our 
family is going through.
I don’t usually share much of 
my journey with others, because 
it was such a complicated, 
exhausting 
and 
expensive 
journey to talk about. Also, I know 
I have so much to be grateful for 
aside from the hardships along 
my journey. People are always 
in shock and empathize with the 
struggle 
of 
my 
family’s diasporic 
experiences when 
I tell them about 
it. But through 
my 
experiences, 
I recognize my 
privileges of being 
a 
documented 
East 
Asian 
immigrant, and I 
learned how much 
harder it must’ve 
been 
for 
other 
undocumented 
immigrants 
just 
to 
find 
better 
opportunities or 
live a better life 
in U.S. When I had to see my dad 
left alone in Hong Kong just to 
provide for our family overseas, 
it certainly made me sad and my 
heart aches, but it also reminds 
me of the blessings of my family 
has, especially when reminded 
some families of undocumented 
immigrants 
are 
forcefully 
torn apart and sometimes lose 
contact with each other. I am 
fortunate enough to still have 
a family. I can’t even start to 
imagine how much more uneasy 
undocumented immigrants must 
feel, considering the way more 
complicated process and the 
unimaginable traumas.
Sometimes, 
privileged 
documented immigrants, like 
some of my relatives, don’t see 
the way I see immigration issues. 
They are so focused on their 

troubles on the diaspora journey 
that 
they 
fail 
to 
recognize 
the bigger picture of others’ 
struggles. Yes, we might not be 
the crazy rich Asian “FOBs” 
rocking Moschino and Supreme 
daily. Quite frankly, my mom’s 
family started from nothing 
and can barely afford living in 
middle-class suburbs in the U.S. 
even now. There were way more 
roadblocks along the way that 
I left out in this piece. We have 
our struggles. But it doesn’t 
make it valid for documented 
immigrants to say it is unfair just 
because we had to go through 
all the time-consuming legal 
processes and troubles while 
undocumented 
immigrants 
had not. White supremacy has 
given you permission to believe 
undocumented 
immigrants 
are dangerous or a burden to 
society, when in fact they are 
human, just like us. Imagine your 
family being forcefully separated 
and potentially never seeing 
them again. Imagine your only 
options are either being dead 
in warzones or risking lives to 
just escape and survive in the 
Global North. Imagine all the 
traumas, hardships, bigotry, they 
have to put up with in the Global 
North. In fact, they deserve an 
opportunity in the U.S. more than 
we do because of the conditions 
they face in their home countries.
Retrace our journeys. At the 
end of the day, undocumented 
immigrants are just striving to 
live a better life in diaspora just 
like us documented immigrants. 
While they have fewer resources 
than we do, we should recognize 
our privileges, support policies 
like 
Deferred 
Action 
for 
Childhood Arrivals and abolish 
Immigration 
and 
Customs 
Enforcement. We must stand in 
solidarity with undocumented 
immigrants.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 — 7A

A debate over the lengths 
of albums in today’s age
Pursuing solidarity between all immigrants

EFE EDEVBIE
MiC Blogger

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

SAM SO
Assistant MiC Editor

Sister, sister: On finding 
real, shared experiences

I’ve obsessed over “Sister, 
Sister,” a TV show about twins 
separated at birth and reunited, 
since I first stumbled upon it in 
elementary school. Back then, I 
liked it because it was funny and 
entertaining. But now, as I still 
watch it 19 years after its final 
episode aired, I’m realizing how 
much the show really meant to 
me.
For a long time, I wanted a 
relationship like the twins Tia 
and Tamera had on the show. 
I saw myself in 
Tia. 
Like 
her, 
I’m a plan ahead, 
always prepared, 
honor roll, type-A 
kind of student. 
I 
could 
relate 
so 
strongly 
to 
her. 
At 
times, 
moments on the 
show 
became 
my reality. Like 
Tia, I worked so 
hard all throughout high school 
and was sure I’d get into the best 
universities in the country. I felt 
her disappointment when she 
received her rejection letter from 
Harvard University, and just 
like in the show, my mom and I 
jumped for joy when I got into the 
University of Michigan.
Back then, I didn’t realize how 
big of a role model Tia was for 
me. I didn’t think too much about 
how great it felt to watch a show 
in which the main characters 
looked like me. I did not know 
how much I would come to 
appreciate the show’s honest, 
real representation of some of 
the experiences I would later 
face growing up as a Black girl in 
America.
But at its core, “Sister, Sister” 
is about the unbreakable bond, 
love and friendship between two 
sisters. When I told my friends 
how badly I wanted a twin sister, 
they laughed at the impossibility 
and tried to comfort me with 
stories of how annoying their 
sisters were. With one older 

brother, I can still relate to 
having a sibling, but the six years 
that separate us make it difficult 
to have any shared experiences.
It wasn’t until recently that I 
realized what it really was about 
Tia and Tamera’s relationship 
that I longed for all this time. 
Tia and Tamera can relate to 
each other in a way that very 
few people can. They share lived 
experiences because of their age, 
similar physical appearances and 
environment. They understand 
each other in a special way only 
identical twins, and maybe other 
really close relatives or friends, 
can.
Now I realize 
all that time I 
spent 
watching 
shows like “Sister, 
Sister” and “The 
Bold 
Type,” 
I 
was looking for 
someone to whom 
I could relate. I’ve 
finally found that 
person for me, 
and no, I didn’t 
discover a long-lost twin or clone 
myself. Instead, I am beyond 
lucky to have made a friend 
who shares a background so 
similar to my own. I find myself 
eager to share my frustrations 
with her because I know she’ll 
understand. I don’t have to give 
her background information on 
where I stand because she’s lived 
so much of it. Finally, I can say, 
“You know” and she actually 
knows!
What a relief it is to have 
someone who gets it. To have 
someone to talk to about the 
struggle of grasping my identity 
as Nigerian and Black. To have 
someone who can relate to my 
love of fashion and my faith. To 
have someone who understands 
my hesitation and frustration 
with make-up. And possibly most 
importantly, to have someone 
who will never get sick of 
re-watching Black Panther with 
me.
To Efe, the sister I always 
wanted and friend I am forever 
grateful to have.

HALIMAT OLANIYAN
MiC Blogger

When so much of my news 
is disseminated into 20-word 
summaries with a link to an 
article as I scroll through my 
social media, it is really easy to 
remain distanced from the impact 
of current events. In fact, on Sept. 
6, 2018, it took at least four posts 
about the same thing for me to 
realize what monumental change 
had just occurred — the Indian 
Supreme Court declared Section 
377 of the Indian Penal Code to 
be unconstitutional. In the sea 
of comments, there seemed to 
be this notion that India was 
finally modernizing like Western 
countries, but that was not the 
truth — India was and is still in 
the process of decolonization. It’s 
not moving forward, rather, it’s 
moving away from white colonial 
ideals.
As an Indian American born in 
the United States, my experience 
with LGBTQ issues at a personal 
and policy level has been decidedly 
complex. I grew up in California 

in a time when Proposition 22 in 
2000 and Proposition 8 in 2008 
caused huge controversy over 
same-sex marriage and LGBTQ 
rights. It wasn’t really an issue 
discussed at home — my parents 
grew up in India, where gay sex 
was criminalized. It was illegal 
to be gay. My experiences in 
school, especially through my 
involvement in social justice 
groups, made it clear that this 
way of thinking was unfair. And 
though my parents might have 
been conservative, even my father 
would have argued that due to the 
civil rights attributed to marriage, 
everyone had a right to marry 
whom they wished. On the other 
hand, I also knew my parents 
would be deeply uncomfortable if 
I came out as queer.
The 
biggest 
complexity, 
however, came from my religion. 
My family practiced Hinduism. 
I didn’t practice it religiously, 
but Hinduism was about more 
than rituals and festivals. It was 
about philosophy and ethics. 
The religious text I was most 
familiar with (because there 
are several in Hinduism), is the 

Bhagavad Gita — the speech Lord 
Krishna gave to Arjuna when his 
commitment to justice wavered 
in the face of having to fight 
his family. And not once in the 
entire text, did it mention that 
“you shall not lie with a male as 
with a woman.” In fact, Hindu 
mythology didn’t simply ignore 
queerness, the myths included it. 
There were stories of Vishnu, one 
of the primary deities, taking on a 
female appearance and engaging 
in 
relationships 
with 
male 
deities who knew his original 
form. When my culture was 
filled with stories that were not 
heteronormative, it was difficult 
to reconcile what I read with 
what I saw being practiced.
It wouldn’t be until college that 
I’d learn what Section 377 was 
and from where it came. Before 
the British colonized India, there 
was a vibrant queer history. It 
wasn’t the norm, but it wasn’t 
considered against nature either. 
To see my mother country stuck 
in the white supremacist ideals of 
a bygone age was frustrating and 
painful. It was shameful to know 
that a place I considered vital to 

my heritage was also considered 
so backward. I wanted India to be 
better, and yet I could understand 
that as an oppressed people, how 
difficult it was to unlearn these 
bigoted views.
When I saw people celebrating 
the repeal of Section 377 as a move 
toward Western ideology, I was 
angered. This didn’t acknowledge 
that Section 377 wasn’t an Indian 
ideology but a Western one 
 
in the first place. Yes, we live 
in the 21st century and LGBTQ 
rights should be a given and not a 
constant struggle, but India only 
gained independence 70 years 
ago.
It takes time to undo societal 
norms. There’s certainly more 
to be done for LGBTQ rights 
women’s rights and lower caste 
rights in India. But with the new 
verdict, India has taken one more 
step towards embracing its roots 
and culture.
So, in the end, I did hit the 
love button on that Buzzfeed 
India post and every other time 
it came up in my newsfeed. And 
each time I clicked it, I felt pretty 
damn proud to be brown.

Moving away, not forward: LGBTQ rights in India

AKANKSHA SAHAY
MiC Columnist

“It’s 25 songs?”
My initial reaction to the 
track listing of Scorpion by 
Drake had nothing to do with 
interesting 
track 
titles 
like 
“Ratchet Happy Birthday” or 
“Can’t Take A Joke” — it was 
about how obnoxiously long the 
Toronto artist’s newest project 
was going to be.
Twenty-five tracks, split up 
into an A side and B side. A year 
after we had gotten a 22-song 
“playlist” in More Life and two 
years after the release of the 
20-song Views, Drake’s albums 
have only been 
getting 
longer, 
and in an age 
where streaming 
giants 
like 
Spotify, 
Apple 
Music and Tidal 
have dominated 
the 
music 
consumption and 
listening 
space, 
it makes senses. 
More songs on an 
album means more streams or 
plays which means more money 
for the artist. Sure, the overall 
quality of the albums are bound 
to go down, but this is the best 
strategy in terms of releasing 
music nowadays, right?
Kanye West would have to 
disagree. 
When most of the music 
industry has zigged and ditched 
the standard 13-song album 
model for longer and longer 
projects, Yeezy and the rest 
of G.O.O.D. Music zagged and 
dropped a series of 7 to 8 song 
projects 
this 
past 
summer. 
Highlighted 
by 
Pusha 
T’s 
DAYTONA, Kanye’s self-titled 
ye, and the inaugural joint 
album effort of Kanye and Kid 
Cudi with KIDS SEE GHOSTS, 
G.O.O.D Music opted for shorter 

LPs, with the runtime of most 
of the albums falling under or 
about 25 minutes.
While this seems to be more 
of an artistic decision than one 
influenced by a bottom line 
(“Man, if we can’t kill you in 
seven songs, we don’t really 
need to be doing the music,” 
was Pusha T’s response about 
G.O.O.D. 
Music’s 
strategy), 
it’s worth considering if there 
are some monetary benefits 
to Kanye and crew’s sudden 
change 
in 
direction. 
With 
an album length that was so 
easily digestible, I listened to 
ye start-to-finish seven or eight 
times within the first 24 hours 
of its release — seven tracks 
multiplied 
by 
seven 
start-to-
finish 
listens 
comes out to 49 
total 
streams, 
not including the 
extra 
streams 
I gave to songs 
like 
“Ghost 
Town” and “No 
Mistakes.”
Conversely, 
Scorpion was an 
absolute struggle to get through 
— just as More Life had been 
for me the year before. Once I 
had completed the marathon 
and listened to the entirety of 
the 25-song behemoth, I had 
no intention of going back for 
a second start-to-finish play of 
the Drake project. It was too 
much to listen to. It got boring. 
It 
lost 
my 
attention 
more 
than once. It wasn’t engaging. 
Twenty-five tracks multiplied 
by one start-to-finish listen 
comes out to 25 total streams, 
not including my extra streams 
of songs like “Sandra’s Rose” 
and “Emotionless.”
I streamed the seven-song 
album almost twice as much as 
I did the 25-song album. Has 
Kanye stumbled onto something 
here? Maybe. Just maybe.

“I streamed the 
seven-song album 
almost twice as 
much as I did the 
25-song album” 

“I don’t usually 
share much of 
my journey with 
other, because 
it was such a 
complicated ... 
journey to talk 
about”

“What a relief it is 
to have someone 
who gets it”

INTERESTED IN WRITING FOR MICHIGAN IN COLOR? 

EMAIL MICHIGANINCOLOR@MICHIGANDAILY.COM 

FOR MORE INFORMATION.

