Willing Subjugation

Deathlok Annual #1 (1992)

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is voluntary. If you qualify and can afford it. If you want to ease the different responsibilities we all carry as individuals to our family, friends, loved ones, and to society. DACA makes all of that and more easier to carry, but it also piles on more stuff for an individual to carry once that status is achieved. Couple of days ago I started getting serious about what I would need to do if my DACA renewal didn't arrive before it expired. Fact is that in the last two years that I've had this quasi-legal status, I've gotten too soft. I no longer have to hustle as hard as I use to before having it. I'm pretty comfortable where I am. Having stability is something I have little familiarity with. I've been use to going from one point to another all my life that at times, I find myself wondering how I ended up where I currently am. My life consist of going to work and coming home. I still see friends and go out once in a while, but for the better part, that's about it. Part of it is because I live on my own. Back when I would be crashing at someones house, I would go out and stay out for as long as I could because I didn't want to be where I was staying at. I wanted to be out of the way as much as possible. Now a days I just find myself bored with stuff that's going on around me, partly because I've been around it for so long. I know others wish they lived in an active community like the one I live in, but it's all the same stuff over and over again. Same faces, same art, same music, same pedo.

When I finally got my DACA in the mail, there was a sigh of both relief and of frustration. The thing is no more than a privilege card. A physical manifestation of years of work people all over the country put in to make it happen. A physical manifestation of the political games played in this country with the lives of immigrants. A physical manifestation of the willing subjugation I and a about a half a million other immigrants sign up for because we can and because we want the easier path. Every day I'm inundated with stories, pictures, videos, art etc. on the different kind of suffering and torture immigrants are going through in this country. Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.

I make no qualms about my decisions and my politics. I don't hold up my nose and say 'no' from whatever moral high horse people need to get on. I talk a bunch of trash, but I take ownership of that as well. For me, it's important to know what I'm really looking at every time I look at my work permit and the access it gives me that others don't have. DACA is a lot like those mail order DVD clubs. You get a few for a penny, but then you have to buy 3 more at regular price. It's important for me to always remember that because I don't want to the kind of individual that sees that work permit as the answer and frankly, salvation to all of my problems as an individual.

Blindly accepting DACA as salvation in your life means you don't want to see the world for how it really is. You're too selfish to care about others and while actions you take may say other wise, deep down you're just scared of having it taken away from you. Of having to go back the kind of quality of life you had before DACA and how much that sucked. You aren't about that life and if you were, you're trying to leave it as far behind as possible. I know because that's the kind of stuff I thought about when I entertained the idea of not having a work permit anymore. That's my reality. I like romanticizing what my life has been as a kind of badge for others to see. I earned my stripes and as such, I lose no sleep as to what others think. My work permit is a physical manifestation of that.