Little me in the Parle-G haircut doesn’t give a f*ck about another brown-girl-friendly pink lippie in the age of ice terror
Last summer, my mother was in the hospital. I spent the nights with her while my brother and extended family took the day shifts. On one particular evening, I headed out around 11PM after birthday celebrations with the in-laws for my daughter. My husband walked me to my car and stayed until I got in and started the engine. We live on a quiet, relatively safe street, so I got in, told him I was good, and he walked back into our home. I lingered a while longer to text a friend before I started my drive. As I was typing, I could see someone walking down the middle of the street toward my car. The person had a headlamp and was walking two large dogs. I didn’t think much of it. I have dogs, too, and people go out for walks at all hours, especially in the summer. I sat there finishing my text when I noticed the headlamp's light was pointed directly at me. It was blinding. The person was blocking my vehicle and purposely flashing his headlamp in my face through the windshield. I am not someone who walks around scared. I grew up in this city and have always managed to keep myself safe, but this felt menacing. With the car still running, I cracked the door open, partially stepped out, and asked, “Can I help you?” The man replied, “What are you doing on this street? Why are you here?” He was white, tall, heavy-set, and flanked by his pitbulls on either side. I said,
“I’m leaving, so if you can just step aside, I can go.”
Everything in my body felt in danger, and I did not want this person to know that I lived on that street, nor did I care about checking a male Karen in the dark of night with no backup.
“Or maybe I’ll just call ICE, yeah, I think that’s what I’ll do,” he said.
To this day, I don’t think I can describe the feeling that came over me in that moment. It was an old but familiar feeling I’ve carried since I was a child. It didn’t matter that my mother gave birth to me in this city, in the hospital where she worked as an ICU nurse. It did not matter that my father worked for this city. That my parents arrived “legally” in this city, worked here, laid roots here, raised children here, buried their people here, paid taxes here, invested here, worshipped here, and grew old here. Six months into this new iteration of MAGA, none of it mattered. Any random white person could weaponize belonging to soothe the worthlessness of white supremacy rotting inside them.
That same Fall, ICE would descend upon my beloved city and begin its assault against everyday people here in Chicago. Just a few blocks away from my home, children excitedly assembled one Saturday morning for a costume parade in honor of the Halloween Boo Bash at the neighborhood elementary school. They, with their families, were met with tear gas by masked ICE agents in tactical gear. Tactical gear and tear gas in a residential neighborhood filled with children in K-Pop Demon Hunters and Bluey costumes. An elderly man returning home from his running club was given broken ribs and a concussion for “aggressively” asking ICE agents why the road to his home was blocked.
As I watched this terror unfold in Minneapolis, the escalation of violence toward civilians and the door-to-door abductions left me wondering if this would be how my parents left this Earth. My mother innocently answering her front door one day, only to be violently taken by some masked imbecile wholly divorced from humanity, with no care, no due process, no regard for the rule of law or life itself. I hate thinking like that. I don’t usually think like that, but I also never imagined living in a time such as this.
I don’t bring this up for empathy or sympathy; my stories are inconsequential in light of the many who have actually been taken by force or stolen by death. I bring this up because I used to work in the CPG industry. I was a brand co-founder once upon a time, and as I was leaving that world, I got to see some amazing South Asian brands start to take up space across every category. It was amazing to see, not only the types of products but the storytelling and marketing. I also watched South Asian influencers on social media gain large platforms and notoriety. That, too, was a sight for sore eyes while working in a very white-dominated industry. It was fun, interesting, and exciting to behold. The tides were shifting, and I was here for the representation, even if it was cheesy. I’ll take a cheesy South Asian over yet another self-absorbed white founder launching a brand built on cultural theft. I loved to see the stories that brought us out of obscurity and into the mainstream. Stories of food, migration, and culture. It was beautiful to witness.
I supported brands through crappy packaging, quality issues, and all the trappings of startup life. Some of the influencers I found personally annoying and dim-witted, but at the end of the day, I was of a different generation, and I wanted to see them succeed and win in spaces that did not welcome them. I think we all did; that is why we supported so many grow their businesses and platforms.
In this boom, brands and influencers connected to us through stories of the immigrant experience, cultural pride and connection, and naming the deep wounds of exclusion, ridicule, erasure, xenophobia, and racism. Our early support was tethered to these things. It wasn’t just about capitalism, consumerism, and self-aggrandizing. For me, it was about visibility and celebrating the culture, because their wins felt like mine.
We watched in horror during the COVID years as the world withheld life-saving vaccinations from the Indian subcontinent. We witnessed bodies stack up at crematoriums that could not keep up with the sheer volume of death. And while this happened, not a single prominent white Western yoga instructor, brand, or influencer who built their entire identity on our culture lifted their voice to say anything about this injustice, this vaccine apartheid. They felt no moral responsibility to say or do anything. Because they’re “not political,” or their content is about “positivity and wellness,” or they just did not give a shit because it was happening to Brown people. But at least we know this is what they do. It’s what they have always done. Cultural theft and appropriation are the inheritance from their ancestors.
Sadly, we are witnessing South Asian brands and influencers acting mighty white and privileged in the wake of ICE terror by making similar moves, business as usual. But here’s the thing, you don’t get to build your platform or brand identity by getting people to emotionally connect to your immigrant story only to establish yourself and ignore that immigrants just like you, your parents, or grandparents are living in endless terror. When 5-year-olds are used as bait, teachers abducted in front of screaming students, protestors shot for filming, elders flung into unmarked SUVs, and journalists jailed for telling the truth, why the fuck do you think I want to watch a GRWM for your cousins sangeet?!
As the man stood blocking my car, threatening to get me deported, I managed to reach for my phone with trembling hands and called my husband. His voice answered through the car speakers, and I told him,
“You need to come outside. There is a man threatening me and refusing to let me leave.”
I don’t know what else I said because he ran back outside in seconds. By then, the man started walking away and down another street. I just pointed in the direction the man was heading, and my husband took off. I turned off the engine and followed, not knowing what that man was capable of, and didn’t want my husband to confront him without a witness. I could hear him shouting after the man with the dogs, who were now riled up and barking. As I approached them, I could hear my husband say,
“Did you fucking threaten my wife?”
The man looked at him and remained quiet; they always quiet down when they see my white husband.
“It was a misunderstanding.” He said.
“What the fuck is wrong with you approaching a woman like that?! I should call the cops on you!” My husband yelled.
“Look, I’m sorry, Ma'am can you please come here so I can apologise, it was a misunderstanding. Let’s fix this.” He said as I stood across the street.
“Fuck off!” My husband said as he walked me back to my car.
He gave me a hug and asked if I wanted him to take me to my mother. I told him I was ok enough to drive, got in the car, and took off, worried about how late I was.
I cried as I drove and hoped my nervous system would calm down by the time I reached my mother's room. I didn’t want her to know or suspect that anything was wrong. She didn’t need that. I didn’t deserve that. None of us deserve THIS. And that’s the thing. I don’t need your family to be from Kerala or Tamil Nadu to want you to be safe. Whether you call your Grandmother Ammachi, Nani, Abuela, or something else, I want to see your family have the same opportunities my family had to build a life and a pathway to flourishing for future generations. And this is my gripe with South Asians who are choosing self-protection as a strategy right now: You betray your own story when you do this. When you draw us into your personal story of migration and hardship, it becomes more than heartfelt marketing; you are calling us to connect with something deeper. Not because you are the best or the only one, because look at what it took for you to get here, and that matters. Rather than say “little me never thought they’d get a brand deal” or “little me never expected to design my own fashion line,” can I ask that you check in with little you and ask them, “what do you wish people did when they saw your family being terrorized for being the only brown family in the neighborhood? What do you wish people did when you were getting bullied in school?” And go do that, because representation without solidarity across racial lines is just marketing.
Author’s note about legal vs illegal language as it pertains to immigration. The United States was founded upon colonization, indigenous genocide, and land theft. Non-native people of Turtle Island cannot determine who is and who isn’t legal because we are on Native land. I purposely used the word legally in parentheses. I never use “legal” or “illegal” to talk about human beings.
