#1 Hybrid Realities: In conversation with Dr. Christine Chang on the recent ICE order, US immigration, and mental health
This is Part I of a series on US international student communities and mental health.
edited by Febin Mathew
On 6th July, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced an order that sent international students in the USA spiralling into uncertainty. As the COVID-19 pandemic had pushed many students to leave for home, or stay on in the US and take classes online during the spring and summer semesters, the ICE announcement for Fall 2020 classes read like a jarring about-turn from the previous temporary exemption.
“Nonimmigrant students within the United States are not permitted to take a full course of study through online classes. If students find themselves in this situation, they must leave the country or take alternative steps to maintain their nonimmigrant status such as a reduced course load or appropriate medical leave.”
F-1 and J-1 US visa holders continue to have their education and future hanging by a thread as a result of this. Students are at different junctures - some are in the middle of their courses, some are due to start jobs on Optional Practical Training (OPT), and some are just beginning their new lives in the US. Universities have taken a stand, with various prestigious institutions slapping a lawsuit against the US government to block the order in a matter of days.
In this, the first issue of Minor Feelings, we decided to take a look at how international students are going to be impacted psychologically in the short and long term consequences of this order. Even if this order doesn’t hold water tomorrow, the very presence of it at this point in time can mar the way we view living and studying in America hereon.
Hybrid Realities is a series where we will discuss the discordant existence of immigrant and undocumented students, trying to keep one foot in the world of academia while simultaneously battling a pandemic, and disruptive government policy. There will be more in this series as the story develops.
In the first in this series, I talk to Dr.Christine Chang, a psychologist who specialises in counselling international students in US universities. Dr. Chang has a much needed, multicultural counselling approach towards understanding uncomfortable feelings that are connected with race and class, and sat down with me from 8,000 miles away at her home in Berkeley, California to discuss the ICE order and its impact on the collective psyche of international student communities.
As a mental health professional who has handled the concerns of international students for years now, what do you foresee the long-term mental health fallout of this ICE order to be, for students on an F-1 or J-1?
The impact that I see in the mental health part of it is, for one, the anxiety is not just abstract. “Oh I don’t know if I still have the visa, or defer my offer, or quit my job,” - It’s a very concrete, real set of decisions to be made. This also gives rise to helplessness, because we have the tendency to want to believe that if we work hard, we can find a job in a better land. If I go to this school, then I can get this degree and I can make it.
But being told by an artificial order like this, that you are not allowed, and so suddenly, without preparation and planning, it makes people angry. That this sense of control is being taken away. To me, this feeling of anger, anxiety and helplessness is a way that reactivates people’s past traumas.
We all have our own ways of handling trauma, and we learn about ourselves through those experiences, and because of this order – the anger, anxiety, the helplessness is exacerbated because it reminds us of our past, our patterns. It’s very triggering.
There’s also this sense of uncertainty because of so many universities that are unclear on their policies, which in turn feeds into the anger and helplessness. How does that affect the collective psyche of the international student community?
My own understanding of this order is, this to me is an attempt to purify and other people in the guise of a pandemic. That’s my personal reaction. We see how systemic it is to find scapegoats justifying this order through either the pandemic or the upcoming elections. So, this order does have a lot of psychological implications on how American citizens collectively view international students, and they become the target in this purifying, othering process.
A lot of people invalidate international students’ anxieties and “foreigner” feelings - that this lack of empathy or fear driven invalidation or dismissal is more harmful than the order. When people want to share their anger or anxiety and feelings, they usually get told that if you can’t go to the US, go to another country. If you can’t stay, why don’t you leave?
This is invalidation, the feeling of being rejected. It is not being seen, it is being pushed away. What we learn from this is, “my feelings are not important.” And then because my feelings are not important to you, my feelings are not important to me – and it spirals into I am not important. I don’t matter.
I want to ask you about the reasoning behind why I and many other international students are considered important, even if our feelings are not. We’re an important part of the US economy. We are pretty much the backbone of premier institutions because of the money we bring in through tuition. What are we really being seen as: an economic asset or a fundamental liability?
International students and immigrants are almost always seen as commodities. Rather than people or humans, we are assets to universities or companies because we bring money or specific skills. We’re not even seen as people.
First off, because of the economic gains from this is part of the capitalist system we are in. Workers are not people, they are assets, and that is mirrored in universities. If they are international students, they come here, they learn and then go, that’s the idea. So there’s no real, true investment. We’re still teaching them, but there’s no investment in really taking care of the international student community. We just need to do the minimum and teach them, and our funding is secure. This capitalism, combined with colonialism, is so essential to understanding why the international student community is seen as commodities.
Let’s talk about refugee students and undocumented students. A lot of people are going to be applying for asylum, and probably already are, if they won’t be able to maintain their visa status due to this. We are well aware of how notoriously draining and unsuccessful the US government’s asylum process is. Coming to this country is supposed to be a ticket to a new life for them, a way out, that they have something to be here for and strive for – and that being bulldozed by this order – how do you see refugee and undocumented students grappling with something like this?
Right now, people are in shock, and the immediate reactions are anger or anxiety. We’re still dealing with racism and the pandemic and all that compounded with this exhausting order, it can be difficult. In my experience working with refugee and undocumented students, it feels like betrayal. They have a picture of what the US is like, and when they arrive they realise how it’s nothing like they thought it was. I think this is particularly difficult because there's no way back. What do you do? Turn and go back?
So they enter a survival mode, which can have a lot of implications on processing trauma.
For undocumented students, they cannot apply for certain resources or let certain people know. Another part is the feeling of shame, that “I am wrong” and that guilt follows them no matter how good they are academically. That there is something fundamentally wrong with them.
It’s different for refugee students in that they believe that they have to keep their survival instinct up constantly.
The order itself is so racially coded that we can’t ignore how race plays such an important part here. There is something deeper, clearly. How is this going to affect us in terms of our perceptions of the race we belong to?
There’s this underlying stereotype here, since international students come from Asian countries, particularly China and South Korea. We need to be careful about the fact that the community is very diverse. For this particular order, I see an “us vs them” process. And I think in this process, since it intersects with race and ethnicity, it’s an easy way to see this as an order that targets Asian communities. This illusion that “I need to protect my land, and that you should not be here, this is our land and you have to leave,” it’s a form of violence. It’s brutal.
In my case, I’m in India, I study in New York. The borders aren’t open yet for me to go back, and a lot of that depends on economic and political factors which are not in my control. How does being seen as “just a student”, and not a person with a legitimate fear of not being able to complete their education, play into our perception of ourselves?
If we’re being seen just as assets, I think we start internalising this idea of if we keep being seen like this, in that we are only “useful.” We’re going to think that we have to be useful to be here, to exist. It reduces people to how useful I am and can be. It’s very sad, because with this focus on use, productivity and how much we can bring and what we can bring, we are reducing lives to usefulness. What’s scary also is that this is being passed down generations. “I have to be useful, or I won’t be loved.” And this is harmful to the development of the self.
I keep thinking about the loss of control and how it manifests in bureaucracy - tomorrow if you lose out on the visa lottery, you have to prepare for a life that you didn’t plan for. How does a feeling of cultural instability, of an identity crisis - of truly belonging neither here nor there as an immigrant student - exacerbate from an order like this?
The instability has already been a part of the lives of immigrants and international students. It forces people to make decisions within a time frame where you can’t think straight. This is very harsh on students emotionally, especially the way it was conveyed. I do know a lot of universities are finding creative ways to make sure students can continue their classes without losing their status. But how do you expect students to feel safe or comfortable to go to a classroom in the time of a pandemic? Nobody thinks about erratic time zones with regard to remote teaching. To me, it’s a brutal political tactic to put pressure on a vulnerable population. This isn’t the first time, and I don’t think this will be the last.
Let’s imagine things work out, Dr. Chang. The order is blocked, universities win the lawsuit, students won’t lose their status if they have to go online, and this was all one big, bad dream. But after all this, is the fear truly quelled - especially for students who are going to be coming in the next year, and the year after that? Can we really move on from here without carrying trauma?
I think even if the order is rescinded, I see that this kind of fear and anxiety will continue to exist. One of the possibilities is, people are going to make more conservative decisions, or be more “prepared” or make sure they have enough resources.
In the process of this, it’s a loss. We are losing people that are creative, adventurous and want to pursue their dreams here. Because when people are retreating to survival mode, then they’re not going to be creative, because they have to make sure they can put food on the table. This is such a loss to the country, and to all of us. We lose a lot of possibilities to fear and anxiety.
There is this grief among international students, undocumented students, refugees - when they are told when or if this place doesn’t fit them, “you can go back”. It’s rude, disrespectful and we are all losing at the end of it. There’s no “home” you can really go to right now, and we’re losing the homes we’ve already made. It’s a loss - a loss of America.
Next week, I’ll be in conversation with Dr.Justin Chen and Dr. Yi Yang of Harvard Med and the Center for Cross-Cultural Student Wellness at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The episode will be available on the MINOR FEELINGS podcast on Spotify, and the issue, as always, delivered to your inbox. Thanks for reading, and see you soon.