Years ago, I read an article authored by a Black American man about the US government’s TSA program, which allows US citizens and permanent residents who pass a background check to skip the airport security line and go straight through their gate with a simple ID check. For anyone who has ever dealt with American airport security, you’ll understand why this is such a big deal.
As he described, skipping the security line allowed him, a Black man, to feel like a white person. Imagine not getting questioned for entering a building or followed or harassed for using a service. Imagine being taken at your word and waived through simply for meeting a basic, easily verifiable criteria. The TSA program allowed him to feel those privileges normally reserved for white people.
That’s how I felt in 2015 when our Supreme Court finally ruled that same-sex couples should be entitled to all the privileges and responsibilities of marriage at the federal level. In our system of government, that meant that I, as a gay woman, could finally sponsor another woman to immigrate to the United States to marry me. It had been a right my friends in opposite-sex relationships had their entire lives.
“Immigration has shaped my entire life and identity as the daughter and granddaughter of Indian immigrants and as the wife of a Nigerian woman.”
Not coincidentally, I met my now wife just two years after that Supreme Court decision. She immigrated on the K1(fiancé) visa in 2019 to be with me. Last year, she became a US citizen. Up until 6 November 2024, the day the Presidential election result was called, I had naïvely assumed that would forever be an option for my fellow same-sex compatriots. Now, no one is sure. On the one hand, we have further same-sex marital protections through the Respect for Marriage Act. On the other hand, with the looming Republican control of all three branches of our government, no one can be daft enough to assume our LGBTQ civil rights will not be a constant target.
Immigration has shaped my entire life and identity as the daughter and granddaughter of Indian immigrants and as the wife of a Nigerian woman. My second novel, titled What It Meant to Survive, focuses on two queer women and their journeys, often through the lens of immigration, to be together. Their struggles mirror the real life challenges my wife and I had in overcoming an racially and nationally inequitable immigration system. That said, the book also highlights our real life experience in not being discriminated against as a same-sex couple navigating immigration. We got equitable treatment as a same-sex couple. Our relationship wasn’t questioned by American immigration authorities; it was as if we were a straight couple. The thought that other same-sex couples might lose that privilege is devastating.
Later this month, my wife and I will be at The Common Press in Bethnal Green, where I will share the stage with Burnt Roti’s Sharan Dhaliwal to talk about What It Meant to Survive. The event is the same day as the American Thanksgiving, which feels especially significant given our current political climate. To all those interested, regardless of your nationality, please join us.
Book Launch: What It Meant To Survive by Mala Kumar is on 28 November 2024, 7 pm, at The Common Press, 118 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 6DG, United Kingdom.
