In 2005, 16-year old Tashnuba Hayder was given a one-way ticket to Bangladesh, courtesy of the United States government. At the age of five, Hayder had emigrated from Bangladesh with her parents. Having grown up in New York City, Hayder is unfamiliar with the culture and language of Bangladesh. However, as a non-citizen of the United States, she can be easily forced to return to a country she doesn’t know.

Question: What’d she do to deserve such a fate?

Answer: She wrote an essay about suicide bombing for a school assignment.

What Hayder did not realize was that the rights of non-citizens can be easily violated. In theory, she was covered by the first amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech. In practice, many non-citizens have few ways of defending those rights.

I was lucky enough to have been born in the United States. My older brother was born in Calcutta, having moved to the United States when he was four years old. He became a U.S. Citizen when he was 18. If my brother had written about religion, about suicide bombing or about the U.S. government, would he have been sent to India, like a package stamped in bold block letters “RETURN TO SENDER”?

And yet, how many of us know about these issues? There are almost two million South Asian Americans living in the United States, making up about one percent of its population. This group, of which I am a part, has remained silent or been rendered silent (with notable exceptions) while such atrocities have occurred. This is not only a product of the current administration, against which I write strongly knowing (or at least hoping) that I will not be deported, as I was born a U.S. citizen.

What else is making us silent? South Asian Americans, like other so-called model minorities, largely want to maintain our middle-class respectability. As model minorities, we will not rock the boat. We rise on the ladder of respectability in the United States because we do not challenge the forms of oppression that occur here on an daily basis. If it doesn’t affect us, we don’t care.

And why do we think that we won’t be next? That if we hold onto our model minority status, living with our model families in our model houses, driving our model cars, purchased with money from our model jobs, we won’t be harmed? Should we really wait until we find out — too late — that our models are made of matchsticks? We can endure overeager automatons with outfits emblazoned with the ominous title “HOMELAND SECURITY” frisking our bodies and rummaging through our suitcases. Can we endure shootings, beatings and deportations? Contrary to a certain conservative consensus, immigrants of color will not gain the privileges of full citizenship by merely assimilating to a norm not of our own making — we are marked by our skin and by our histories.

It is difficult to negotiate with elders, especially parents, who seem to own culture. For those of us born in the United States, we are afraid to challenge parents and grandparents because they seem to know more about what it is to be “traditional” than we do. South Asia has a long and heterogeneous history, as do South Asians in America. We needn’t be told what it means to be South Asian or American — we decide what it means in our every action. Appeasing our parents and appeasing a racist system will never result in full citizenship. It is time to fashion for ourselves a new set of traditions out of old materials, traditions that we can live with.

We need to reclaim these lost histories, and forge coalition politics that challenge both immigrant and non-immigrant communities to fight for immigration rights. We need to choose a culture of rights and politics of solidarity. If we do not make this choice, we might discover all too quickly how flimsy models can be.

This week’s column was written by Bharat. He and Vinni write this column, sometimes together, sometimes separately. You can contact them at bvenkat@stanford.edu and/or vpi@stanford.edu.