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F E R N A N D E Z  |  W E  B U I L D
T O G E T H E R  T H E  S P A C E S

I clench the handles of my suitcases as my mother’s 
fingers tuck the hair behind my ear. Tears start to well up 
in my eyes.   
 
“Te amo Dianita.”   
 
Before I knew it, I hugged goodbye [to] all our nights 
dancing in the living room, the chocolate she made 
lukewarm ‘cause she knows I do not like it piping hot, 
and our loud laughter after a really good joke.   
 
I have been living in Indianapolis for over a year now, 
pursuing the education I had always dreamed of and 
worked so hard for.   
 
I am a “legal” alien on an F1 visa.  
 
I am a “guest.”   
 
And I have never felt as lonely, as desperate, and as 
pained as I have here.   
 
When you think of Indianapolis and the people that are 
in it, odds are you probably think WHITE. I know I did.   
 
My PWI [predominantly white institution] school did 
not help.   
 
I felt vulnerable.   
 
I am brown. I have an accent. I am queer. I am not from 
around here.   

I have been more-often-than-not the only person of color 
in my classes, let alone the only person coming from 
another country.   
 
At times I have not understood the words going on 
around me, or the tone of them, or the phrasing, even 
though I had always considered myself bilingual. 
Sometimes, I have stumbled on my words because the 
right word I am looking for in English only exists in 
Spanish or Quechua. I have missed hugging people just 
for the sake of hugging people and talking to the person 
in line next to me just for the sake of talking to people.   
 
Immigrating to another country is renouncing a part 
of who you were and constantly battling to discover 
and rediscover the place you occupy in this new 
environment.   
 
There are conflicting voices.   
 
Those of your loved ones repeating that you belong and 
those of the systems in place that treat you like a threat 
and an unwanted presence in this country.   
 
I have been questioned on my intentions by every officer 
I have encountered.  
 
Unfortunately, officers at entrance ports are not the only 
ones questioning my intentions. Uber drivers are a close 
second.  

We Build Together the Spaces We 
End Up Calling Home  

Author
DIANA FERNANDEZ, Butler University



VO L .  5,  I S S U E  123

F E R N A N D E Z  |  W E  B U I L D
T O G E T H E R  T H E  S P A C E S

“If you are a student here, then why do you speak like 
that?”   
 
This country was occupied by immigrants in its 
foundations, but this country was not built for 
immigrants that are not white.   
 
In the words of Victory Sampson, a first-generation 
Nigerian American and a freshman at Butler University, 
the atrocity is that it never occurs in their thought 
process that people were going to come to the U.S. with 
different colors. This was not intended to be a land for 
all, and the systems put in place reflect it.   
 
Immigration enforcement has gotten 333 billion dollars 
since the early 2000s. ICE is set to receive more funding 
this year — even when they have committed crimes 
such as racial profiling and apprehending people without 
probable cause. Allowing you into my own nightmare, I 
have been stopped in an airport and put in a room with 
people that have my skin color and speak my language 
simply because I was brown. I have been stopped 
even when I had all the paperwork to [show] proof 
[of] my “lawful” intentions in this country. Seconds 
became hours and all I could do was pray that somehow 
someone would take pity on me and let me leave.   
 
From all the horrible things I witnessed, I want to share 
with you one of them.   
 
The officer called a man to review his case. He 
questioned him in Spanish “Qué es lo que realmente 
estas haciendo aquí?”   
 
What are you really doing here?   
 
The man answered by saying he had been hired for a 
job.   
 
“No tiene sentido. Por qué te darian el trabajo a ti, 
cuando hay miles de Americanos ciudadanos de Estados 
Unidos que podrían hacerlo?”  

That does not make any sense, why would anyone hire 
you when there are thousands of Americans, citizens of 
the United States, that could do the same?   
 
The man did not answer.   
 
“Y si trabajarás aquí, por que no hablas Ingles?”   
 
And if you are supposed to work here, why can you not 
speak English?   
 
Before the man could reply, the officer called three of 
his colleagues who were on their break.   
 
“Look at this guy. He is trying to fool me! He doesn’t 
know that I send people like him back all the time.” 
The officers laughed. The man they were questioning 
did not speak English. He had a contract in his hand, 
his boss’s [telephone] number as a reference, and had 
been respectful. Yet, they were there making fun of 
him in a language he did not speak. They had deemed 
him incapable of performing a job, deemed him 
worthless, with no information other than his name and 
demographics. And they were doing so while eating 
snacks. As if somehow the man was their form of 
entertainment.   
 
I held my tears for five long hours and fell down to the 
floor, incapable of moving, after I got out. But, I got out 
of that room. Not everyone does.   
 
Immigrants and their children are treated as non-human 
in the United States.   
 
I talked to two of my friends, both children of 
immigrants, about their experiences.   
 
Jazlyn Khan is Deisi and white. Although Jazlyn holds 
an American passport and was born here, she has also 
been treated as the other. “The biggest issue that affects 
my family is the ability to be here and visit family 
members,” she said.  



24ENGAGE!  |  st u d e n t  vo i c e s

F E R N A N D E Z  |  W E  B U I L D
T O G E T H E R  T H E  S P A C E S

Aside from policy limitations that exist to prevent 
immigrants from going back home and coming back, 
there are constantly people trying to target them. “When 
the Trump ban was occurring, it was a big concern if we 
could visit Pakistan,” Jazlyn said and then proceeded to 
explain that when she tried to get her visa for Pakistan, 
her family was asked to go physically to an office for 
“special review.” Jazlyn was only travelling with her 
father but had all the permissions from her mother in 
order. Her family had to travel to Chicago, because there 
was no office in Indianapolis, and wait hours only so 
that the officers could see her white mother and confirm 
she consented to Jazlyn’s travelling plans. “The only 
reason mine took longer is because I am mixed, and 
not only was that discriminatory against my dad, it was 
inefficient because you could have gotten the same thing 
from a phone call.”  

And even when Jazlyn gets to travel, she has always 
been stopped to check her luggage in airports, once 
triggering an alarm because of colored pencils. You read 
that right, a box of colored pencils.  

Random checks are not always random. 

 The sentiment of othering run deeps in the United 
States. When I talked to Victory, he said that “if [his] 
mom had decided to emigrate to London, still a very 
white place, instead of the United States, [him] being 
Nigerian would not have been seen as shocking to 
others.”  

And while it may make some uncomfortable, WE ARE 
STILL HERE.  

I will eternally be grateful for Hanako Gavia and Ms. 
Bobbie Gibson. They heard me when the world was 
falling apart and lent me their shoulder to rely on.  

Hanako, thank you for showing me Indianapolis is more 
than just a white population in the middle of cornfields. 
Thank you for taking me to events and places that 
celebrated diversity, that celebrated people from all over 
the world, and that immediately treated me like one of 
their own. Meeting you changed my life here.  

I want to use this space that has been given to me to talk 
about the power of community and I want to explicitly 
tell you reading this that Indianapolis is a place of 
immigrants of all colors. I feel it every time I go to [the] 
Global Village and see the artifacts from all over the 
world people have lent for others to see. I feel it in the 
Immigrant Welcome Center and the stories that all the 
attendees share. I feel it when I go to delight in cuisines, 
other than mine, around Indianapolis.  

And while I advocate for the dismantling of oppressive 
systems and institutions such as ICE, I stand with my 
community and ask you to stand with us. There are so 
many resources and places in the city that will love us 
unconditionally. Visibilize them!  

We are your neighbors and we make your city brighter. 
Vote for people that stand with us. Talk to us.  

We build together the spaces we end up calling home. 




