No One Mourns the Wicked, Especially if They're "Bad Immigrants"
On perpetuating harmful binaries, divesting from "goodness" & solidarity
This post will contain spoiler adjacent content so if you aren’t into that, feel free to skip <3
If you, like me, have obsessive tendencies (or aquarius/scorpio placements), then you’ve probably also been scream-singing the Wicked soundtrack for the last two weeks and consuming every piece of media deconstructing the shit out of it. If you haven’t read anything else, I encourage you to start with my bestie’s post on how one line in “Defying Gravity” reminded her of the simultaneous loneliness and power of abandoning abusive institutions in order to choose yourself. It’s beautifully written and might make you weep, but you should embrace your inner chillona and read it anyway because her post and the text conversation that preceded it inspired my own reflections here.
As a broadway peasant who watched this masterpiece for THE FIRST TIME EVER a few weeks ago, I have been reeling and ~making space~ for all the thoughts and feelings it elicited. Wicked is not only politically relevant and reflecting what we are experiencing in this country and abroad, but also psychologically and culturally moving in ways that were completely unexpected. The grip that this allegory has on me is slightly obscene and has me bowing down to the musical girlies gays and theys - y’all really popped off with this one and I’m proud to say I’m officially an ~Ozian~ (the internet told me this is what Wicked stans are called).
A natural consequence of experiencing the wonders of this creation is, of course, thinking about the themes in it and how they relate to my own struggles/life. As I’ve mentioned here before and as some of you know, I am not just a tired eldest immigrant daughter, I am an undocumented, tired, eldest immigrant daughter. If we want to get real precise, I am a DACAmented immigrant daughter, someone who has been paying the US government más o menos $500 every two years since 2012 in exchange for a work permit and temporary protection from deportation. This layer of marginalization has not only meant I live in a state of perpetual uncertainty, it has also radicalized (politicized) me in ways I might not otherwise be.
Growing up, my parents told me that I should never disclose our immigration status, lest we get expeditiously deported. They did what many of our parents do - they encouraged me to do well in school, stay out of trouble, and help them translate all the important correspondence they receive from governmental institutions like the IRS. As an obedient eldest daughter, I followed their advice and refrained from telling anyone about our lack of papers. I kept my head down, focused on getting good grades, and bewitched my teachers and peers with my dazzling intellect and slightly unhinged personality. Their directive to “be good” and focus on school was one that I took to heart and used to keep myself distracted from the always-looming possibility of family separation. I excelled, in part, because I thought that if I worked hard and followed the rules, I could earn my and my parents’ place in this country. In other words, I bought into and was invested in achieving the ~American Dream.~ Like Glinda, I was slurping up the good/wicked binary kool-aid and truly believed that by continuing to perform my worthiness for US institutions, via good deeds and grades, my family would be spared from the ugliness that is xenophobia and racism. After all, we were “good immigrants” - my parents paid their taxes, none of us had ever been arrested or charged with any crime, and I was outperforming many of my U.S. citizen classmates, surely that had to count for something!
I very quickly learned, however, that buying into a white supremacist notion of who and what is “good” would not save me or my parents. In 2010, the DREAM Act failed to pass by a couple of votes in the senate and in that same year, my parents had lost their deportation case. I remember sitting down with them to discuss what it would look like to stay behind in the US with my brothers, all of whom are U.S. citizens -to say I was unwell and that those were wretched times would be an understatement.
Facing the possibility of losing my parents to an outdated, racist, ableist system rewired my heart and brain in ways I’m still working out in therapy/journaling, and to some extent on this platform. After scrounging up money and going into debt, my parents appealed their case and eventually got their green card. Had it not been for the legal assistance they paid an exorbitant amount of money for, they would not be here. Despite being “good” and trying to do things “the right way,” my parents remained on the metaphorical chopping block for over a decade - many other families were (and are) similarly situated and were (are) deported.
This experience is what marked the beginning of my Elphaba era: a period of reckoning and divesting from the myths of meritocracy and American exceptionalism I had bought into. My Oz moment was realizing that then-president Barack Obama was deporting millions of people, including parents of friends and friends of mine, and had only agreed to announce the DACA program after months of protesting and organizing by undocumented people. He was not the great and powerful magician I thought he was. We, the most impacted and affected by these rotten institutions, were the ones with the power and our government’s ability to keep us marginalized relies on us continuing to buy into their idea of who is “good” or “bad.”
When this country talks about immigration, it inevitably devolves into a conversation about criminality. While a younger me was invested in proving myself as a good one, I did so out of a misguided belief that by distinguishing myself from the “criminals,” I would be accepted by this country. What I learned, however, is that when we criminalize something as natural as migration, we end up reinforcing racist policies. Watching Glinda sing about how “no one mourns the wicked” and how “the wicked die alone” while looking away in shame reminded me of how I felt in 2010, the year I realized that no amount of goodness could or should justify the dehumanization of an entire community.
Smarter and more thoughtful people have written at length on how the good/bad immigrant binary pushes a white supremacist, carceral agenda. There are countless studies and articles dedicated to highlighting how the increased criminalization of migration only results in higher rates of incarceration of primarily Black immigrants. When we buy into this binary, communities that are already over-policed, scrutinized and discriminated against end up bearing the brunt of our ignorance. Obsessing over fitting in to their definition of good leads us to abandoning people who may have made life decisions based on structural inequities they face.
Watching Wicked drove me to tears for multiple reasons. There is a lot of wisdom in this book-turned-musical-turned-movie. What I took away was this: the collective’s obsession with “being good” is actually harmful and antithetical to progressive change. It leads to ostracizing people who are already hurting and does not improve our individual material conditions. Wicked makes the point that these labels are social constructs put in place by corrupt leaders who are invested in dividing us for their own benefit. In a rigged system, we are all capable of being wicked; therefore, if/when we falter, don’t we want to be met with a politic of kindness and grace? What this story offers is an invitation to unsubscribe from our obsession with being good so we can instead obsess over how we can help each other get free.
With love and LOLs,
Denia