History, Politics, Immigration, CNMI

Letter to the Editor: A Response to HR 18-34 (November 2013)

Historical document: a passionate and morally engaged letter by Kelvin Rodeo, originally published in a newspaper of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in November 2013, responding to resolution HR 18-34, which opposed permanent residency for long-term foreign workers.

📌 Editorial note: This letter was written by Kelvin Rodeo and originally published in a CNMI newspaper in November 2013. The text that follows is presented as a historical document; only obvious typographical errors have been corrected, without altering the author’s style, structure, or voice.

I am writing this letter in response to the recent adoption by our House of Representatives of HR-18-34, a resolution to "respectfully request the House of Representatives of the 113th Congress of the United States to hold indefinitely any action on Section 2109 (Long-Term Legal Residents of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) of S.744 and similar legislation which will allow thousands of alien workers, their families, and persons of other ethnic origin or race who are in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to become U.S. permanent residents and subsequently become U.S. citizens. Section 2109 violates the spirit and sanctity of the Covenant which established a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States of America."

To the thirteen individuals who voted in favor of this resolution, shame on you. Representatives Felicidad Ogumoro, Ralph Demapan, Antonio Agulto, Antonio Benavente, Roman Benavente, Trenton Conner, Lorenzo Deleon Guerrero, Christopher Leon Guerrero, Janet Maratita, John Paul Sablan, Teresita Santos, Mario Taitano, and Ray Tebuteb, you should all be ashamed of yourselves for having adopted what I consider to be one of the most racist products of our Legislature to date.

If you do not consider the resolution you adopted to be a racist one, then I will posit that either a) you don't see it as racist because what is contained in the resolution is actually what you think, and you yourselves are racist (and therefore are unable to see anything wrong with the resolution), or b) you don't see it as racist because you didn't actually read what you voted in favor of. Either way, both options tell me that you are not qualified to hold the position that you currently hold; the former because you are supposed to be representing the residents of our Commonwealth, the majority of whom are not racist, and the latter because I am fairly certain that the residents of the Commonwealth would not like to have people representing them and passing laws and resolutions in their name who have not actually read said laws and resolutions before voting on them.

Whichever of the two options is true, the bottom line is that in adopting this resolution, you most certainly are not acting as the representatives of the people of the CNMI that you are supposed to be, as members of the House of Representatives.

💡 Historical note: HR 18-34 explicitly positioned itself against Section 2109 of S.744, a central piece of the 2013 federal immigration reform effort that would have created a pathway to permanent residency for many long-term foreign workers in the CNMI.

Some of you reading this letter now may be asking, "How is the resolution racist?" The whole resolution is very anti-foreigner from the start, with the words "alien workers, their families, and persons of other ethnic origin or race" being used in the introduction to the resolution with the context of wanting to prevent said groups of people from gaining U.S. permanent residency. This same set of words is used eight times throughout the entire resolution, each time trying to paint these people as villains who are trying to screw up the established order of things or take rights away from the Chamorro and Carolinian people.

Those of you who know at least one foreign worker, and I'd imagine that's just about everyone in our Commonwealth, know that the foreign workers are trying to do no such thing. They do not seek to take away anyone's rights, they only seek to gain equal footing with the people whose economy and infrastructure they worked hard to help build over the past few decades.

Is it too much to ask to be considered as equals and be granted equal status, considering the countless hours that our brothers and sisters have worked towards building our economy and infrastructure over the past few decades?

These people have toiled away for the benefit of our Commonwealth for many years, and at times many of them have even been subjected to labor abuses, but they still stuck with us and helped us grow through the years. However, instead of thanking them for their irreplaceable service to us and to our islands, now members of our own House of Representatives have the audacity to adopt a resolution that asks the US House of Representatives to remove the provision in the comprehensive immigration reform bills that would allow our brothers and sisters to become U.S. permanent residents and eventually U.S. citizens like us?

Do our elected representatives have no sense of human decency in them? Are these seemingly heartless, ungrateful people really the people we want to be representing us?

In addition to being overtly racist by explicitly mentioning "persons of other ethnic origin or race" in an unfavorable context numerous times throughout the text, there are a few other items in the resolution that I would like to address. At the top of the second page of the resolution, what appears to be an abridged quote of Article 1, Section 103 of the Covenant is presented, saying "the right of local self-government and to govern themselves in accordance with a Constitution of their own adoption." Similar words mentioning our people's right to govern ourselves are seen five more times throughout the resolution, making it seem like self-governance is important to the people who voted in favor of adopting HR 18-34.

I find it interesting that they only seem to be taking this self-governance thing seriously now that it seems like we are losing more of our local authority as the federal government moves in on us due to our many years of failure in the area of "self-governance." If our legislators truly cared about our local self-governance, then why have they (and their predecessors who came and went before them) not taken their role in our local self-governance seriously?

"How do you know they aren't taking it seriously," you ask? It's simple, really. If they honestly cared about our right to self-governance, if they truly understood its irreplaceable value and took it as seriously as they make it out to be in HR 18-34, they would not have done such an atrociously incompetent job at it over our short history as a Commonwealth.

They would not have squandered this precious opportunity to govern ourselves by establishing and propagating the status quo of corruption that we've had in place for all this time, helping their friends and families out and propping each other up towards their idea of success while the rest of us are left to suffer the consequences of their selfishness and incompetence. They would not have remained silent in the face of such blatant corruption that has pervaded our islands for all this time. No, if they truly cared about our right to self-governance, they would have stood up and spoken out against all the shady business of our government over the years, and they would have stressed the importance of governing ourselves in a just manner. We simply would not be in the position we are in today if our legislators truly cared about our right to local self-governance as much as they make it seem in HR 18-34.

On the second page of the resolution, just below the first mention of the right of local self-governance, is a paragraph in which the author of the resolution tries to set a tone for the rest of the resolution, one in which the local indigenous population is fighting off a foreign invasion. The author does so by alluding briefly to the historical examples of the Filipinos who struggled against the Spanish colonizers, the Native Americans, Aborigines, and Maoris who all struggled against the British colonizers, and the Native Hawaiians who struggled against American colonizers. The author also brings up the example of the indigenous Fijians, who were once outnumbered by foreign Indian laborers, which is a closer example to our own situation, but is still very different and therefore irrelevant.

The common theme in all of the examples listed in that paragraph of the resolution, which is also the one reason why they are not suitable examples to bring up, is that all of these indigenous people mentioned had their situations thrust upon them by a foreign entity without their consent. We in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, however, brought this upon ourselves. We chose to go down this path and have no one to blame for it but ourselves. And yet, our legislators want to make it seem like all of these foreign workers who have been coming in from all over Asia this whole time came here unwanted and unrequested and are now trying to stage an invasion of our islands with the intent of taking away the "social, economic, and political rights and all that they have aspired, bargained, and worked hard to achieve."

In keeping with this theme of "the foreigners are the bad guys and we the indigenous people are victims in all this," the fourth page of the resolution starts out by stating that 71 percent of the CNMI population consists of "these foreign people" and then later in the same paragraph says that "the Chamorros and Carolinians of the Northern Marianas Islands will ultimately become powerless and a minority voice in their homeland" and that their "social, economic, and political rights and all that they have aspired, bargained and worked hard to achieve will undeniably be taken away from them."

📌 Key idea: The author emphasizes that granting rights to one group does not automatically take rights away from another, directly challenging the fear-based rhetoric about the “loss” of indigenous rights.

Somehow, our legislators don't understand that granting one group of people a certain set of rights that they deserve does not in any way take away the rights of another group of people, and they expect the rest of us to share in their lack of understanding, as is evidenced in the resolution through their constant use of fear-mongering and playing the victim card, trying to make it seem like the worst thing we could ever do for our islands is grant our brothers and sisters the status that they deserve for all the hard work that they've done for us.

Later, in the eighth page of the resolution, the author of the resolution continues to target "alien workers, their families, and people of other ethnic origin or race" and paint them in a negative light by saying that section 2109 of S.744 and other similar Acts by Congress will give birth to a new form of foreign domination on the indigenous people. If our legislators did not want "foreign domination," perhaps they should have stuck to the original plan of only having imported labor here as guest workers for a short time until our people were trained and skilled enough to take their place.

Instead, our government kept on allowing foreign labor to pour into our islands, even when the data collected periodically showed that the foreign worker population was skyrocketing above the local indigenous population. Instead of thinking about the societal implications of having so many foreign workers living and working in our islands for such a long time, our lawmakers were only thinking about how businesses could continue on in the most profitable manner possible.

So no, House of Representatives, Section 2109 will not give birth to a new form of foreign domination, because our very own Public Law 03-66 already paved the road to that for us, and our own government, through its noncompliance with the original intent of PL 03-66, was what gave birth to what you call a new form of "foreign domination."

At this time, however, I would like to point out that members of our government seem to be the only ones who still consider these foreign workers, our brothers and sisters who have helped us so much along the way, as foreigners. For the most part, from what I gather, the majority of the CNMI populace does not consider these people as foreigners; they consider them as brothers and sisters who have put their fair share of work in, and more, into building the CNMI up into what it is today. Many of the foreign workers themselves also consider our beautiful islands their home, having lived there for a large portion of their adult lives, with many of them even getting married and having children there.

Even so, these thirteen representatives who voted to adopt HR 18-34 seem to want us to consider our brothers and sisters as foreigners who are here to dominate us. Furthermore, towards the end of the eighth page of the resolution, it says that the granting of US permanent residency and a pathway to citizenship for our brothers and sisters "will have a devastating effect on the social, political, and economic livelihood of the Chamorro and Carolinian people of the Northern Mariana Islands."

To that, I say, is that such a horrible thing? One only needs to read one day's worth of local news to see that the current state of the social, political, and economic livelihood of the Chamorro and Carolinian people isn't doing all too well as it is with the way that our government has been running things this whole time. In fact, the social, political, and economic livelihood of everyone, not just the Chamorro and Carolinian people, really isn't doing too well these days.

So why not enact legislation that will have a devastating effect on things as they currently are? Why not try something new that will completely shake up the status quo in our Commonwealth?

When will enough be enough? When will we tire of business as usual in the CNMI? I ask all of you reading this letter now to take a step back and seriously think about this question: would you honestly rather go on continuing the way things are right now, prolonging the failed status quo of our islands, or would you rather be open to the possibilities of a different future when we gain thousands of new minds into our voting pool and thousands of new "official" community members who can then shift their focus away from worrying about whether or not they will still be able to call our Commonwealth home, and towards helping us come up with possible solutions to our shared problems?

💬 Question for readers: The author directly challenges citizens to decide whether they prefer to preserve a failing system or embrace a new democratic balance with more voices in the electorate.

Our legislators seem to think that we should keep on going with business as usual, and they seem to think that it will still be business as usual if all of the "alien workers, their families, and persons of other ethnic origin" were to leave the CNMI. Apparently, they also seem to think that we all think this, too; after all, in their role as our representatives, they took it upon themselves to conceive and adopt HR 18-34, basically telling the members of the US House of Representatives that the people of the CNMI do not want the foreign workers to get U.S. permanent residency or a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

These representatives of ours even went so far as to try to justify their stance against granting our many brothers and sisters a pathway to U.S. citizenship, saying that regardless of how long they've been working in the Commonwealth, they should not "be automatically entitled to full social, economic, and political rights, because such benefits and privileges of United States citizens were never promised, bargained, entered and/or agreed upon in their employment contracts." The resolution also says in the same paragraph that no discussions were "made or suggested for alien workers, their families, and persons of other ethnic origin or race to become permanent residents during the negotiation of the Covenant Agreement between the indigenous people of the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States of America."

First of all, this is a really weak argument, because, considering the fact that the alien workers weren't even in the islands during the negotiation of our Covenant, of course no discussions were made or suggested for them to become permanent residents at that time! Do our representatives really take us for such fools?

Secondly, their argument that the foreign workers should not gain "full social, economic, and political rights" just because such things were not a part of their employment contracts, despite however long they have been living and working in the CNMI, only serves to make them look like heartless, uncaring, selfish people who want to reap the rewards of the hard work done by all of our brothers and sisters, without giving them just compensation for everything that they've done and everything they've had to endure in the process of serving our Commonwealth.

Because these people are supposed to be representing us, someone from the outside with absolutely no connection to the CNMI and no knowledge of its people and culture could, upon reading this resolution, come to the conclusion that the residents of the CNMI are all like this. Is this really the image that we want to be sending out to the USA and to the world? Do we really want to be known as people who use other people to build us up and then kick them out when we're done with them, despite all the time they have spent with us and worked towards our collective success?

I don't know about all of you, but that's definitely not the image of the CNMI and our people that I want the rest of the world to see. Ever since I left Saipan and joined the military, I have told everyone I met nothing but good stuff about my home. I have told them how beautiful our beaches are, how delicious our food is, how amazing our sunsets are, and I told them especially about how nice and warmhearted our people are, and how we take pride in our Christian ethics (since most people in our islands identify with some form of Christianity).

This resolution is a direct slap in the face not only to our many brothers and sisters who have helped us build the CNMI over the years, but also to those who, like me, have told people that they met outside of the CNMI all about how wonderful our home is and how great the people are. Speaking of Christianity, how can anyone who supports this resolution honestly call themselves a Christian? Does anyone honestly believe that this is what Christ would have done in this situation? What happened to loving your neighbor as you love yourself? To treating others as you would like to be treated? Is this how you would like to be treated if you were in the foreign workers' shoes? Is this how Christ would be treating the foreign workers if he were alive today?

📌 Personal context: The author writes as a Saipan native serving in the U.S. military, deeply concerned about how his homeland’s moral and Christian image is perceived by the wider world.

As Christians, we are supposed to strive to be like Christ, taking care of each other, supporting those in need, and loving our brothers and sisters.

In a place with such a high concentration of people who identify themselves as some form of Christian, I find it amazing that we have allowed ourselves to arrive at this point, where the people whom we elected to represent us have taken it upon themselves to declare for us all that the CNMI's "official" stance is that we do not want our brothers and sisters to receive the same full social, economic, and political rights that we all now enjoy as U.S. citizens.

Jesus Christ was kind, compassionate, and helpful to the people that he came across, living a righteous life and always choosing to do the right thing no matter what. As people who claim to be followers of Christ, where is our compassion, our kindness, and our support when it comes to our brothers and sisters, the foreign workers, who came to our beautiful islands many years ago, many of them even a few decades ago, and built our infrastructure and economy from the ground up?

Why do we not hear their cries for justice? Or do we hear them and simply choose to ignore them, because supporting their cause for the U.S. permanent residency or U.S. citizenship that they rightfully deserve after having lived and worked here for so long, means that we must be willing to risk that such an addition of thousands of new voters in our islands would spell the end of the status quo that, despite all our complaints about it, we still seem to support, because hardly anyone seems to really want to take any concrete action in this matter?

💡 Moral reflection: The central argument is grounded in Christian ethics of justice, compassion, and solidarity with the most vulnerable, exposing the gap between professed faith and political action.

What do you think Jesus would do if he were around today? Do you think he would approve of the adoption of HR 18-34? Do you think he would approve of our seeming silence and inaction when it comes to the plight of our brothers and sisters, the foreign workers? I sure don't. On the contrary, I think he would be a very vocal supporter of the foreign workers, because that is the compassionate and just thing to do. As people who claim to be his followers, should we not be doing what we think he would be doing if he were here?

Our brothers and sisters have fought for an improved status for a very long time, but they are growing weary because every step of the way they have been blocked by our local government and they don't feel like they have our support, especially when our own representatives take it upon themselves to adopt HR 18-34. They need our help, our love, and our support.

I implore you all, if you truly consider yourselves as Christians, to please act in a Christlike manner and show your love and support for the plight of our brothers and sisters, who seek to finally be our equals in society.

Even if you're not Christian or you're not religious at all, don't you think that the morally right thing to do in this situation is support, in their struggle for equality, the very people whom we owe most of our infrastructure and economic growth to? Our brothers and sisters need our help. Please extend your love and support to them; don't let them go on thinking that HR 18-34 actually represents the desires and wishes of the CNMI public at large. Let's show the foreign workers, the USA, and the world that we are not as heartless and selfish as our thirteen representatives who voted to adopt HR 18-34 want to make us out to be.