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17 December 2007
Indian-American’s Experience Drives Her Immigrant Rights Advocacy

By Lea Terhune
USINFO Staff Writer

Washington -- When Deepa Iyer moved from India to Kentucky she was 12 years old, an awkward age for drastic adjustment. Blazing a path from there to being the executive director of the increasingly influential South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow (SAALT) took a combination of hard work, timely opportunity and key influences that shaped her perceptions of democracy.

"Part of the reason I am active with an organization like SAALT and really believe in the mission of civic and political engagement is due to the adjustment period that I had and some of the experiences that my family and I faced," she says. These were not unusual or traumatic experiences, but she recalls times "when my family felt marginalized and isolated in the community."

She says people made assumptions about her family’s origins and their English-language skills based on inaccurate stereotypes. Seeing other immigrants and minorities have similar experiences "shaped my desire to become part of a movement in the United States that was based on social justice and equality," she says.

That, she says, is "the promise of America, in that there is this amazing diversity in race, national origin, in so many ways, and the promise is that we can all have the same rights and share the same benefits and privileges that come with the Constitution." The opportunity for social justice is great, she says, "but it’s also a struggle, and it’s something that sometimes gets harder with time."

This lawyer-activist’s struggle has centered on immigration issues, which rank high on the SAALT priority list. In her recent testimony before a House immigration reform subcommittee, Iyer appealed for legal means for immigrant workers to contribute to the U.S. economy and become permanent residents. An immigration clinic at Notre Dame University in Indiana, where she got her law degree, piqued her interest in immigrant rights issues and the legal challenges immigrants face. She decided to pursue civil rights work, leaving an Indianapolis law firm to take a job with the Asian American Justice Center, where she learned the importance of governmental, legislative and grassroots advocacy. For several years, she was a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, which gave her valuable experience in litigation. She left within a year after September 11, 2001, "primarily because it was difficult for me to be in the Department of Justice as a civil rights lawyer when the government was also responsible for implementing initiatives that were so detrimental" to some minority communities, she says.

Subsequently, while legal director for the Washington area-based Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center, she worked with a coalition that successfully advocated for the passage of a language access law in the city, one of the few in the country. It mandates multilingual materials and sometimes bilingual staff be provided by city agencies.

Since 2004 when she joined SAALT as director, she has spearheaded programs that effectively educate immigrants about their rights and issues important to them. To raise awareness, SAALT hosts town meetings and other events, which have intensified ahead of 2008 presidential elections, in which immigration will be a top issue.

Emphasizing that immigrants range from naturalized citizens to those on special visas and the undocumented, Iyer says, "I don’t think civic engagement and civic participation is just about voting and being a citizen," adding, "You don’t have to be a citizen in order to feel connected to this country and in order to feel connected to your community."

Defending civil rights is Deepa Iyer’s passion. Early on, she says, "I found what I am passionate about and I feel really lucky about that. I was able to recognize what I was interested in … and chart a path based on that interest in what moves me and drives me."

For related articles, see Visas and Immigration.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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