Deepak Bhargava: “The American dream is about our responsibility to each other”
Executive Director of the Center for Community Change Deepak Bhargava accepts the “National Leadership Award in Strengthening Community” from the Merage Foundation on June 14, 2011. Each year the foundation honors internationally respected American leaders who came to the U.S. as immigrants and have made significant contributions to our quality of life. Deepak took the opportunity to tell his immigration story in the context of the American Dream.
“My own story is an American Dream story — but it is not mainly or mostly about my individual effort or accomplishment. It’s about a whole community and a tradition of activism that made that dream possible. Were it not for the civil rights movement, my family would not have been able to come to or stay in this country –because the 1965 immigration act abolished national and racial quotas and opened up migration for families from Asia, Africa and Latin America. The law that enabled my family’s presence was the result of the change in consciousness brought about by the African American freedom struggle, and by enlightened leadership from people like the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who I was privileged to know.
A good chunk of the tuition for my first year in college at Harvard was paid for by taxi drivers in New York City –through a scholarship fund established by the union that my father belonged to. I went to public schools and was supported and encouraged by my parents, teachers, and community. My work today on issues of social justice and immigrant rights would not be possible except for my partner Harry, friends, and colleagues from CCC who are here tonight walking the same path, and who are my teachers. I want to particularly recognize Eliseo Medina of SEIU, a genuine hero in the immigrant movement, and so many other fighters for justice and opportunity –Rea Carey, Karen Narasaki, Bill Dempsey, Sherrilyn Ifill and Esther Lopez. Thank you for what you do.
So you see the American Dream to me is not just about individual effort, but about our responsibility to each other. We are our brother’s keeper –we are our sisters’ keeper. Individual success and our collective success are inextricably linked, as Martin Luther King put it, in a garment of destiny.
My work on issues of economic opportunity and immigration reform is in some small way paying a debt, because today’s immigrants and working people deserve the same opportunity that my family had to contribute to this country. In my job at the Center for Community Change, I get to see people living out community values –the idea that we all do better when we all do better. Every day, people are standing up through community organizing, with and for their neighbors, sometimes at great risk to themselves, upholding the promise of this great country, especially in tough times like these when that promise is under attack. Supporting those courageous people just might be the best job in America.”
