Immigration as a Racial Project

La Santa Cecilia also has a song that I had the amazing pleasure of hearing live this summer. The song is called El Hielo, or ICE in English. ICE refers to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the song explores the complexities of being an immigrant. The song talks about living in fear everyday of deportation, of having to show papers, of being uprooted from the only country they've known. One of the singers came to the U.S. when he was 3 years old, now at age 30, he's still scared each and everyday.

El Hielo, ICE

Some of the English translation is below. The rest can be found here if you're interested.

ICE is on the loose out on the streetsYou never know when your number’s up

Cry, Children cry when they get out
They cry when mom’s not coming to pick them up
Some of us stay here
Others stay there
That happens for going out to find work.

Martha arrived as a child and dreams of studying
But it’s hard for her without papers
Those who were born here get the laurels
But she never gives up her fight


This song complicates the issues brought up in Omi and Winant's article. It shows how race is fought on a day-to-day basis, that it's a deeply rooted political issue. On pg. 70, Blauner explores the two "languages of race, one in which members of racial minorities see the centrality of race in history and everyday experience, and another in which whites see race as "a peripheral, nonessential reality." This explanation is exactly what La Santa Cecilia is singing about. They (as Latino immigrants) live this everyday, but as a "true American" like those that work at ICE, if this isn't your reality, you don't deem it necessary, important, or true.

Similarly, this song could be seen as a racial project, in that it follows Omi and Winant's definition as it interprets, represents, and explains racial dynamics.