Episode 8: Ivy Teng Lei | Chasing the DREAM
Updated: Mar 3, 2019
"I think the only thing I can carry with me is that if I do get that knock on the door and when I do have to leave this country, I have told this country who I am and what I represent and I've done everything I can."
Below is the audio transcript for Episode 8, lightly edited for clarity.
For those of you who have been with us from the beginning, you might remember that we began this season by talking to our parents - 1st generation immigrants - about their hopes and dreams and expectations when they first moved to this country over 25 years ago.
Well, today’s immigration narrative has taken a bit of a turn. There’s no shortage of headlines about family separation at the borders, the uncertain state of DACA, and the building of that wall. It’s at the center of our political discourse and a cornerstone of President Trump’s agenda.
Often headlines are just headlines...that is - until your own livelihood, or that of those closest to you, is threatened. The stories of the real people actually affected by these policies often lie under the radar.
Today, we shine light on one of those stories with a real trailblazer and hero, Ivy Teng Lei (pictured at far right above). She’s one of 11 million undocumented immigrants and also a DREAMer, the term used to describe undocumented immigrants who enter the U.S. before the age of 18.
In recent years, she’s become a voice, specifically for the Asian American undocumented community, and used her story to shine light on a group that often seems neglected even by our own AAPI groups and organizations.
In this episode, we speak with Ivy about:
What growing up in the US as an undocumented immigrant has been like,
How it’s affected her path and psyche,
Why she so openly shares her story despite the potential repercussions,
What the future may hold for her, other DACA recipients, and DREAMers, and
How Asian Americans can help
*A word of warning: this episode does get political.
The Moment of Realization
Ivy: My name is Ivy Teng Lei. I am a marketer by trade and I like to call myself an advocate by night.
Lynne: Over the last 6 months, Ivy and I met up over three separate sessions. It seemed like each time we met there was some new development with DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program. It’s the executive order issued by former President Obama in 2012 to give DREAMers like Ivy temporary reprieve from deportation as well as basic liberties like health insurance and a social security # to secure work permits.
Ivy: Today is August 18 and we’ve been expecting bad news from the Texas Attorney General who might cause even renewals to be denied…
Lynne: When DACA was revoked by the Trump administration in September 2017, Ivy and other DACA recipients were left in a limbo, scrambling to find out what this meant for their future.
Ivy: Since September of last year we haven’t been able to have new applicants submit and those who have already submitted are living in this world of absolute darkness. We don’t know if any day the status could be gone.
Lynne: Ivy is no stranger to this uncertainty. In some ways, it’s really just a continuation of the whirlwind journey she’s been on since she came to America over 20 years ago. Ivy was born in Macau, an island off the Southern coast of China. When she was 7, she was told she was going on a trip to Disney.
My mother had told me that if anyone asks why I was not going to school anymore that it's because I'm going to Disneyland. And so seven-year-old me thinks I'm the coolest kid in class. I'm going to Disneyland to meet Mickey and Minnie.
Lynne: Instead, Ivy found herself in New York City, specifically in Chinatown.
Ivy: Once we landed I very quickly enrolled in school and didn’t even think about the Disneyland intention.
When we first arrived in Chinatown, our first apartment was a sixth-floor walk-up on Broome Street. We shared the apartment with two other families. It was about 11 to 12 people in a three-room apartment with one bathroom. With that many people in the apartment, cooking dinner and arranging bath time and shower time a real logistical process, but we made it work.
Lynne: Though it was a humble upbringing, Ivy was generally a happy go-lucky child. After 9/11, the garment factory where her mom worked shut down. Some days the family of five would live off a diet of congee and tofu. But for Ivy the lack of material pleasure was nothing compared to what she would eventually discover about the limitations of being undocumented in America.
Ivy: I guess it was junior or sophomore year when my friends were starting to apply to college and we were thinking about options. I realized then that without having a SS number, I was ineligible for a lot of the programs and scholarships that would put me through college.
Lynne: Ivy still applied to numerous scholarship programs, hoping that something would work out. But every single scholarship she was accepted to asked for the inevitable - a social security number - which she didn’t have.
I would just look at the beautiful college pamphlets and immediately flip to the back about eligibility and see, “must be a permanent resident or US citizen". Everything else on that page would then just kind of blur away.
Ivy: The moment that bullet point shows up, I just knew that I wouldn’t be a candidate for that type of financial aid.
Lynne: One morning, Ivy received a call with what started as hopeful news. The man on the line told her she didn’t receive the scholarship she applied for but there was another potential opportunity.
Ivy: He said, "I have this other scholarship available and you're totally qualified for it. Oh and it's also a full ride." So I said, "I'll take it."
Then he asked me for my social security number and I told him I don't have one. He said, "Well, I noticed that you didn't fill it on the form. Did you just miss it?"
I said, "No, I don't have one. Can you check if someone who doesn't have a social security number can apply for it?"
He puts me on hold. And it was the longest hold of my life.
He gets back and he says, "Sorry you need to have a social security number."
So I very politely said, Thank you. And he's like, why don't you go look for it? Maybe like you just lost it or something. Like ask your mom for it.
I said, thanks, and then hung up, slammed my face into a pillow, and ugly cried into it for a good couple minutes. I let myself do that and immediately I was like, Okay, what do I do from here?
At that point I realized that it didn’t matter if I worked hard, it didn’t matter if I had the perfect grades or leadership skills. The fact was I had this deficiency that would affect me the rest of my life and I had to face that head on.
That was the first moment when I felt and understood what it meant. It was almost as if I was going in the same lane as my peers and when that moment hit, I realized that I had extra weight on my wheels. It didn’t matter how quickly I paddled. The purpose of that weight was to hold me from progressing.
Learning How to Tell Her Story
Lynne: Since Ivy wasn’t eligible for financial assistance, she ended up staying in-state, attending Baruch College and working an assortment of part-time jobs to pay for tuition.
Still, as she began to consider her career options, there were clear barriers. The lack of a social security number continued to haunt her. As an actuary science major, she wasn’t able to fulfill the internship requirement for graduation (since most internships require a SS #). With the realization that certain careers were out of her reach, she immersed herself in other things: extracurriculars, student leadership positions, fields that relied less heavily on internships. She switched her major to Communications, which honed her ability to speak up and articulate an idea.
In her junior year of college, Ivy came across a program called the New York Immigration Coalition Dream Fellowship that was specifically for DREAMers like her enrolled in the CUNY system.
(For those who aren’t familiar, CUNY stands for the City University of New York and it’s the public university system of New York City. It’s also the largest urban university system in the United States. )
Ivy: I applied really because I needed the money to get through college. When I got the email, I applied and 'til this day, I attribute so much of what I do, what I stand for, and how well I’ve been able to do it to that leadership program
Lynne: The fellowship offered leadership, personal development, and immigration advocacy training. More importantly, it was the first time that Ivy was really able to process her immigration status and tell her story.
Ivy: For the first time I met people who were just like me, who felt the same struggle, hopelessness, and helplessness of being undocumented in a group of friends who know nothing about the immigration landscape in our country.
We all as a group learned how to use our story to be the driving force of this movement.
Lynne: In 2013, Congress was in the midst of passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill. DREAMers had the unique opportunity to share their stories and to yield direct impact on legislation.
Ivy shared her story publicly for the first time at a town hall at LaGuardia Community College in Queens.
Ivy: I still remember exactly what I was wearing that day and how hot it felt standing in the spotlight and how much I tried to read very closely to my script that I had prepared the evening before.
Lynne: The World Journal and several other Chinese media publications were at the town hall and interviewed her after the speech.
Ivy: I wasn't sure what questions I'd be asked. More importantly it didn't really hit me until the reporter asked, "What's your name?" which is a very simple question. And then I realized, "Oh, I have to give you my name..." and I gave them my Chinese name. It was a Chinese reporter. And I was like wow, this is the beginning of it.
Lynne: The Guardian, NPR, New York Magazine and several other major outlets went on to feature Ivy’s story, casting her into the spotlight as a spokesperson for the movement, particularly one for the Asian American undocumented community.
While mainstream media often paints the picture of an undocumented as a Mexican who crosses the border illegally, the reality of the undocumented landscape is far more nuanced. Many undocumented immigrants don’t actually cross the border, most arrive by plane.
And while it’s true that the majority of applicants to the DACA program are from Mexico and other predominantly Latin countries, the Asian undocumented population is far from negligible.
Ivy: When there