Diverse Customer Shoutout: Marie Claire September Issue : Immigration Nation and, RIP Mollie Tibbetts

Image: Marie Claire

The headline may across as attention seeking to a lot of readers. Here I am celebrating Immigration Nation issue of a magazine, giving a shoutout to Marie Clarie and in the same post also giving my condolences to Mollie Tibbetts who died at the hands of an illegal immigrant.  More@

Mollie Tibbetts was 'nobody's victim,' her dad says in powerful eulogy at funeral

Let me explain why. 

I must admit, I love Marie Clarie's September Issue. The popular magazine's September issue celebrates contributions of immigrant women in the United States 💖 These are women like many "legal immigrants" who aren't just building the country, they are shaping it and leading it from strength to strength.

I find the cover full of ingenuity and sincerity. 

Sincerity is the dominant sentiment I have for Mollie Tibbetts. My sincere condolences to her family. My sincere prayer for her departed soul. RIP Mollie Tibbetts.

And, with the same sincerity, I must reiterate there is a huge difference between an illegal and a legal immigrant. The two are poles apart. Being a legal immigrant is a surer path to naturalization and like many legal immigrants who have become good citizens - many like them are people I have helped find jobs in the USA in my 20-year career as a diversity recruiter in the land of opportunities, and I have known one thing, and one thing alone about them - that they not only see it as a great privilege but also an immense responsibility to ensure that the founding principles and ethos that have made the USA, arguably the land of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" are upheld with utmost conviction. 

The immigrant women achievers we see in Marie Clarie's September issue resonate this very sentiment.

This is not some defensive tirade. Many law-abiding, grateful and proud legal immigrants who have legally assimilated into the USA - it is not fair to categorize them as just immigrants or have an assumption that they are somehow the illegal aliens, as labeled by the IRS.  My sincere request is not confusing the two!

Many media reports have unceremoniously dropped the word "illegal" from "illegal immigrants". This is the type of editorial falsehood in the midst of highly partisan atmosphere & heated discourse both on domestic and international issues that makes me cynical about journalism and media and hence the added note on Mollie Tibbetts with the shoutout to Marie Claire's September issue that celebrates legal immigrant women achievers. 

The two aren't connected but also not disconnected from the larger topical issues plaguing countries like the USA.


- Amit Anand