I came to the U.S. as an immigrant from China when I was 10 years old, and for 19 years my mother had a deportation order. I would like to share why I support Black Lives Matter.

Because of her deportation order my mother lived in fear of the police and I lived in fear of being separated from my mother. That was a fear that haunted us both every day and created low-level but constant trauma that affected how we lived.

Thanks to God and Buddha, the year before I was born in 1984, Chicago’s first African American mayor, Harold Washington, put his full support behind a Puerto Rican cabdriver named Luis Gutierrez, who was running in a special election for alderman in a court-ordered majority-Latino ward, previously controlled for decades by a white member of the Democratic machine.

The cabdriver-turned-alderman would later become a U.S. congressman and would one day stop my mother’s deportation, and help her become a proud United States citizen. Today, despite living under President Donald Trump, my ma is safe, a confident United States citizen, thanks to a series of fortunate events that began with Washington becoming Chicago’s first black mayor.

Recently, African American Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle gave me an opportunity to speak at a news conference about saving small minority businesses in danger because of the economic impact of COVID-19 and the recent looting that happened as unrest erupted after the death of George Floyd. When Preckwinkle was first elected County Board president, she threw her full weight behind then-Commissioner and now U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” García’s measure to prohibit Cook County cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Cook County’s sanctuary ordinance is the reason why many of my friends have not been detained and torn from their families.

After President Trump was elected, African American state Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, passed the Illinois Trust Act to prohibit police across Illinois from cooperating with federal immigration agents. This stretched the protections we have known in Cook County to interactions with police throughout Illinois.

Washington, Preckwinkle and Welch are three black leaders who used their immense, hard-won clout and power to stand in solidarity with and protect immigrants here illegally, such as my mother. I believe these leaders recognized the inherent fairness, compassion and justice that required their actions. These leaders, who fought to empower their own communities, recognized that an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.

But these leaders are not unique in the black community, and immigrants throughout U.S. history have benefited from black struggles. Birthright citizenship was added to our U.S. Constitution as a result of the Civil War to end slavery. Many of the Asian and Latino immigrants in the U.S. today are here because the civil rights movement led to immigration reform in 1965 and the removal of pro-European discrimination. Reps. Garcia and Gutierrez were able to go to Congress only because African Americans fought for and won the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Every immigrant in this country owes a debt of gratitude to the African American community.

All of these thoughts flooded my mind as I watched an Asian American police officer stand by doing nothing as a white officer knelt on George Floyd and slowly killed him. Heartbreaking. Floyd died because of systems of racism that have hurt African Americans since the birth of this country, and Asians should not stand by supporting those systems.

Black lives matter to me because black leaders have been our fortress against hate and injustice. Black lives matter to me because black lives delivered the American Dream for generations of immigrants, whether those immigrants know it or not. Black lives matter to me because the most vulnerable immigrants, including my mother, wouldn’t be here today if not for black people standing up for justice and for her. Black lives matter to me because I am an American citizen and I want to live in a nation where blacks do not die because of racist systems.

I am grateful to the black community. I am personally indebted to the black community and now I stand with black lives. I will work to protect black lives and to protect their families and their communities, as they did for me.

Rebecca Shi is executive director of the American Business Immigration Coalition.