Crossing the Border (feat Chow Mane)

Bombed and you slaughtered We crossing the border We just tryna live, ay, yea Ain't cut no corners You try to deport us We just tryna live, ay, yea Detain my father His papers in order He just tryna live, ay, yea Hire my mother And then you extort her She just tryna live, ay, yea We rushed to the States, in search of the Gold Only to be in mines, working for coal Wasn't no Dreamville, purpose was solely To make enough to send earnings back home Facing exclusion, violence, and hate Kinda makes you think Why would they stay? We built the tracks connecting this country So how could they view my kind in this way? Look When they abolished the practice of slavery They brought my people in as a replacement Had to work daily, and for low wages Afterwards they was banned from the nation Chinatown Massacres 1871 Hate crimes happened back way then Smuggled us in to do manual labor Then said Go back home to Asia Immigrated to this vicious racist setting Anti-Asian laws: bigots hate our presence Thinking that we never settled on this land When Filipinos came in 1587 And we 'gon carry this fight That's our God-given American right Transcending mythical stereotypes No Yellow Peril in sight Bombed and you slaughtered We crossing the border We just tryna live, ay, yea Ain't cut no corners You try to deport us We just tryna live, ay, yea Detain my father His papers in order He just tryna live, ay, yea Hire my mother And then you extort her She just tryna live, ay, yea In the mid-'60s, the US, they targeted all of these Marxist regimes Called it a threat to the US security - that's a familiar scheme Destabilize regions and then open up all the borders with welcoming arms Attracted these Asians to cross the Pacific by promising government funds Khmer and Vietnam, this traumatized Laos, Mienh, and Hmong Dropped into the inner cities like US planes dropped a ton of bombs They had no English and no pensions, so tensions rose up like a fog Fast forward forty years and Obama started deporting them from home, Whoa Fuck assimilating to a fucked-up nation How could I show any love to them? They hate us Don't respect our culture but they love to use it Props in their movies, cream cheese in their sushi I'm that ginseng that don't melt in the pot They wanna exclude us in case you forgot All these westernized Asians pretending They toss out their heritage so they can fit in But we just some chinks to them Our lives are so cheap to them Them soldiers posing next to stacks of bodies by the road in my lai Rest in peace to them, aye Chink in the armor, grease on my elbows My people they worked on the railroads Now look at me how I'm layin these tracks down We spent way too long in the background And I dont wanna preach but fuck it y'all learning today I got time, I got somethin to say They used to burn down every Chinatown Thought we was stupid till everything changed New immigration act only allowed in professionals You was poor coming here was too difficult Most of who came was privileged individuals Don't let that make you forget the atrocities Poverty rates of our Chinatowns Southeast Asians who get shot by police Refugees who saw babies sucking on their dead mamas titties It's brutal, the shit that they seen The shit that our government pulled overseas While telling us they fight for peace