Documenting the undocumented. The first part of a multimedia documentary chronicling the lives of activists in the immigrant rights movement. Check here for works-in-progress, blog updates and a lot of fun information about the @NCDreamTeam. Produced by @joshabla.
Friends, after nearly two years of work, the undocumentary is live. Come check out this project, which looks beyond the polarized immigration debate and into the lives of undocumented youth living in the United States. This documentary is ongoing, and you can expect additional material to be posted in the future. Below is a short project description.
Beyond the polarized immigration debate exist thousands of immigrant youth challenged in a society reluctant to accept them. These are some of their stories from the heart of North Carolina.
Alicia Torres Don knows how to fight. In the ring she is known as La Aguila Dorada, or the Golden Eagle, a luchadora character she developed around her fight for justice. However, outside the ring, she is best known for another fight: for the rights of undocumented youth living in fear and uncertainty inside the U.S.
Backstory
The story of Alicia Torres Don is one of struggle. It is about her fight to be equal in a society that treats her as something less. She came to the United States at the age of six, clutched in the arms of her parents who left Mexico for a better life. Despite not knowing English, Alicia quickly acclimated to a new culture in Austin, Texas, earned high marks throughout school, and went to college to study nursing. “I was privileged,” she says, pointing out that most states do not offer in-state tuition to undocumented students. She had yet to experience such limitations.
Her final semester in college, however, Alicia was forced to confront her status when a Social Security number requirement prevented her from completing required clinical exams. “It was one of the worst days of my life, she said. “I felt like I had failed.”
Refusing to accept this reality, Alicia searched and found a community college where she could complete her degree. But despite having earned her high school diploma and college degree in the United States, she could not work as a nurse. She did not have a Social Security number.
Alicia remained in Austin with her family, earning money translating and babysitting. But everything changed when her mother was diagnosed with kidney failure. Alicia panicked. Doctors in Austin were unable to treat her mother because of her status, forcing Alicia to confront her undocumented identity again.
Alicia searched across the country for a hospital or clinic that would treat her mother. A U.S. citizen with health insurance in this situation would receive treatment in an outpatient dialysis clinic, paying a standard deductible and co-pay. But for undocumented immigrants, who typically work in low-wage jobs with no benefits, there is not system for treatment. Alicia and her family report their earnings and pay taxes, though they are ineligible for most benefits, including Social Security. Emergency Medicare funds helps pay for a significant portion of the dialysis treatment, however these funds are generally not accepted in outpatient clinics, resulting in thousands of dollars in additional costs every week.
When Alicia found a hospital in North Carolina with funding available to cover the ER costs, she dropped everything. She and her brother immediately moved their mother to North Carolina, leaving behind the family and the home they had known since they were children.
Alicia’s mother continues to receive treatment in North Carolina, though her health slowly deteriorates. Being apart from her family, Alicia says, is the most difficult part of her life right now. “My mom shouldn’t have to live through this situation,” she said.
Last week I asked Alicia Torres Don if she would write a post for this blog talking about what it was like being documented for this project, which will be released tomorrow. Here is what she wrote:
When asked if I would like to be part of a project that would put on camera the most private aspects of my life such as my home life and my mother’s chronic illness, I did not think twice about it and said yes. I said yes because for me the aim of this project was to inspire, dare I say empower, other youth to get involved in the undocumented immigrant rights movement. In my head I would do this by allowing myself to become more relatable by showing that, even when we are involved in the movement we all, undocumented youth still have very real fears. And that at some point we all started from zero. I wanted to strip myself from the person that seems fearless and introduce the reason behind my fight, my mother. I wanted, and still want, other youth to view this video and realize that we as undocumented youth have core similarities and differences that allow us to individually find our passion to fight back and step up to the plate in OUR fight our rights.
What I did not expect from this project was the benefit of self “camera therapy” that came about through the interviews that went into this project. I approached this project with the idea and full intention of turning it into a tool that would eventually help activate undocumented youth. I expected it, and wanted it to get personal. However, what I failed to realize at the beginning, and became evident at the end of this project, was the fact that we as politically active undocumented youth fail to sometimes nurture our own spirits and continue to fight the fight without questioning our acts. Most evident and rewarding to me was the realization of a newly created and somewhat understood new and ever evolving self identity. It is this new grasp of self identity that I feel has re-energized my commitment to the development of undocumented youth and to my continued self education.
Few of us ever have the opportunity to have a camera following our every step that unconsciously allows for a questioning of our actions and in turn a deeper self analysis. I was given the opportunity and am grateful at the fact that the experience allowed me a window of self reflection in a critical moment in my life. By having a camera instead of a person in front of me I was able to cry, release anger, and be vulnerable all at the same time without interruption and judgment—but with the certainty that, at the end of it all, some or all of my emotions would be viewed and would touch someone enough to motivate them to action. In essence, the overall feeling for me throughout this project was the giving of myself, my immigrant experience in this country, and the exposure of my human emotions for the sake of possible change.
When the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments next week on Arizona’s controversial anti-immigrant bill, SB 1070, headlines across the country will no doubt contain language referring to immigrant communities as “illegal.”
“Illegal immigrant” is currently acceptable in AP Style, in The New York Times and, as a result, in most newspapers in the United States. However the notion that this is a proper, or even legally accurate term, is in question. Not only have organizers within the undocumented community spoken out against the use of “illegal,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor used the term “undocumented” in the December 2009, marking the Court’s first use of the term.
I use the term “undocumented” and do not support the term “illegal” when referring to a person in the immigrant community. I feel I owe an explanation why I choose not to use illegal—both for transparency within this project and also because my rationale might add something to a debate that is about much more than semantics. Here is why:
Photo: A child awaits his parents deportation in Charlotte, NC in September 2011. Members of Iglesia Buen Pastor in Raleigh claim they were harassed by Border Patrol agents who arrested them during a traffic stop in Louisiana in 2010. Video of the case here.
First, I’d like to quickly note that there is a direct correlation between my absence during the past several weeks and the editing lockdown that I’ve been under while working to get the next phase of this project completed. Expect the launch of theundocumentary.com and the release of “The Fighter,” a new documentary about NC Dream Team activist and luchadora Alicia Torres-Don, early next month. Updates and teasers to come during the next couple weeks.
This New York Timesop-ed caught my eye this morning about deportations and kids. It seemed obvious enough: deporting a parent will screw up a child. But the extend of the harm and the high rate of such an occurrence is something that is just now gaining mainstream attention in the press.
The piece, co-authored by Hirokazu Yoshikawa, the academic dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a developmental and community psychologist, reinforces what we already know about the deportation issue, however it pushes our understanding of the potential impact that this policy has on harming our country. Take this language, for example:
Having a parent ripped away permanently, without warning, is one of the most devastating and traumatic experiences in humandevelopment.
Consider that quote: “one of the most devastating and traumatic experiences.” To me, that puts deportation somewhere between a divorce and a death. Death.
And then there is the data:
From January to June 2011, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 46,486 undocumented parents who claimed to have at least one child who is an American citizen.
In contrast, in the entire decade between 1998 and 2007, about 100,000 such parents were removed.
Let the logic game begin. We should question why we, as a nation, are deporting such incredible numbers of parents, many whose children are U.S. citizens, when we know that such actions are victimizing the children?
This makes President Barack Obama’s visit to the UNC-Chapel Hill campus next Tuesday for a talk about education that much more opportune. His speech is focused on students loans. But with a growing community of undocumented DREAM Act-eligible youth in North Carolina, questions must aught to be asked: What do we gain by having a quota of 400,000 deportations annually? And why has ICE not heeded Obama’s directive for prosecutorial discretion/the Morton Memo and not deported noncriminals?
About half of these deportations are of noncriminal parents who likely were detained at a traffic stop or riding a Greyhound bus. Aside from your view on why immigrants come to the United States, and what they take/contribute to our society, it is time to test our moral compass and ask ourselves if we, as a country, want to have a role in separating families for noncriminal actions.
Here’s a quick edit of Friday’s “coming out” rally of undocumented youth from the Immigrant Youth Forum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Lots of cutaways of Alicia Torres Don as the upcoming video will feature her, and she helped facilitate the IYF youth group.
Super special thanks to Mimi Schiffman for lending a second camera and killer shooting ability at the rally.
Earlier today, a group of high school students publicly declared their undocumented status in downtown Chapel Hill. The students are from the Immigrant Youth Forum, a youth group facilitated by the NC Dream Team. I’ve been documenting the group as part of this project, today represented the coming together of months of preparation—both logistical and emotional—by the youth. They can be shy, fun-loving and, well, kids, but today you see how they reached people, and themselves, with emotional testimony about crossing the border and coping with deportations. I’ll video of the event up in my next post.
“Where is the towel of justice that will help me dry my back?” - Jaime Perez aka Little James
Inspired by the Feb. 29 #Raleigh3 civil disobedience arrests of undocumented youth, Jaime Perez took to the mic last night to speak out and share his feelings about what he witnessed at the NC Legislature. Jaime is part of a NC Dream Team facilitated Chapel Hill-Carrboro youth group of undocumented teens. He spoke in front of a full house at the Sacrificial Poets open mic night at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.
