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Justice for Margarita and Her Family

Margarita is 42 years old, from Tarimoro, in the municipality of Tanhuato, Mexico, and the mother of four U.S. citizen children.  She has been embroiled in an ongoing legal battle for residency for herself and her husband, Ignacio, for many years.  She and Ignacio entered the U.S. when they were teenagers and lived here for 20 years, working different jobs and eventually buying their own house and having a family.  Margarita and Ignacio succeeded in establishing a life for their children that was not characterized by the deep poverty and lack of quality education that they experienced while growing up in Mexico.  However, in the process of investigating a path to residency, they received poor advice from a lawyer and applied for political asylum, even though it was questionable whether they were eligible.  They were devastated to learn that their application was denied and they would be placed in removal proceedings.  Ultimately, the family was deported in 2005 to Guadalajara, Mexico, and Margarita and Ignacio were banned from returning to the U.S. for 10 years.

In order to keep the family together, all of the children came with Margarita and her husband to Mexico.  They missed their home and struggled in school, where they had inadequate teachers and were made fun of for their non-native Spanish.  Margarita recounts how her daughter, Bianca, had an English teacher who would ask her to teach the class sometimes.  As a result, they dropped out and spent some time being home-schooled by Margarita, who had trained in the past to be a pre-school educator.  Bianca, as well as Margarita's eldest son, eventually returned to live with relatives in the Bay Area to finish high school.   Bianca worked multiple jobs throughout her high school years to support herself and her brother, and then attended San Francisco State to study and graduate with a degree in Criminal Justice.  Unlike many of her peers, Bianca has had to shoulder the responsibilities of an adult from a young age, and do so without the emotional support of her immediate family, which she was only able to visit once a year.  While in the past she held jobs that included cleaning night clubs at late hours, she now interns at an immigration law firm with the hope of one day becoming an immigration attorney.  She was invited to be a summer intern for Nancy Pelosi in Washington, D.C.  Her accomplishments speak to her intense persistence and strength of spirit.

Now working with a different attorney, Francisco Ugarte of Dolores Street Community Services, Margarita finally sees the possibility of family reunification in the not-so-distant future.  Francisco has worked with Margarita since 2011 and was able to waive her entry ban and gain legal permanent residency for her.  As of recently, Margarita lives in the U.S. with Bianca, all of her sons, and her elderly, ailing mother.  Francisco currently works towards waiving the ban on her husband's entry.  Margarita shares  that the separation of their close family took its toll on her, and her children's, mental health.  She stresses that nothing can replace parents' constant love and support in order for children to thrive. (“Mentalmente, ellos sufren en mucha depresion porque nadie los va a tratar como nosotros, sus padres…nunca, nunca, nadie va reemplazar el amor de la madre y del padre a los niños.”/"Mentally, they suffer in a lot of depression because no one is going to treat them like us, their parents...never, never, no one is going to replace the love of the mother and the father for their children.")

Margarita awaits the marvelous day when her husband will be with her again and the whole family can return to their life together in San Francisco.  She says that maybe then, they can all gather in Francisco Ugarte's room for a picture for this Tumblr.

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 In February, the lobbying efforts of Migrante San Francisco and other Bay Area organizations resulted in a unanimous vote from the S.F. Board of Supervisors to pass a resolution that urges the U.S. Department of State to grant TPS for the Philippines.

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Leader Profile: Jackie Cruz of PODER

Jackie Cruz is 18 years old and is currently an intern for the Youth Warrior Award and Fellowship program, through the Youth Empowerment Fund. She was nominated for this award based on the strength of her leadership in PODER (People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Justice), an organization that works with residents of the Mission district to find local solutions to issues of environmental justice facing low-income and minority communities.  She is also a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient.

Jackie is originally from a small town in Mexico near Oaxaca, and moved to San Francisco when she was six with her brother and mother. They joined their father, who for years had lived separately in Los Angeles and San Francisco. One of the first nights that Jackie spent in San Francisco, her father took her to buy kitchen supplies for the family’s apartment in the Mission District. Jackie remembers feeling bewildered by the diversity of new cultures and languages that she saw around her while walking on the street. In that moment, it struck her that “…it was going to be hard adjusting to this new life.” However, Jackie says that her transition into life in the U.S. must have been easy in comparison to that of her mother, who was a homemaker at the time and had to learn how to navigate an entirely new city – which bus lines to take and where to buy groceries – without speaking English and with two young children in tow.

The summer that Jackie was 16, her mother suggested that she apply to participate in PODER’s summer youth program. The family was familiar with the organization because it frequently held events at the Niños Unidos park that was located close to their house. That summer with PODER, helping with projects such as a community health survey, Jackie learned about social justice, environmental justice, and community organizing. Jackie says it was her “first taste of social justice,” and, that it “was a really eye-opening summer for me, because up until then I lived in a little bubble, where I didn’t know that all these things were happening, and it was right in my neighborhood.” Her favorite part about that summer was being taught by other young people who were passionate and informed about social issues. She enjoyed “seeing how many other young people there were, and being able to talk to them about these issues, knowing that they cared about their neighborhood and they were aware of issues around them.”

One of the projects that Jackie was proudest to work on with PODER was a bicycle tour of the Mission district that aimed to spread awareness about the topic of environmental racism. By using bikes, PODER members hoped to promote exercise and a healthier lifestyle, as well as an environmentally-friendly mode of transportation. PODER’s other projects include the PUEBLOTE campaign, which seeks to reclaim public land for affordable housing, community sustainability projects, and employment opportunities, and the Enlace campaign, which aims to “put the economy back into the hands of the people” by offering opportunities for cooperative work and skill sharing.

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“Migrante” of Northern California is a grassroots organization connected with the Filipino Community Center (FCC) of San Francisco.  Migrante fights for the rights and welfare of overseas Filipino workers, providing services, advocacy, education, and community organizing to address issues such as wage theft, labor trafficking, deportation, occupational injury, employer intimidation, discrimination, sexual harassment, and other forms of exploitation.  Migrante NorCal, together with Migrante International, participates in legislative campaigns that further the rights of overseas Filipino workers and strives for solidarity among Filipino workers worldwide and all others who support the rights of migrant groups.  

More than anything, Migrante members say, the group is like a family.  In Migrante, members find a supportive community of people who are united by a common history and struggle.  All members rally to end the abusive working conditions that many Filipino migrant workers face, whether they are themselves victims of exploitation as service workers or identify with the cause as a political ally.  

Recently, Migrante has been engaged in an ongoing End Wage Theft campaign, which educates and supports workers who are filing labor claims against exploitative employers.  The organization also joins a national movement that calls on legislators to pass Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for the Philippines, which would protect undocumented nationals from deportation and grant them work authorization and the ability to travel. 

During one organization meeting, announcements and educational information, such as how to calculate one’s salary as a domestic caregiver to include overtime, are interspersed with theatrical skits and the celebration of birthdays.  The group shares a dinner at the start of the meeting, and every meeting ends with an “isang bagsak” (Tagalog for “one down”), in which all members clap to show that they have accomplished one thing and are ready to move on to the next.

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Dolores Street Community Services Helps Yurianis Naranjo

Yurianis Naranjo (middle), with two Dolores Street Community Services (DSCS) attorneys, Jackie Shull-Gonzalez (left) and Ana Herrera (right).

Yurianis Naranjo was born in the Granma province of Cuba, and arrived in the U.S. in 2011.  She decided to leave in order to earn more money to support her family, including her 12-year-old son, Mitchel, who remains in Cuba.  Yurianis worked as a writer for an educational radio station, but still only made a meager monthly salary.  Deciding to leave her parents and home was a gradual process which unfolded over the two years that it took for her paperwork to be processed by the Ministry of Education in Cuba.  Cuba’s relationship with the U.S. means that many Cuban nationals can enter and stay in the country legally. 

Yurianis had never taken a plane or left the country before, and so researched every detail of her trip thoroughly, especially how she would get to San Ysidro.  Luckily, she arrived at the port of entry at San Ysidro safely.  Surveying the scene, she felt strongly that this was a life-changing moment for her.  “Y en ese momento fue un paso decisivo porque cambia todo en mi vida...”   ("And in that moment it was a decisive step because it changes everything in my life...")  Standing in line to pass into the United States, her friends’ stories about border crossing buzzed in her head, and she heard the people behind her whisper that she must be Cuban. She stated at the entry point that she was Cuban, asked for asylum, and was accepted immediately.  A wave of relief engulfed Yurianis as she arrived at a center in San Diego for an overnight stay.  There she was interviewed and given a burrito, a fact which she recalls with amusement, because she had never seen one before.  The same U.S. official who interviewed her gave her instructions as to what to do when she was released in San Diego, and told her not to worry, because the worst was behind her.  She says that she will never forget how well he treated her: “Ese señor me trató tan bien.”  ("That man treated me so well.")  The next morning, she received the approval to travel, and bought a plane ticket to San Francisco.

Yurianis soon afterwards moved, and while she changed her address with USCIS, she did not know that she also had to change it separately with the immigration court system.  As a result, she did not receive a court summons that wished to verify that she was Cuban, and was ordered to be deported.  Yurianis approached DSCS to remedy this, and was aided by attorney Ana Herrera, who cleared her deportation order and is currently assisting her with her application for residency.

Yurianis now attends classes to train to be an administrative assistant. She hopes to be reunited with her son someday and that he receives an education.  Her advice for new immigrants in the U.S. is: “Si, se puede.”  ("Yes, it can be done.")

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Finding Common Ground: Amy Lin on Intersectionality, Identity, and Coming out of the "Double Closet"

“As much as I appreciate my identities, whatever they may be, they a lot of times restrain us from talking about more human issues…I think what I hope for the future would just be [that] we can strike down these barriers that we’ve built for ourselves with the identities – if we can, in the most simplistic form, not [be] so black and white, documented and undocumented, [and take the] larger perspective of – if you’re a human being, you deserve certain things.  You deserve equal treatment, equality.” – Amy Lin, 2013

Amy Lin is 22 years old and studies Political Science and Workplace Studies at UCLA. Currently an ASPIRE (Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights Through Education) member, she previously worked for the Chinese Progressive Association, organizing San Francisco's low-income and working class immigrant Chinese community against wage theft.

She was born in Taipei, Taiwan, but spent her early childhood in Burma, her mother’s home country.  Her parents owned a chopstick factory there.  Amy attended elementary school in Taiwan, where she remembers being transferred to a class for students with learning disabilities because she did not know a certain Chinese alphabet. In some ways, she says, she was looked down upon because she was the daughter of a Burmese immigrant. Despite this, one of the things that Amy now misses most about Taiwan – besides the food – is the strong sense of community that could be found there. In Taiwanese towns, it was more common to casually stop by a neighbor’s place to trade stories and inquire about his or her day. The United States, in contrast, is more individualistic and less group-oriented. Without the same prevalence of closely-knit communities in the U.S., Amy says, there is less opportunity to have meaningful discussions about contentious subjects, such as immigration:

“If you don’t have a relationship with your community, how can you engage them in a topic like this?...It clearly affects everyone, but we’re so far apart from each other that we can’t really talk about this heart to heart, and see what the problem really is, instead of talking about, ‘Oh, you’re illegal and undocumented.’ You know, the “I” word. I’m not going to say it!”

Amy and her mother were motivated to move to the U.S. in part due to complications caused by Amy’s father. When Amy was young, her father spent about six months in jail, while Amy’s mother was left to run the family chopstick factory on her own. Amy’s mother also discovered that her husband had taken a mistress on two occasions, before and after his jail time. Adding to the hurt he had inflicted, he even told Amy that he did not care if she was thrown to an orphanage, as he believed that a daughter was of little use to him. Throughout it all, the father pressured Amy’s mother for money, and Amy’s mother sold two of the family’s properties to raise money to pay off his debt. Although Amy’s mother eventually covered the man’s bail payment, his pleas for financial help did not let up, and she feared that she would no longer be able to afford a living place or Amy’s school fees. Amy’s mother arranged for her and Amy to live with an aunt and relatives in the U.S. to ease financial strain, originally planning for their stay to be temporary. Nine years have passed since that day, and the U.S. is Amy’s new home. She says she could “somehow claim a new identity just by being here” and that going through the American education system, “made me American.”

Amy arrived in San Francisco in May, stepping from her plane into a climate that was cold compared to Taiwan’s humid heat. She was surprised by the number of Asian people she saw on the street. Her mom found work as an in-house nanny in Richmond, so Amy saw her once a week and spent much of her time with her aunt and family friends. She enrolled at Westmoor High School, and later spent three years at City College before transferring to UCLA for her senior year.

Although Amy knew about ASPIRE and the AAAJ-ALC (Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus), it took her a while before she summoned up the courage to ask them for help. Before then, Amy worked with ASPIRE member Steve Li in 2010, when he was about to be deported. She recounts that she didn’t feel like “coming out” at that time as undocumented, and furthermore as someone who identifies as LGBT, because “…I wanted to do other things and would rather not have had people labeling me.” The second time Steve and Amy’s paths crossed, they were both running for student council at City College.  Amy was elected, and after her term was over, spoke out openly about being an undocumented student and a queer woman. Amy likens this experience to coming out of a “double closet,” or having two shadows that followed her everywhere. However, she felt that if she could overcome the hurdle of coming out about one aspect of her identity, her sexual orientation, she could surely come out about another, her legal status. I am struck by Amy’s extraordinary bravery and maturity when she says, matter-of-factly, that she would rather be engaged in the challenging conversation about labels than have the “freedom to not explain [oneself].”

Amy states, “I came to the realization that people are going to label me, regardless of what I do. I came out as LGBT – queer – during student council…I came to that realization that people are going to label me anyway, might as well [label myself first]. So I came out to a small group of people at school and then I began to start researching on my own about undocumented students, undocumented immigrants. And then later in the summer, when DACA was announced, I said, maybe it’s finally time to visit the AAAJ-ALC and see what…I can do with this. And then I stayed with ASPIRE since then.”

When DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) was passed into law, Amy decided that it was the right time to approach the AAAJ-ALC for help. She says it was a true relief, and validated her effort to seek help, to visit the AAAJ-ALC. She brought her DACA application, already filled out, to the AAAJ-ALC in order to speak with a community advocate there, and was able to meet a few older ASPIRE members while waiting in the lobby. Amy joined the group, which pursues political advocacy and provides a safe and supportive environment for undocumented youth. In ASPIRE, Amy found a community of like-minded peers with whom she could talk not only about school and her undocumented status, but other issues that she encounters in daily life, such as gender-based and racial stereotypes, economic inequality, and the American Dream.

Amy celebrates the the ways in which all of the different aspects of her identity – woman, Asian, queer, scholar, friend, daughter – intersect to form her unique narrative and life experience.  Powerfully, she says, “There’s no such thing as a straight-forward narrative, there’s always that intersectional experience with every part of your identity, whether you’re a woman, queer, undocumented – any identity, really, will contribute to that. And I think part of telling my story is the opportunity to relate to other people. Whenever I talk about my experience as a woman, even though I am undocumented, the part of me being a woman will still translate to other people’s personal stories, to when or how they experience life as a woman. I think that’s a very rewarding part of being with ASPIRE, that I get to share these kinds of stories and build common ground with people. This is where we come from. We’re not so different. [I can] build sort of a family image…that we’re related somehow, and that makes us family.”

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The Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), Vincent Pan, fasted for 11 days to call attention to the problems within the current immigration system and as a prayer for undocumented immigrant families.  

Says Pan, "During my fast I have been thinking long and hard about the human lives that comprise the anguished statistics of immigration…These are the stories of how our families came to America and came to be American.  It is true that we arrive from distinct corners of the world or under varying circumstances or during different time periods. But it is also true that we all share the common ideals of hope, aspiration, family and community."