From a QWOC in Japan: “I have learned that I cannot do it on my own and that as much as I perhaps took credit for what I knew and what I learned, I realize that I always had a constant source of support to fall back on. Now that these friends – my family – are many miles away, I am left to navigate this world, for the first time, as a true outsider.”
STRUT Take Two: A Fundraiser for DREAMActivist.org
Posted By QWOC+ Boston on August 7th, 2010
We hope you all have enjoyed QWOC Week! Tonight, we celebrate!
MANTRA | 52 Temple Place, Boston MA
8PM-10PM Socializing
10PM-1AM Dance Party with DJ Rizzla
Here’s a message from one of the DREAMAct organizers about our event tonight. Please consider showing up to support this really important cause and QWOC Week organizers who’ve been working VERY hard for the past few months. This would mean a lot to all of us.
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To the QWOC + Boston community:
As much as I wanted to be there this weekend and meet all of you – because I have heard you guys rock – I was unable to. Reason being that since May, a few of my friends and I have been working around the clock in order to pass the DREAM Act. For those of you that don’t know what that is, I’ll give as brief a summary as I possibly can.
The DREAM Act is a piece of legislation that has been around since 2001 and would address the legal limbo in which young people that were brought to the US as children by their parents; children that have grown up but are still undocumented. In light of no chance of passing comprehensive immigration reform, the youth movement has been focusing and putting pressure on our legislators for passage of the DREAM Act this year.
In May, my friends and I quit our jobs and left our families and went to Arizona where, on May 17th, we conducted a sit-in at Senator McCain’s office. It’s reported that this is the first ever, known, case of civil disobedience by undocumented people. It was at this sit in that four of us were arrested and consequently, three of us were put into deportation proceedings. Luckily, we were released from ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement) but we are, like I mentioned, in deportation proceedings.
I know some people have called us young, naive, foolish and a myriad of other things but we remain grounded by the young people we work with. Young people that currently only find hope and reprieve in passage of this Act. We’ve managed to do get this far and to do all the work we’ve done because our communities have been more than generous with us. They understand that our youth are our future and that with their success, we all succeed.
The immigrant and LGBT struggles are not independent of each other. I believe we are tied in ways more intricate than we most people have yet discovered and, I find it imperative that we not forget that.
So, with that, I’d like to thank the wonderful people behind making QWOC week happen and also thank you for coming out to Saturday’s Strut: Take 2 event, which will have part of their proceeds going to our cause. Our movement – the work I and hundreds of other young people have been a part of – is completely undocumented, immigrant youth run. There are no large corporations, grants or foundations behind our work but still, we have been able to make tremendous strides. Thank you for your support.
One last thing, while I can speak/write about this til I’m blue in the face, I’d like for you to see for yourself the lengths young people have gone through for their lives and their futures (hopefully) in this country. Images of the July 20 student civil disobedience at the Senate Hart Building in Washington DC can be found here (http://www.citizenorange.com/orange/2010/07/dream-act-21—images-of-coura.html) and here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/52315725@N08/)
Again, thank you for supporting the work of such brave young people. Thank you for supporting my work and my community. Our community.
- Yahaira Carrillo
Activist and DREAMer
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