National Coming out of the Shadows Week

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March 16, 2012 | 3:51 PM | By

Coming out undocumented: A growing movement, but still contentious (Audio)

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

A student activist's t-shirt at a "coming out" event in Orange County, Calif., March 2011

The act of “coming out” as undocumented to make a political statement has gained traction in recent years among young immigrant activists, many of them college students or graduates who were brought to the United States illegally as children and have never been able to adjust their immigration status.

For those involved in a growing movement that has become a rite of passage for many, there is the perception of strength in numbers. But does this make going public with one’s immigration status a wise thing to do? Has it become any safer? And for those who aren’t familiar with the movement, what reactions does it elicit?

Today, at the tail end of what’s become known “National Coming Out of the Shadows Week,” KPCC’s Patt Morrisson Show addressed these and other questions in a segment; I joined Patt as a guest, along with immigration attorney and political science professor Louis A. Gordon and two young people who have both “come out,” Nancy Meza and John Perez.

Meza and Perez, both 24, have been in the United States since they were small children, and spoke of feeling empowered by choosing not to stay silent for fear of deportation. Gordon spoke of the legal risks involved in going public, along with the frustration of being unable to become a citizen, after growing up American, that drives some young people to take the risk anyway.

Among the listeners who shared their thoughts were a couple of immigrants who believed that revealing one’s immigration remains far too risky, in spite of recent policy changes. Many others have posted their opinions on the segment page, which poses these questions:

If you are undocumented, how do you feel about this movement? Has a friend or co-worker surprised you by telling you that he or she is in the country illegally? Should youth who were involuntarily brought to the United States be given a break and allowed to become citizens? Is the United States too harsh with its immigration policies or not harsh enough?

Listeners’ comments have been all over the map so far, but here are a few highlights. Alex wrote:

An argument can be made for both sides on
how to address our resident Illegal Immigrant issue.  Should we have
Illegal Aliens living in this country, no!  Can we realistically just
deport over 12 million Illegal Aliens overnight, no!

It’s taken decades of negligence and
incompetence from both the Democrats and Republicans get us where we are; and
now too many of the proposed solutions are simply attempts to buy votes.

Ben Johnson wrote:

This topic tugs at your heart strings but it is a double edged sword and strikes at an issue of fairness. Citizens and other legal immigrants who paid or are paying their dues are faced with high taxes paying for services they do not use that many undocumented take for granted.

Tomás Summers Sandoval wrote:

Undocumented immigrants come to this country because our economy not only desires them but actually maintains access to them via our current immigration policy–one which is purposefully geared to NOT provide a legal means of entry for most. As workers their value is in the ability of our economy to abuse them through poor work conditions and underpayment.  A pathway to legality is not only good policy, it is a MORAL one.

And Jaja Azikiwe wrote:

I don’t want to turn this into a race card issue, but black folks waited 400 years for fair representation and even today there are issues, AND WE WERE NOT HERE ILLEGALLY! Don’t they get it: THEY BROKE AND ARE BREAKING THE LAW!!!

Care to join the conversation? Post your thoughts below, or on the Patt Morrisson Show segment page at scpr.org

FILED UNDER: Coming out undocumented, National Coming out of the Shadows Week, Patt Morisson Show
March 14, 2012 | 12:35 PM | By

Coming out undocumented: How much of a political effect has the movement had?

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

A student activist's t-shirt, December 2010

It’s been two years since a group of young people in Chicago made official a movement that had been slowly growing among undocumented students, holding a “coming out” day at a local park to go public with their undocumented status as a political act.

In that time – mostly during the last year – the larger movement they launched has taken off exponentially. It received perhaps its biggest boost last June, when former Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer winner Jose Antonio Vargas confessed to his undocumented status in a New York Times essay and launched an advocacy project, drawing worldwide attention.

Much else has happened in the last year: Last summer, the Obama administration released guidelines urging immigration officials to use prosecutorial discretion when pursuing deportation cases. This involved giving special consideration to certain immigrants, including people who had been here since they were children, a demographic that makes up the bulk of the young activists involved in the coming-out movement. In August, the guidelines became the backbone of an Obama administration plan to review some 300,000 deportation cases to screen out these “low priority” immigrants, a process that began late last year.

This week, more young people are going public with their status around the country as part of what’s by now become an annual ritual, National Coming out the Shadows Week. As they do, it’s worth taking a look at how much influence, if any, a movement that seeks to attach faces to those who would benefit from legal status has had on the policy changes seen this year.

Last April in a post, before the Obama administration’s new guidelines were issued, I asked several young people who had come out with their status – and readers in general – whether they thought it had become safer to reveal publicly that one is in the U.S. illegally. “Yes, it’s true!” responded a reader named Rigo. “I haven’t felt this safe in a while.”

In another post the same month, undocumented UCLA graduate and activist Nancy Meza described the role of being “out” in the peer support networks that have come to the aid of many a young person facing deportation, launching petitions and helping several win reprieves long before the federal guidelines crystallized who stood a better chance of staying.

“What we’ve seen is that the more public you are, the more out there you are, the more public support you have, especially in deportation cases,” said Meza, 24. “People have seen you be involved with the community, your activism, and they are more willing to help. I think that going public is one of the ways that a person could have a better opportunity of getting deferred action.”

This is true, said Louis DiSipio, an immigration expert and political science professor at UC Irvine. There is a safety-in-numbers aspect to coming out for undocumented students and graduates involved in the movement, and to date, most of those involved have been supported and protected by their peers if they face deportation.

“By coming out, they are asserting their right to protest, but it also makes it harder for the Obama administration or local authorities acting under the Department of Homeland Security to arrest those students,” DiSipio said by in a phone interview.

As to the coming-out movement’s political effect at the national level, that’s up for debate. Frank Sharry, director the Washington, D.C. immigrant advocacy organization America’s Voice, believes the movement “has made a huge difference.”

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FILED UNDER: Coming out, Coming out undocumented, Jose Antonio Vargas, National Coming out of the Shadows Week, Uriel Alberto
December 26, 2011 | 12:57 PM | By

Top five immigration stories of 2011, #5: ‘Coming out’ undocumented

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

A student activist's t-shirt, December 2010

This week, Multi-American is counting down its top five immigration stories of 2011. It’s been a tough list to narrow down with so many major stories this year, ranging from the political battle over birthright citizenship early in the year to the ongoing record deportations to the growing number of state immigration laws, a story that’s still developing as a case involving Arizona’s precedent-setting SB 1070 heads to the U.S. Supreme Court.

We’ll start out today with one story that didn’t come out of government, though, but rather bubbled up slowly from college campuses and gained steam via social media: the trend of “coming out” as undocumented among young people, done as a political act.

What began a few years ago among a small number of undocumented student activists has developed into a movement its own right. By December of last year, growing numbers of young, undocumented college students and their supporters were publicly revealing their status as a previous version of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a bill that would grant conditional legal status to young people who arrived before age 16 if they went to college or joined the military, moved through the House and on to the Senate.

The bill failed to clear a Senate vote, but the trend continued. In California, some of these young people threw their efforts behind two state bills called the California Dream Act (both eventually signed into law this year) which would make it easier for undocumented students to pay tuition.

Last March, a national campaign mounted by student immigrant advocacy groups urged more students to reveal their status, with groups around the country holding coming-out events.

During one coming-out event in Orange County last spring, some of those taking part talked about the trend becoming, for many, a cathartic rite of passage for many young people who were brought to the U.S. by their parents at an early age, growing up culturally American while keeping their legal status a secret from their peers.

“People have reached this point,” said Jorge Gutierrez, a 26-year-old activist and graduate of Cal State Fullerton who was brought here by his family from Mexico at age 10, but had been unable to adjust his status. “It has become a cultural phenomenon.”

The movement hit a milestone last June, when ex-Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer winner Jose Antonio Vargas revealed that he’d kept his status a secret for years, sharing it only with a close network of confidantes while navigating college and career. Vargas, who was born in the Philippines, wrote in the New York Times:

Over the past 14 years, I’ve graduated from high school and college and built a career as a journalist, interviewing some of the most famous people in the country. On the surface, I’ve created a good life. I’ve lived the American dream.

But I am still an undocumented immigrant. And that means living a different kind of reality. It means going about my day in fear of being found out. It means rarely trusting people, even those closest to me, with who I really am.

The term “coming out,” if course, is borrowed. While promoting last year’s “National Coming Out of the Shadows” week, the advocacy site DreamActivist.org posted a quote from gay rights hero Harvey Milk, the slain San Francisco city supervisor who in a 1978 speech urged his peers, “you must come out.”

Milk was calling for a political act during an era when coming out the closet was not a cultural expectation or norm, but a dangerous thing to do, as it still is in many places. But the danger didn’t involve deportation, as it does for people who aren’t in the country legally.

Young people who have come out as undocumented say they are aware of the risks; they also say that the more of them choose to come out, there more safety they believe there is in numbers. Student activist networks have come to the aid of those who land in deportation proceedings, launching petition drives and social media campaigns.

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FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, California Dream Act, Coming out, Coming out undocumented, Dream Act, Harvey Milk, National Coming out of the Shadows Week, Top five immigration stories of 2011
April 12, 2011 | 10:10 AM | By

Readers respond: Has ‘coming out’ undocumented become less risky?

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

A student's bold statement, December 8, 2010

A post yesterday on the trend among young, undocumented student activists and their supporters of revealing their immigration status, done as a political act, has drawn some interesting comments.

They were posted in response to a question: Has revealing immigration status truly become less risky for those who do it?

Recent statements from federal immigration officials have indicated that there’s less of a priority being placed on deporting people who would have been eligible for the Dream Act, proposed legislation that failed in the Senate late last year, and which would have granted conditional legal status to young people brought here as minors who went to college or joined the military. Some youths in high-profile cases have had their deportation suspended. Is the risk of deportation for these young people who “come out” no longer so great?

A reader named Rigo wrote:

Yes, it’s true! I haven’t felt safer than this in a while. #out

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health/Education, Politics/Justice, Coming out undocumented, Dream Act, National Coming out of the Shadows Week
April 11, 2011 | 10:57 AM | By

Is ‘coming out’ undocumented becoming less risky?

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

A student’s shirt at a coming-out event in Orange County, March 10, 2011

A couple of posts last month addressed a strategy that a growing number of undocumented youths have embraced as they campaign for legalization, revealing their immigration status as a political act.

It took off last year as undocumented college students campaigned for the Dream Act, proposed legislation that would have granted conditional legal status to young people brought here illegally as minors if they attended college or joined the military. The bill died in the Senate last December, but students and their supporters have not given up their campaign.

Some perceive “coming out” as equal parts catharsis and political strategy, and see the trend continuing. Here’s how Jorge Gutierrez, a young man I spoke with last month, put it when I asked him if he saw revealing immigration status as becoming a cultural norm among his peers:

“I think that definitely, if we find ourselves not getting the Dream Act to come through Congress, I think it has the potential to reach that cultural norm,” he said. “Even though we didn’t pass the Dream Act last year, what the movement was really successful in was getting students to come out all over the nation. It is building critical mass. For lack of a better word, it’s getting in the face of ICE agents and saying ‘arrest me.’”

It’s a risky move, with deportation as a possible consequence. But as more young people reveal their status, is there safety in numbers? A story in the Los Angeles Times this weekend took up the “coming out” story in relation to the recent arrests of seven undocumented young demonstrators in Georgia, who were released with misdemeanor tickets for blocking traffic, but no more. From the story:

At an April 1 public forum in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that immigrants who would have benefitted from the Dream Act were “not the priority” when it came to enforcing immigration law.

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FILED UNDER: Health/Education, Politics/Justice, Coming out undocumented, Dream Act, National Coming out of the Shadows Week
March 15, 2011 | 9:54 AM | By

‘Coming out’ undocumented: A Dream Act strategy becomes a rite of passage

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

A college student steps down from the microphone as others wait their turn to “come out” in Orange, Calif., March 10, 2011

Last week in Orange County, a line of about two dozen young people snaked around the side of a meeting hall. Mostly college students, they awaited their turn at the podium in the front of the room. Some looked confident, others a little shaky. A girl with long brown hair stepped up to the microphone. “Hello, my name is Estefania,” she began, “and I’m undocumented and unafraid.”

What started as a small number of students going public with their immigration status grew into a movement in its own right last year, when passage of the federal Dream Act seemed like a possibility. It was a political strategy, the idea behind it to put a face to those whose lives would be affected by the legislation, which would have granted conditional legal status to qualifying young people brought to this country before age 16 if they went to college or joined the military.

The bill failed in the Senate last December. But as students cling to the hope that the measure will be reintroduced, or that state bills will work out in their favor, the practice of “coming out” as undocumented has not only endured, but has become a rite of passage of sorts.

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FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, California Dream Act, Coming out undocumented, Dream Act, National Coming out of the Shadows Week, Orange County Dream Team
March 7, 2011 | 2:46 PM | By

More Dream Act students prepare to ‘come out’

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

Student Dream Act supporters react after the Senate vote tally is read, December 18, 2010

This week, some undocumented students, graduates and others are expected to reprise the actions of other student activists last year with a risky move: going public with their immigration status.

The strategy gained popularity last year among young supporters of the Dream Act, proposed legislation that would have granted conditional legal status to qualifying young people who attend college or join the military. The measure cleared the House last December, but failed to make it through the Senate.

This year, several Dream Act advocacy groups and websites have been promoting what’s being called “National Coming Out of the Shadows” week between March 14-21, kicking off with a “coming out” day this Thursday, March 10. Sites like DreamActivist.org have been seeking coming-out stories via Twitter and posting them. From one posted today:

My name is Liliana and I am 29 years old. I came to this country from Mexico in 1996 when I was only 14 years old. Without speaking a word of English my parents enrolled me in a public school in Los Angeles where I started taking ESL courses as well as remedial classes. The remedial courses were not right not because of my academic level but because I wasn’t fluent in English. By 10th grade I was already out of ESL and enrolled in English Honors, by 11th and 12th I was taking AP courses in many subjects including English Literature and was entered into the “Gifted Student” program at school.

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FILED UNDER: Health/Education, Politics/Justice, Dream Act, National Coming out of the Shadows Week