May Day! May Day! The DREAM Act is coming!
On May 1st, 2010, the Student Immigrant Movement was presente at the Boston May Day Coalition march and rally in Boston and the May 1st Coalition rally in E. Boston. What a beautiful and inspiring celebration and movement! We marched in chanting “Education, not deportation!” “No more raids, we want grades!” “Everywhere we go, people want to know who we are, so we tell them, we are the dreamers!” As we reached the crowd of hundreds, the crowd split into two, cheering and welcoming us, and we marched right into the middle. As Elizabeth went up to speak in front of the hundreds of people and many organizations and groups: Worcester Immigrant Coalition, New Sanctuary Movement, etc., SIM members cheered and jumped up and down out of pure excitement. I met Elizabeth at the DREAMCamp in February where we found out that we lived a couple of blocks from each other in Quincy when we were young and that we went to the same high school—she graduated in ’08 and I graduated in ’04—and that we even had the same favorite teachers. Elizabeth and I were in the same DRAM group and that was where she and I learned to craft our own stories (in two minutes or less) and our story of us & now. A couple of months ago, Elizabeth came out to a group of five people in a classroom in UMass Boston, to Representative Bradley of Hingham and Senator Morrissey of Quincy, and to a classroom of young students in North Quincy High school. The day before, Elizabeth came out to her best friend. And today, she was coming out, “My name is Elizabeth. I’m not illegal—I’m undocumented—and I’m definitely not scared”. You could tell that the crowd was listening to her every word, from their cheers when she said she learned English, French,Italian and Spanish literature in high school to their silence when she talked about realizing the day that she couldn’t afford and attend the college of her dreams because of a nine-digit number. She told us that then she found SIM and met students just like her and now she is fighting with SIM for students just like her so that they can reach their dreams. Afterwards, SIM joined the crowd and we marched through Downtown Boston and stopped a couple blocks short of the ICE office and Boston City Hall. Hundreds of people wondered why we stopped in the middle of Government Center. Hundreds of people watched and listened to our Gladys step up to the top of the steps and tell her story. Gladys came out and said “My name is Gladys. I’m here with you today to tell you that I am undocumented and I’m not afraid.” When Gladys spoke about wanting to reunite with her mother and about her victory moving from E.S.L. to Honors English, the crowd listened to every word. When Gladys talked about the doors that should have been opened due to her dedication and excellent work but were closed, the crowd was silent. When Gladys declared that because of the injustice she looked for a group like SIM and that she wanted to fight with SIM, the crowd erupted, cheering and marching on. After we marched back to Boston Common, our SIM group left May Day at Boston Common and chanted all the way to the train station, hopped on the Blue Line to Maverick and marched to LoPresti Park in E. Boston where thousands finished their march from the cities of Chelsea and Everett with a rally. SIM members spread out in the middle of the park,welcoming all the marchers streaming into the park, listening to the music and celebrating with everyone. Gladys and I went up to the stage to represent SIM and give our speeches. Together we shared our stories. Once again Gladys was amazing, coming out in a mixture of Spanish and English, yelling into the microphone with so much energy and emotion and galvanizing the crowd. In the morning I was nervous to speak but after being inspired by Elizabeth and Gladys and fighting with SIM all day long, I was excited to share my story… Hola, Buenas tardes a tod@s. My name is Lily and I am here with the Student Immigrant Movement. Has anyone heard of the myth that Asian- Americans are quiet and apathetic? Well, as an Asian-American woman,as a child of immigrants from China and a voter in a growingly strong minority voting bloc, I know that this is untrue: I am outspoken and I care. And every time I hear a story like Gladys,I feel humbled and privileged and am moved to fight on with the Student Immigrant Movement, a completely immigrant, both documented and undocumented, student-ledMOVEMENT. We are strategizing on a legislative scale to move politicians and reform laws but more importantly we are organizing and building a movement of immigrant students and allies to support students of all backgrounds and to fight for equal resources in school, equal access to higher education and equal opportunity to realize our dreams and to better ourselves, our families and community. Throughout this journey, we are sharing our personal stories and growing our story of us and now. Because stories matter and because our stories of self help us understand our individual journeys and challenges and our story of us and now bring us together, move us to ACT and overcome our obstacles, today the Student Immigrant Movement is joining you with our stories. We are made of students like just like Gladys and we all face these challenges everyday. Renata takes classes at the public university and can afford only one or two classes per semester. Elizabeth has to work full time at a Laundromat because she could not afford $40,000 out of pocket for the first year at an excellent private university. Gladys speaks about the fear that she felt before she found the Student Immigrant Movement, before she found us,and now she fights back. These shared experiences and feelings create our story of us and now and bring us together. And what we all do? We stand up and fight back. We have recruited and organized our students like Nara and Rodrigo to become leaders and lead chapters and movement in Worcester, Cape Cod, Lawrence, the North Shore and E. Boston, Chelsea, Lynn and Revere. We had the United We Dream DREAM Camp in February where 100 students from across Massachusetts came to learn how to become leaders in the our movement and how to tell their own stories of self and of us and now. I am one of those leaders who grew out of the camp. In less than 24 hours after Arizona Gov. Brewer signed SB 1070, we organized a vigil in front of the State House in solidarity with the people of Arizona. We moved people from the streets to join us and even one critic who supported the bill was convinced and moved by us to ask, “What can I do to help?” We are fighting for the DREAM Act and are organizing petitions, calls and supporter cards to Senator Scott Brown. We are spreading our movement to schools, churches, community groups, and unions across MA to show our Senators and Representatives that the people of MA want In-state Tuition and want the DREAM Act for our immigrant students. And today we join you here on May Day and face these challenges in front of us together. This is our story of us and now, of what we need and want, and what we will fight for together. We immigrant students are fighting for equal resources in schools and to afford higher education so that we may better ourselves and our families and realize our dreams to give back to our community and to our economy. It has never been a bad idea to educate any segment of our community. In fact, it is the right idea for our hearts and minds, for our community and especially for our economy to educate the estimated 400 undocumented students in MA and 65,000 undocumented students across the U.S. who will graduate this class of 2010. We need Governor Deval Patrick to fulfill his campaign promise and provide In-State Tuition rate to all immigrant students. Our state economy needs the $2.5 million per year that undocumented students would pay into our state. And we need Senator Scott Brown to meet with us and join the other 10 Representatives and Senator Kerry in co-sponsoring the DREAM Act. We need this because our community is better because of our immigrant students. We need Comprehensive Immigration Reform now. And we need to recognize all immigrant and workers’ rights. This is what we need and this is what we are fighting for together. And so we come to celebrate and stand in solidarity with you all on May Day because our stories are your stories and our fights are your fights and we will build our movement together.
We, the SIM contingent, met at the Park St. station and set up camp. Our group grew bigger and bigger as leaders and members streamed in from Lawrence and the North Shore, Cape Cod, Somerville, Quincy, Revere and E. Boston, Worcester, Swampscott, Boston University,Tufts University and various public universities and colleges and even tourists from the streets! We put our gigantic Student Immigrant Movement on the ground, put on our “Brown is Beautiful/Student Immigrant Movement” t-shirts and wrapped on our orange SIM armbands to tie us together. We rallied and celebrated and marched together to the Boston Common gazebo where the rally had already begun.