Teen creates Facebook page to spotlight immigrants' weekly achievements
Immigrants domake America great -- and a new Facebook page is setting out to prove it.
Valeria Alvarado, a 19-year-old sophomore at Villanova University, is launching an online storytelling effort to highlight the positive impacts immigrant, undocumented and refugee communities bring to the United States every week. The Facebook page -- called "We, Too, Are America" -- will list the submitted and curated accomplishments to help combat the "criminal" narratives of these groups popularized by President Donald J. Trump.
SEE ALSO:5 crucial online resources that help immigrants learn their rights in airportsAlvarado came up with the idea for "We, Too, Are America" after Trump called for the Department of Homeland Security to release a weekly list of criminal offenses committed by undocumented immigrants.
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The reason for the list, Trump claimed, was to better inform the public of "safety threats" posed by immigrant populations in sanctuary cities. But many have critiqued the concept as feeding into a racist, xenophobic view of non-white immigrants as hindrances to American society.
"I could not believe my eyes when I first read Trump's plan to publish this list," Alvarado told Remezcla. "This 'crime list' idea is not new. The Nazis used to publish a list of Jewish crimes before the genocide started ... I am not trying to homogenize these situations with each other, but it is unbelievable that we are repeating history’s same mistakes."
"Whether you are a labor worker or a lawyer or a student or retired, we want your story -- because you, too, are America."
So, Alvarado decided to publish her own list. "We, Too, Are America" will document between four and six stories every week that are a few paragraphs long. The posts are written and contributed by volunteers who want to help with the cause.
"We, Too, Are America" will release the first immigrant success story on Monday, Feb. 6.
By featuring the stories of undocumented, refugee, and immigrant communities, Alvarado hopes to celebrate immigrant success as an American value.
"I did not want this community to be defined by the actions of the few, so I decided to counter it with a list of accomplishments," she told Mashable. "Almost immediately, I got people across the country sharing their stories via social media."
Alvarado, who is an immigrant herself, moved from Mexico to the United States at four years old. She became a U.S. citizen in 2013, but recognizes that many immigrants don't have the same opportunity, leading to more fragility and instability in their lives in America.
Valeria Alvarado at the Woman’s March in Houston, TX.Credit: Houda ChograniTrump -- who has previously suggested immigrants are drug dealers, criminals and rapists -- has consistently asserted a rhetoric that perpetuates the narrative of immigrants as not valuable and, therefore, a threat to American society.
The statement "We, Too, Are America" has become a powerful sentiment by non-white immigrant communities rallying against Trump's anti-immigrant stances. Inspired by Langston Hughes' poem "I, Too," the statement has also been used by the black community to assert their place in America against an administration often critiqued for racism.
"We want to tell the stories of people from all walks of life," Alvarado said. "Whether you are from 50 miles south of the U.S. border, or 3,000 miles away. Whether you are a labor worker or a lawyer or a student or retired, we want your story -- because you, too, are America."
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