In January, Nancy Pelosi invited Jose Antonio Vargas to hear President Trump’s first speech at a joint session of Congress. The gesture was not without risk. Vargas, who is undocumented, was warned by his lawyers not to attend, but went anyway. “Sitting just a few hundred feet from Trump, I oddly felt free,” he says. “I may be undocumented, but I am not afraid. My existence that evening was my resistance.”
Like other undocumented immigrants taken to the U.S. as children, Vargas, who came out about his legal status in a 2011 New York Times magazine essay, is a Dreamer—a reference to the stalled Dream Act that would offer a path to permanent residency. His organization, Define American, is pushing for immigration reform by making sure that stories like his are heard. “Undocumented people are having a moment right now,” says Yosimar Reyes, artist in residence at Define American, “and I want to make sure that actual undocumented people get to be the ones creating content.”
“Our complicated narratives are not being told properly,” adds Julio Salgado, projects coordinator at the artist collective CultureStrike. “To shift the current anti-migrant sentiments, we need to change how these narratives are shared.”
Kat Evasco is doing just that with her one woman show, Mommy Queerest, which she describes as a “raunchy, hilarious mother daughter coming out.” Says the artist, who also runs a narrative workshop, Performing Resilience, “It’s important for me to share stories that reflect my experience as a queer Filipina immigrant, while making people laugh.”
A critical moment for all Dreamers came in September, when Trump decided to halt DACA, the Obama-era program that gave protections to young undocumented immigrants. “We saw so many people mobilize to support each other,” says poet Alessandro Negrete, who’s been working on a set of poems, Cuentos, Dichos, y Recuerdos: Historias De Mi Crecer, to be published in 2018. “I hope more people learn they matter and that their stories are unique.”
Many of those stories also have happy outcomes. “For me, the highlight of 2017 was planning my wedding in one week and marrying my beautiful wife,” says Kenia C. Osores Hernandez, who works in a senior-care facility. “If I could relive that day, I would do it over and over again without changing a single thing.”
(From Left) Paolo Jara-Riveros, Julio Salgado, Kenia C. Osores Hernandez, Jose Antonio Vargas, Kat Evasco, Yosimar Reyes & Alessandro Negrete
Photography: Roger Erickson
Hair: Iggy Rosales at Opus Beauty using Oribe
Makeup: Melissa Murdick at Opus Beauty using Chanel Les Beiges
READER COMMENTS (