Latest / National Immigration Law Center Freedom to Thrive Podcast / Ep. #107: Centering UndocuBlack Voices | Dr. Felecia Russell

Transcript

Ep. #107: Centering UndocuBlack Voices | Dr. Felecia Russell · National Immigration Law Center Freedom to Thrive Podcast

• 0:00
  I want to open today with a bit of a rant, or let's call it an observation.
• 0:04
  Immigration currently dominates the political discourse, but every time I see
• 0:09
  a news story about immigrants, I see the same imagery.
• 0:12
  Poor, tired, huddled masses of Latinos at the U.S.-Mexico border.
• 0:17
  I see Latino immigrants doing manual labor in fields and factories,
• 0:21
  or fleeing from one place to another with all of their belongings in bags. This isn't accidental.
• 0:28
  This is part of the narrative that tells us that immigrants are a problem to
• 0:31
  be solved, a threat to our way of life, and our shared humanity is pushed aside
• 0:37
  in service of that narrative.
• 0:38
  What we don't typically see in stories about immigrants is the joy and love
• 0:44
  and dignity of the people we're talking about.
• 0:46
  We don't hear about the commonalities of our experiences. We aren't shown that
• 0:51
  immigrants are our neighbors, friends, classmates, teachers,
• 0:55
  the people we worship with, multidimensional people from diverse ethnic backgrounds
• 1:00
  who thrive in communities.
• 1:02
  We're deprived of the full vibrancy of the immigrant experience.
• 1:06
  And this is why I'm thrilled to be talking with my guest today.
• 1:10
  Dr. Felicia Russell is a Jamaican-born, American-raised Black woman.
• 1:15
  She is a researcher, an author, a professor, a fellow podcaster,
• 1:20
  and someone who has DACA status.
• 1:23
  She has devoted her research and her life's work to elevating the profile and
• 1:27
  voices of Black immigrants, because guess what, American news editors and pundits?
• 1:31
  Not all immigrants are Latinos at the U.S.-Mexico border.
• 1:35
  I can't wait to learn more about what she has to say because Dr.
• 1:39
  Russell is changing the narrative on immigrants one story at a time.
• 1:43
  This is the NILC Freedom to Thrive podcast, powering pro-immigrant narratives one story at a time.
• 1:50
  I'm Victoria Ballesteros, Executive Vice President of Narrative at the National
• 1:55
  Immigration Law Center.
• 1:57
  Hi, Dr. Russell. How are you?
• 2:00
  Good, good. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Welcome to the podcast.
• 2:04
  You know, we are such huge fans of you and your work over at NILC. We're just big fans.
• 2:09
  Thank you. Thank you. I'm grateful to be here. And I'm also a big fan of NILC.
• 2:15
  I think I was there a few weeks ago.
• 2:17
  And one thing I shared with staff was that in 2019, I wrote my first op-ed and
• 2:23
  it was under a pseudonym.
• 2:24
  And, you know, that was when I was getting comfortable with sharing my story.
• 2:28
  And NILC was the one who published it. And so it was like a full circle moment.
• 2:33
  So I'm also a big fan of the work that you all do. Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
• 2:37
  Thank you for sharing that. And so you're leading me right into what I wanted
• 2:40
  to first, you know, jump off asking you is, you know, I want to get into all
• 2:44
  of your work and your research, but I want to know more about your story.
• 2:47
  Can you share more about your story, your immigration story,
• 2:50
  and how that led you to where you are today?
• 2:53
  Yeah, yeah, of course. So I was born in Jamaica, like you said earlier.
• 2:58
  So I was born in Jamaica. I came to the U.S. when I was about 11 years old.
• 3:01
  I grew up in Inglewood, California.
• 3:03
  I feel like Inglewood is pretty popular.
• 3:08
  Usually I say Inglewood and I wait for a short amount of time,
• 3:12
  what's going to be the reaction?
• 3:16
  I was raised by a single mom and excelled in school, started playing basketball.
• 3:22
  I was really excited to be here. I tell this story in my book that when I first got here,
• 3:28
  one of the things I kept doing was flushing the toilet because we didn't have
• 3:32
  running water or anything like that inside the home in Jamaica.
• 3:37
  And my mom was like, stop doing that. You're running up the water bill.
• 3:42
  Exactly. But yeah. And so it was, you know, new environment,
• 3:45
  but I was really excited to be here.
• 3:47
  And then in high school, I, you know, understood that I was undocumented.
• 3:51
  So sophomore year of high school, understood that I was undocumented.
• 3:55
  And, you know, as 14 years old, you start just doing research? What does this mean?
• 4:00
  And at that time, now we have at least one group of people will describe us
• 4:09
  as undocumented versus alien or illegal or whatever.
• 4:12
  But at the time, those were the terms that I was seeing, alien,
• 4:16
  illegal. So I was just so scared.
• 4:19
  And another thing that stood out was that I did not see any images of folks
• 4:23
  that looked like myself.
• 4:24
  And so I became really afraid. But fortunately, I had a really great college
• 4:30
  counselor who understood the immigration landscape. He was amazing.
• 4:34
  I talk about him in my book as well. We were still in touch to this day.
• 4:38
  And I remember just, you know, feeling a safe, a safety with them.
• 4:43
  And so I was able to disclose my status to him.
• 4:46
  And he reaffirmed me and told me that everything is going to be fine.
• 4:51
  You won't be able to access federal aid, but with your grades,
• 4:54
  we'll figure something out. Right. So shout out to Mr. Torres. He was amazing.
• 4:59
  But yeah. And so, you know, applied to schools, you know, I studied poli sci
• 5:04
  and undergrad legal studies, really wanted to be an immigration attorney,
• 5:08
  but a lot of things got in the way.
• 5:11
  So I got my master's in policy and I have DACA.
• 5:15
  So in my final year of my undergraduate experience, former president Obama issued
• 5:21
  the executive order for an action for child with arrivals, applied and got that.
• 5:25
  And that policy really changed my life. And so I was able to work.
• 5:28
  And so I worked four jobs while I was getting my master's.
• 5:31
  And yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 5:33
  But I was just so happy to be able to do that. Right.
• 5:36
  Because all of undergrad, I could not work. Right. And remember,
• 5:39
  oftentimes some of my friends would be like, oh, why don't you have a job?
• 5:43
  Like get a job. And I'm like, I got to focus on my studies.
• 5:47
  And really, I really wanted a job, but I couldn't have one.
• 5:50
  And so after that policy, I was able to do so. And yeah. And then,
• 5:54
  you know, I was really afraid and ashamed of talking about my status for a long time.
• 5:59
  One, because I felt othered. I felt like I didn't belong within the immigrant community.
• 6:04
  And I, you know, share this story a lot.
• 6:07
  But one of the things that Mr. Torres did for me was introduced me to an undocumented
• 6:12
  student group on campus. So this was back in high school.
• 6:15
  And I remember being so excited because I was like, oh my gosh,
• 6:17
  I'm going to meet other folks who are just like myself.
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  But my first time going to that meeting, one of the students asked the counselor, why is she here?
• 6:28
  And I heard her ask that question and he said- What about you? Why were you there?
• 6:33
  Yes. And it wasn't malicious. The question wasn't malicious in its intention.
• 6:40
  I wasn't in that space. And, you know, we were at a high school majority black
• 6:46
  and brown students. So I was used to seeing these students, right? It's funny.
• 6:50
  Like all of the students in that class, I was battling with them for number
• 6:54
  one, two, three, four rank in the school. So when I got there,
• 6:58
  I was like, oh, my gosh, this is so amazing.
• 6:59
  But I remember that question and it had such an impact on me.
• 7:03
  And I did not go back to those meetings. But and that influenced my journey.
• 7:09
  I wanted to understand, well, what's the experiences of other black undocumented
• 7:14
  people, which kind of led me down
• 7:16
  the path that I went down in my research and the work that I do today.
• 7:21
  But that was a very, very impactful moment. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:27
  Wow. And so thankfully, you had Mr. Torres, who was helping guide you along the way and support you.
• 7:34
  And I'm so happy to hear that, that you had someone there who was making a difference with you.
• 7:39
  And, you know, I'm really sorry that that happened to you, you know,
• 7:41
  at such a young age, too, in that meeting. And I think it goes back to this
• 7:46
  idea that when people think of immigrants and immigration, they think of Latinos, right?
• 7:52
  So, and to your point, we need more Black voices.
• 7:55
  We need more diverse voices and stories. And so can you talk about your research and your book?
• 8:00
  Your book is called Amplifying Black Undocumented Student Voices in Higher Education.
• 8:05
  I don't know if the research and the book are related, but if you could talk
• 8:08
  about those things, because I do think...
• 8:11
  Sharing those stories. It's how we begin to change the narrative and sort of,
• 8:15
  you know, shift people's perspectives.
• 8:17
  So I'd love to hear more about that.
• 8:19
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, yeah. So the research, my research is connected to my book.
• 8:25
  So Amplifying Black Undocumented Student Voices, it's two parts.
• 8:30
  So the first half is memoir.
• 8:32
  And so the first four chapters, I share my story and what it was like growing
• 8:35
  up in Jamaica, what it meant to grow up in Inglewood, California.
• 8:39
  And especially growing up in California as a Black immigrant and what belonging felt like for me.
• 8:46
  And then the second half of the book is centered around the research that I
• 8:50
  did during my doctorate program while I was at Temple.
• 8:53
  And what I did was I interviewed 15 Black undocumented folks who had either
• 8:59
  navigated higher ed or they were currently navigating higher education.
• 9:04
  And, you know, the question was, what does it mean to be Black and undocumented?
• 9:09
  And a lot of themes came up, right? One that came up was invisibility and what
• 9:14
  it means to be invisible as a Black immigrant.
• 9:16
  And then also belonging or lack thereof within the undocumented community and
• 9:22
  also within the Black Native communities on college campuses.
• 9:27
  And so So I talk about those, you know, I profile those 15 stories in the second half of the book,
• 9:33
  great, resilient stories from other folks, and then also really touch on,
• 9:38
  you know, the research and what that means for policy and how we continue to amplify those voices.
• 9:45
  And so I always say, you know, one of the things I wanted to do with this book
• 9:48
  was make sure the lay person could pick it up and read it, right?
• 9:52
  They might want to read the first four chapters and be intrigued by it.
• 9:56
  Maybe by the time they get to the research, they're like, no, right?
• 9:59
  I know like, for instance, my mom read the first four chapters and then she
• 10:03
  was like, no, I'm not reading this other part because that just wasn't for her.
• 10:08
  But then my folks in policy or professor friends, they enjoy the entirety of the project, right?
• 10:16
  And so I wanted it to be able to reach the different audiences because whether
• 10:20
  you're able to read the research and digest it and understand what it means
• 10:26
  and what you can do, or whether you're able to read these personal stories, right?
• 10:30
  Because there are also personal stories in the second half of the book as well.
• 10:33
  The second half is just not focused on my experience.
• 10:36
  I think it is a book for anyone, for everyone who wants to learn more about
• 10:41
  immigration and how, and what they could do to amplify Black undocumented voices.
• 10:47
  So yeah. And And so my research is really centered around, you know,
• 10:51
  making sure that we center Black immigrant voices because to your point.
• 10:56
  You know, Black undocumented folks exist, right?
• 10:59
  And so for us to know about them, we have to talk about them.
• 11:02
  Yeah. And I've heard you share the number that there are 619,000 Black undocumented
• 11:08
  immigrants in this country. Yep. It's not a small number.
• 11:12
  That's a pretty significant number, right?
• 11:14
  So as you were interviewing the students, as you were doing your research, what stood out for you?
• 11:20
  Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. I would say there are a lot of things that stood out.
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  So first, you know, I, you know, as a black immigrant growing up in California,
• 11:30
  my experience is completely different from someone who grew up in New York or
• 11:35
  Washington, D.C. or Miami. me, right?
• 11:39
  And when I was writing the book, I did not have that context,
• 11:44
  right? I was thinking more about my context.
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  So one of the things I wanted to do was interview Black folks from all over the U.S., right?
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  Not just progressive states like California, but I interviewed folks that were
• 11:55
  in Florida and Texas and everywhere.
• 11:58
  They were from all over, pretty diverse sample. And one of the things I learned
• 12:03
  was the Black undocumented students, while they were on certain college campuses,
• 12:09
  they struggled to belong in both spaces, right? Whether that was like a Black student union.
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  They would go to a Black student union to embrace Black culture.
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  What does that mean? But in those spaces, immigration was never a topic of discussion.
• 12:24
  And if it did come up, it was not serious. Right. And then in undocumented spaces,
• 12:30
  folks would be like, why are you here?
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  And oh, where are you from? And like, oh, my gosh, they couldn't believe that
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  this person was undocumented. minute.
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  So it was, you know, heartbreaking to continue to hear those stories and how
• 12:44
  they had to continue to compartmentalize their different identities.
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  I could be Black over here, but I can't be immigrant. I could be immigrant over
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  here, but I can't be Black. And what does that mean? So that was.
• 12:54
  That was, that was something that stood out, especially because,
• 12:58
  you know, as a Jamaican person, folks, people love Jamaican culture and they
• 13:04
  know about Jamaican culture.
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  They love the jerk chicken. They love the food.
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  And so they love the music. Right. And so popular.
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  And so I struggled less with like, oh, are they embracing my culture?
• 13:17
  Right. The BSU, like let's, everybody's like, let's go get Jamaican food today. Right.
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  Versus like folks that I interviewed, you know, from Haiti or Nigeria,
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  they struggled a little bit more.
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  And so they had to then find like an NSA, a Nigerian Student Association, right?
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  And these different orgs to really support all of their, the different pieces of their identities.
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  So that was, that, that stood out. I think another thing that stood out was
• 13:44
  how we're really just having a disconnect with the conversation around race
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  and class because there were some folks that I interviewed that they told me
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  straight up. They were like, I'm not black Nigerian.
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  And I realized actually that that's not what they're saying.
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  What they're saying is in the country that I'm from, that is really not a point of contention.
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  It is not something that we focus on because most everybody's black.
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  But when you hear that as like a black American, you think, why would you say
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  you're not black? You're black.
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  And so what I realized was those, those students that I was interviewing in,
• 14:24
  a lot of them were adults at the time.
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  They just needed someone to bridge that conversation. And I felt I was so uniquely
• 14:31
  positioned to have those conversations because, you know, I did spend 11 years
• 14:35
  in Jamaica, but really my formative years were in America.
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  And so I understood what it meant to be black in America and understood also
• 14:43
  that in Jamaica, blackness is really not, that's not a thing.
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  People don't focus on it. And, and I saw aha moments, you know,
• 14:52
  as I'm having this conversation, they're like, oh, okay.
• 14:55
  You know, I remember it's a one participant. I said, you know,
• 14:58
  well, tell me this, you know, when you walk into a room, what do you think people see?
• 15:03
  And she paused and she was like, okay, yeah, I guess they're seeing a black person.
• 15:09
  Right. And so I realized that like, we're also missing that moment to really
• 15:14
  just understand each other.
• 15:16
  But again, there's a lot of things as to that, but those are the two that's coming to mind.
• 15:21
  And so to the extent that there are misconceptions, what would you say,
• 15:26
  whether through your research or just your experience, what would you say are
• 15:30
  some of the biggest misconceptions about Black immigrants or the Black immigrant experience?
• 15:35
  Yeah. So one of the first misconceptions is that black immigrants are not black, right? Yeah.
• 15:44
  Black immigrants are black, right? So I often say to be African-American is
• 15:49
  to be black, but to be black does not mean you're African-Americans.
• 15:53
  But if you're from Nigeria, if you're from Jamaica, you are Black.
• 15:57
  You might not be African-American, but you're Black. So you're not a Black American, but you're Black.
• 16:01
  So that's a big misconception, whether from outside folks, whether they're Black,
• 16:08
  White, Latinx, whatever, that's a misconception. And also within the Black immigrant
• 16:12
  community as well. Yeah.
• 16:14
  Another piece is that folks categorize all black people as one.
• 16:21
  Right. So ignoring ethnicity, I mean, ignoring ethnicity and culture and all of that.
• 16:27
  And that's really, really important. Right. That's why people are,
• 16:30
  there's so much contention there because folks wouldn't be like,
• 16:32
  well, no, I, but what about my culture?
• 16:35
  Right. That, you know, they don't want to disown their culture. Right.
• 16:39
  And just being black just adds a level of complexity to being undocumented.
• 16:46
  Yeah. And so we have to, we have to consider that. Right. So a lot of,
• 16:49
  I had a conversation with a practitioner
• 16:52
  who was supporting undocumented students and I said, you know,
• 16:55
  what type of events or programming do you have for like black undocumented students
• 16:59
  or Asian undocumented students?
• 17:02
  And she said, oh, what do you mean? Like, we just have programming.
• 17:06
  We don't need other programming.
• 17:08
  And I realized, like, yeah, even the folks in those spaces, you know,
• 17:14
  don't realize that, hey, there's a level of complexity here that you do have to consider, right?
• 17:20
  So you do have to have specialized programming for Black undocumented folks,
• 17:27
  for undocumented queer folks, for Asian undocumented folks, because there's other layers there.
• 17:34
  And then to your other point earlier, undocumented Black folks are here in America.
• 17:40
  You know, I think one of the misconceptions is that a lot of Black immigrants
• 17:46
  have really good, high-paying jobs, well-educated, and so folks don't often
• 17:50
  associate them with being undocumented.
• 17:53
  But there are over 619,000 Black undocumented folks in the U.S.
• 17:58
  So, yeah, those would be the three, I would say.
• 18:02
  Thank you. And I've heard you use the term undocu-Black when you're talking
• 18:06
  about the Black undocumented immigrants. And I've heard it in other places,
• 18:09
  too. But can you talk about the term UndocuBlack?
• 18:11
  Is that something that you coined or where did that come from?
• 18:15
  I wish I coined it. It's such a cool term. I love it.
• 18:19
  I did not coin it, but I, and I, and I, I shed, I shed some light on this in
• 18:24
  the book as well, but in 2016, a group of folks,
• 18:28
  they organized in Miami, they had a convening in Miami and it was 4 million
• 18:33
  undocumented folks and current undocumented folks really trying to address the.
• 18:40
  You know, thinking about the Black Lives Matter movement and immigrants right
• 18:44
  movement and the intersectionality there.
• 18:47
  So that really kind of was the genesis of the term UndocuBlack.
• 18:52
  So that's why I was coined and really coined by the UndocuBlack Network,
• 18:56
  which is a network that formerly and current undocumented Black folks who are
• 19:01
  working to advocate for Black immigrants in America.
• 19:05
  So all the credit to the folks who had that convening and also the UndocuBlack Network. Yeah, great.
• 19:13
  Thank you for sharing that. So as I'm hearing you talk and sharing the experiences
• 19:17
  and sharing about your research and the experiences of other undocumented immigrants,
• 19:23
  Black immigrants, I'm feeling very much like there's so much work that needs
• 19:28
  to be done in other spaces, both in the immigrants' rights movement,
• 19:32
  but in other social justice spaces as well, to be better allies to Black immigrants
• 19:37
  and Black undocumented immigrants.
• 19:38
  So what would you say to those of us who care about immigrants and Black immigrants
• 19:43
  and social justice issues, how can we be better allies to the undocumented Black community?
• 19:50
  Yeah, that's a great question. And I think you could think about it from a few different lens, right?
• 19:55
  You can think about it from the policy perspective, the practitioner perspective
• 19:59
  on college campuses or even just in our space, whether, you know,
• 20:05
  in nonprofit orgs, folks in the immigrant justice space.
• 20:08
  One of the ways I would say is to really center Black voices, right?
• 20:14
  So, well, for, you know, this is a great conversation we're having, right?
• 20:17
  It's not a secondary conversation. It's not part of a conversation.
• 20:20
  It's the main conversation, right?
• 20:22
  And it's centering a voice that typically is not the center of any of these conversations, right?
• 20:29
  I mean, you think about the stories we saw for the 12th anniversary of DACA
• 20:35
  or, you The State of the Union back in February and a lot of politicians brought DACA recipients.
• 20:43
  You just didn't see a diversity of the DACA group, right?
• 20:50
  So the first piece is we have to center those voices, right?
• 20:54
  And we have to be intentional about centering those voices.
• 20:57
  And that intentionality is not just on folks like myself or it's not just on
• 21:03
  orgs like the UndocuBlack network, but it's on all of us, right?
• 21:07
  It's on all of us to decide like, hey, we have to center these voices.
• 21:11
  We have to center these stories.
• 21:12
  We have to dedicate resources for us to continue to dive into research.
• 21:18
  I work at the President's Alliance and I will say one of the things that I've
• 21:22
  really, really appreciated about being at the President's Alliance is that when I say,
• 21:28
  hey, I have this idea, I want to do research around Black immigrant college
• 21:33
  graduates and where are they? Where do they live?
• 21:37
  I'm getting a lot of support, but that wasn't always the case, right?
• 21:41
  Sometimes people are like, well, no one cares about that, which it's a double-edged sword.
• 21:45
  They don't care about it because they don't know about it. They don't know about
• 21:48
  it because we're not talking about it. Right.
• 21:49
  And so one centering the voices, one dedicate resources, right?
• 21:53
  Not just talk about it, but be about it. Yeah.
• 21:56
  And in programming, you know, programming is important too, right?
• 22:00
  Audit your programming. What does it look like? You know, if you host a podcasts,
• 22:04
  like what are your guests looking like?
• 22:06
  Right. You know, if you work on a college campus, what are, what events are
• 22:10
  you having? Who are you inviting? What speakers are you inviting?
• 22:13
  And so, yeah. So I think it's centering the voices it's dedicating resources
• 22:18
  is being intentional about, about that.
• 22:21
  And, and, and if we all do the work, we'll, we will amplify,
• 22:27
  amplify these voices and get folks to care about it.
• 22:30
  Because I think that another issue is that, you know, if folks aren't proximate
• 22:35
  to something, it's hard for them to care about it.
• 22:37
  Right. I have a lot of friends who now care about immigration because of me
• 22:41
  and my story, but they didn't before, but now they're proximate to someone like
• 22:46
  me and they're able to, able to do that. So yeah.
• 22:50
  I love that. Thank you for flagging all of that. And so, and it doesn't feel
• 22:55
  like asking too much, right?
• 22:57
  I mean, centering the voices and, you know, is not, it requires intentionality, I think, and awareness.
• 23:04
  So do you think that for high school student today who may be also learning
• 23:10
  that they're undocumented or,
• 23:13
  yeah, who may just be thinking about college and maybe they're black immigrants
• 23:17
  and learning that they're undocumented.
• 23:19
  Do you think that the resources and the support today is better than it was
• 23:24
  when you were going through that experience?
• 23:26
  Thankfully you had Mr. Torres, but do you think that like structurally or in
• 23:32
  the systems there are better or is it the same?
• 23:35
  Yeah. Great question. I think it is better. I think it is better.
• 23:41
  I joke a lot and I said, I've served as an English teacher,
• 23:45
  a college counselor, director of admissions and
• 23:49
  now I'm at a non-profit doing this work and overseeing
• 23:52
  the higher ed immigration portal where we have all of
• 23:55
  these resources effective practices policies right narratives tools right I
• 24:02
  often say you know even as an impacted individual and in all of those roles
• 24:06
  that I've served in if I knew about the portal you know years ago yeah even
• 24:12
  my experience would have been better.
• 24:13
  So first, I just want to say folks need to visit the Hired Immigration Portal.
• 24:17
  Resources, you know, there's resource, you know, I, we have a resources,
• 24:22
  resource on there, the private institution tool, which I went to a private school
• 24:26
  for undergrad and a private school for my master's, which a lot of undocumented
• 24:30
  folks think are, you know.
• 24:33
  Not available to them because of costs. But in actuality, because private schools
• 24:37
  are smaller and, you know, you know, they don't have government funding,
• 24:41
  they have a lot more opportunities to support undocumented students. Right.
• 24:46
  And so we have that tool where it tells you in different states what schools
• 24:52
  you can start with if you're an undocumented students, what schools are undocumented friendly.
• 24:56
  And so first is use that tool. If you're a college counselor,
• 25:00
  if you're an undocumented student, it has everything you need.
• 25:03
  You're a parent, right? And so, yeah.
• 25:05
  So what is the portal? What is the site or where can people go?
• 25:09
  Yeah. So the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, it's a one-stop hub for,
• 25:16
  you know, it integrates data, policy, and resources for undocumented folks,
• 25:22
  international students, and refugee folks.
• 25:24
  And even if you work with those, right? So it's practitioner-centered,
• 25:27
  it's policy-centered, right? And so the different areas.
• 25:32
  So that's the first one, resources, right?
• 25:35
  Like resources, that's for, you know, parents, for students,
• 25:38
  for, like, it's all there.
• 25:40
  But, you know, it has gotten better and it's not at the same time,
• 25:44
  just with everything, right?
• 25:46
  Another thing I'm working on right now is a guide for the K-12 space.
• 25:51
  So high school counselors, high school educators to support undocumented students,
• 25:55
  because to your point, actually, in 2025, no high school student who's graduating will have DACA, right?
• 26:04
  Because the program is dwindling. It's ongoing legal battles to the program right now.
• 26:09
  And so folks need to know how to advise these students, right?
• 26:14
  And one of the most heartbreaking things with all of the interviews I did for my research was that,
• 26:20
  the breakdown happened at the high school level. So once folks decided to share
• 26:25
  their status to a high school counselor or a college counselor.
• 26:29
  The direction they went was dictated on who was their counselor or the person
• 26:35
  that they shared that with.
• 26:37
  Wow. And I remember one story, my heart broke so much because we were the same
• 26:41
  age. We were 30, 30 years old.
• 26:43
  And I'm not 30 right now, but we were 30 at the, at 32.
• 26:47
  Just thinking that folks would be like, how old is she?
• 26:50
  But we were 30 and we had such different journeys because when she told her
• 26:56
  high school counselor, he told her, you can't go to college because you're undocumented.
• 27:01
  So she graduated high school and had to work under the, you know,
• 27:04
  under the table jobs and couldn't go to school for a while.
• 27:08
  Then finally was able to go to community college. Then she heard about that.
• 27:12
  And so just a complete different trajectory.
• 27:15
  And I thought to myself, oh, my gosh, that could have been me.
• 27:18
  I could have been that student who was highly capable, you know,
• 27:23
  and my counselor could have said, you can't go.
• 27:25
  And I would have believed them because they're educators.
• 27:29
  We're supposed to trust them, right? They're the person we're supposed to listen to.
• 27:33
  And so one of the things I really wanted to do was make sure there's a guide
• 27:38
  that's accessible for folks who are working with this population to be able
• 27:42
  to really give them the information that they need.
• 27:45
  So that I'm working on that right
• 27:47
  now. That's going to be released in September of this year, actually.
• 27:50
  And folks can find that on the higher ed immigration portal as well.
• 27:53
  But yeah, so it's gotten better. And, you know, still it's not because of policies
• 27:59
  and the change in landscape and all and all of that always affects,
• 28:04
  you know, whether we continue to go forward or we take a few steps back.
• 28:09
  I'm coming away from this conversation with the realization that we have so much more work to do.
• 28:14
  And I'm so grateful for you and the work that you're leading and the change that you're creating.
• 28:20
  Let's talk about your podcast. I think you have a podcast or you're launching
• 28:24
  a podcast called Intersections.
• 28:26
  What's that about and what are you hoping to accomplish?
• 28:29
  Yeah, thank you. Yes, I am launching a podcast, Intersections.
• 28:34
  And, you know, part of it was started, you know, part of the research that I
• 28:39
  did centers intersectionality, right? Being black, being immigrant and all of that.
• 28:43
  But also, I realized that one, you
• 28:46
  know, we can change the narrative with storytelling through storytelling.
• 28:51
  And there are a lot of different outlets, you know, you could do it podcast,
• 28:54
  you can write, you could do research, documentaries, whatever.
• 28:57
  But I think podcasting is a new outlet for folks to be able to learn more about
• 29:03
  certain topics and intersections will be focused on diverse storytelling.
• 29:07
  And so, you know, similar to this format, just talking to someone who's impacted
• 29:11
  what what is their story, but making sure that we're intentional about the different
• 29:15
  types of stories we're sharing.
• 29:16
  And then the second piece of it is talking to experts on certain issues and
• 29:21
  dispelling those myths around immigration, right, that we spew that are sometimes so wrong.
• 29:28
  And that's the message that dominates the airwaves.
• 29:31
  And so really dispelling those myths and also making sure the storytelling is
• 29:35
  diverse. And I just think the space needs conversations like the ones that I want to have.
• 29:42
  But also beyond that, I think the space needs someone like me also having these conversations, right?
• 29:49
  Because I'm so close to it, but also I want to have a mission to continue to
• 29:55
  amplify the marginalized within the marginalized. So it's launching in January, 2025.
• 30:01
  It's not launched yet. We're working on it, all of that right now,
• 30:03
  but I'm excited about it. And so, yeah.
• 30:06
  That's super exciting. I can't wait. I will definitely be listening and watching
• 30:10
  if it's available for watching. And yeah, absolutely.
• 30:14
  You know, if we don't see our stories, if we don't see the conversations that
• 30:18
  we want to be having, sometimes we have to create it ourselves,
• 30:22
  right? So wish you all the best of luck with that.
• 30:24
  Where can people learn more about you and your work? Are you on Instagram? Do you have a website?
• 30:30
  Where can people buy your book? Again, the name of your book is Amplifying Black
• 30:35
  Undocumented Student Voices in Higher Education. Where can people learn more?
• 30:39
  Yeah. So the book, folks can get it anywhere they get books.
• 30:43
  Amazon, you know, anywhere you get books. Also, the publisher's site,
• 30:48
  Rutledge, you can get it there as well. Okay.
• 30:50
  And I mentioned earlier, I'm the director of the Higher Ed Immigration Portal
• 30:54
  at the President's Alliance.
• 30:56
  So if you go on their website, you can- I'm sorry. Can you talk about that?
• 30:59
  What is the President's Alliance?
• 31:01
  Yeah, yeah. So the President's Alliance nonprofit organization of over 500 college
• 31:06
  presidents and chancellors.
• 31:08
  And we really work to influence policy at the federal, state,
• 31:11
  and at the collegiate level as it relates to undocumented students,
• 31:15
  refugee students, and immigrant origin students.
• 31:17
  So I oversee the resources, the portal, the Hired Immigration Portal,
• 31:21
  which is an initiative of the
• 31:23
  alliance to support those who are working on behalf of those populations.
• 31:27
  So if you go there, you'll find me and some of the work that I'm doing in my research,
• 31:33
  you know, type in black undocumented research on Google and I'm pretty sure
• 31:37
  I'll pop up, which is unfortunate that no, I'll pop up. but yes.
• 31:43
  And so, yeah, and I'm on Instagram at embracing undocumented.
• 31:47
  That's my Instagram. I'm also, I also have an online platform called embracing
• 31:51
  undocumented and folks can just type in embracing undocumented.com and you'll see it.
• 31:56
  And, and there you'll learn about some of the engagements that I do,
• 32:00
  some of the speaking engagements, workshops that I do to dispel some of these
• 32:04
  myths around immigration and also to continue to amplify black voices.
• 32:07
  But yeah, So those are some of the ways you can find me.
• 32:11
  Embracing undocumented. Thank you. I can't wait to see more and hear more of your work.
• 32:16
  Thank you so much. And thank you for spending time with us today.
• 32:19
  Yeah, no, thanks. Thanks for having me.
• 32:22
  I want to thank our listeners for spending time with us. For more immigration
• 32:25
  truths, visit us at nilk.org and freedomtothrive.com.
• 32:29
  And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
• 32:33
  I look forward to continuing this conversation with all of you.