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(Applause)
>> SONIA: I am my mother's daughter. I am the reason she crossed the border.
Inhaling and exhaling. She walked through the desert.
She was almost ***.
I am my father's memories of parents left behind.
My eyes and freckles collect dots of childhood memories he does not want to forget.
I am the migration no one speaks about.
I am not found on textbooks or in academia. There's no sections for me in the library.
I am the consequences of U.S. foreign policy, The war on women, economic treaties, colonization, and capitalism.
I am everything that they leave out of textbooks.
I am not your model minority, I'm not your token dreamer.
I am not your burden and I will not carry the burden of teaching you why I need my space.
Why it is not okay to say we are all undocumented. I am the migration that no one speaks about.
I am the neighborhood that you gentrify. I am Harlem, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens.
I am not your beautification experiment. I will not believe your urban renewal.
I am homes and history. I am vaginas, *** that are not spoken
about in immigration policies. I am the migration that no one speaks about.
I am the migration not allowed to speak for itself.
I am undocumented. But I am not what you imagine.
I am not lines you draw, borders you create. I cannot be compartmentalized into labels, birth from bills.
I live and breathe in forms you can never understand.
I am so sacred I roam in spaces you can't even imagine.
And when you see me, you will remember.
I am undocumented. I am found on power fists.
I am undocumented. I am found on power fists.
Hello, everybody.
(Applause)
>> SONIA: My name is Sonia Guinansaca. I am a board member of the New York State Youth Leadership Council.
The first and only undocumented, membership-led organization in New York.
I'm here to remind everybody that when we talk about reproductive justice, that when
we talk about social justice, that we are also talking about immigration, that we're
talking about detention centers, that we're talking about deportations, the separations
of families, the war on immigrant women. I think that we are at a critical point where
the discussions about comprehensive immigration reform is not enough.
We should be looking beyond comprehensive immigration reform, beyond bills, the recognizing
of communities, of undocumented immigrant communities that are right now organizing.
That immigrant communities, that the immigrant rights movement is led by undocumented immigrants.
And that's the key point, to acknowledge the resistance, the constant struggle, and that
We are undocumented, unafraid, and unapologetic.
(Applause)
>> SONIA: I wanted to quickly share my story.
When I graduated from high school from Frederick Douglass Academy, a high school in Harlem,
my guidance counselor told me that I wouldn't be able to go to college because I was "illegal."
I am now here standing in front of you as a Hunter College student.
(Applause)
>> SONIA: My double majors are Africana, Puerto Rican, Latino studies and women's and gender studies.
(Cheering)
But I am also conscious about the undocumented youth that are not able to graduate from high school,
that are stopped and frisked, that are put in prisons, that are detained, are separated from their families.
I am conscious of the constant struggle of people of color, of brown bodies, being policed in our communities.
And so before you leave, or when you enter workshops, that you're constantly thinking about that, about immigrant bodies.
By a raise of hands, how many of you are undocumented in this room?
(Pause)
Please give them a round of applause.
(Applause)
>> SONIA: I think as we continue to go and talk about reproductive justice and social justice,
That we are conscious about including undocumented voices here and that we continue
to make space for undocumented people to be here and present and represent themselves, not you advocating for them.
They can do that on their own.
So thank you everybody for your time.