My name is Alejandro (Alex) and I am undocu-queer. I am coming out of the shadows to make a statement. I am taking a stand to build a support of my gente. Watch my video.
SAN BERNARDINO – Several protesters were arrested after the street in front of the Department of Homeland Security’s field office was blocked during an immigration protest, police said. And by declaring they were in the country illegally, the protesters put themselves squarely in the path of policies that check the immigration status of people arrested for other crimes and enable their deportation.
A group of about 35 protesters said they were tired of hiding the fact that their parents illegally brought them to the country as children, saying they consider themselves Americans.
“No papers, no fear – immigrants are marching here,” they chanted, circling several seated illegal immigrants in the middle of Rialto Avenue.
According to protest organizers, 10 of the 12 people they said were arrested could face deportation and two were U.S. citizens.
“We recognize that our nation’s broken immigration system requires serious solutions, and we fully support comprehensive immigration reform efforts. While we continue to work with Congress to enact reform, ICE remains committed to sensible, effective immigration enforcement that focuses first on convicted criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety.”
About the author: Alejandro View all posts by Alejandro
Alex Aldana is queer undocumented immigrant rights activist that works as a national/community organizer with a vibrant and very raw/uncensored opinion in the myriad of intersectionalities that impact the Immigrant Youth Movement (DREAMers) and brings strategy and direct action to create a new dialogue & truly bring social justice and equality within the LGBTQ/Immigrant movement.
Alex migrated from Guadalajara,Mexico to the United States when he was 16 in 2003 to the beautiful dunes of the Coachella Valley. Greaduated from La Quinta high School in 2005 and not having the stability most middle families have, and experiencing dometic violence in the household,he went on with life and decided to support his mother and sister to work in the farm fields picking grapes and embracing the soil and the culture of the farm worker, construction work, and other opportunities that would help them survive.
Alex’s only higher education has been deep-rooted by and for the community: Impacted by the scarce resources in the Coachella valley, he decided to get involved as health advocate for Latino LGBTQ youth, doing HIV/AIDS prevention, education and treatment through social justice, advocacy and empowerment to immigrant communities impacted and oppressed in Southern California.
Alex worked as an HIV Counselor, Case Manager and Queer mentor with Bienestar Human Services providing services to Latino LGBTQ youth in Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino County since 2007. At a local, state and national level , he has contributed with conferences and rallies addressing LGBTQ issues in school districts (Queer Youth Advocacy Day 2008) , marriage equality (Prop 8 campaign), Immigrant rights (May Day March 2010 Queer youth contingent) and representing HIV services for undocumented immigrants at The United States Conference on AIDS in 2011.His devoted contribution at a local level in his community was to create the first lgbtq latino group in the Coachella Valley in 2011.
Aldana’s liberation by “Coming out of the shadows” was followed by an action in San Bernardino, CA in 2012 along with the Immigrant Youth Coalition, Where he was arrested protesting against “secure communities/287g” outside of city hall to empower immigrant communities that live in fear because such laws.
After coming out publicly with his immigration status he joined the Campaign for an American DREAM, a walking across the country from San Francisco to DC where 5 undocumented students empowered communitites & pushed to stop the massive deportations of DREAM act elegible youth and families President Obama executed and separated in his term. He also organized the hunger strike and occupation at the Obama for America office in Denver,CO on June of the same year, asking for an executive order which replicated across the country and put pressure to issue the Deffered Action for Childhood arrivals a week after the mobilization.
Recent work in Albuquerque, NM included organizing the first national encuentro for The Association of Joteria,Arts,Activism and Scholarship (AJAAS) mobilizing undocumented queer youth from the border states of California, Arizona, and Texas.
He will continue to address human rights violations and justice with the intersections of his work on HIV prevention, LGBTQ issues, Education, and Immigration along with radical activist groups that cannot and will no longer remain dormant in the shadows.
Mexicano al Grito
February 4, 2012 at 9:16 am - Reply
Alejandro I have received much backlash from my latino friends on the topic that you so are so passionate about and you call “the dreamers”, I have personally been “unfriended” “deleted” “accosted” for sharing my views about this whole ‘dreamers” dream. We may have more in common than you realize however I have to ask if you want to give back to “your community” as you describe, why wouldn’t you give back to your community? Your community the one that you left when you were a child. Your homeland, your place of birth. Is it fair to say that those people need you more? That there is more need for people with degrees? I ask this also of my parents, Why are they here? If the goal is to make a better life for one self I wonder what that definition of is ” a better life” I wonder why these “dreamers” after acquiring their education don’t go back and make a better MEXICO. In California and the places that you describe there are a gaggle of queers and people who are already willing to do the work so much so that these groups often become “clickee” and “polarizing” to new recruits.
I am of the 187 crowd, that was the hot topic in my youth, and boy was I active I was a student at a predominantly Jewish high school in Orange County a blue ribbon school, Ive prosted, Ive been up by the police, Ive done the one man mission myself and realized that for me, If I wanted to be serious about “my people” I would have to go back to where I came from and make that a better place, I owe it to them, it is the place where my core comes from, the place that has given my my customs. So the question is an honest one? What makes you think that the work you do is needed in the California and not your hometown? After you have received an almost free to low cost education isn’t it only fair to go back to where you come from and teach them all that you have learned so they can have an opportunity of a free education and the choice to participate in civil disobedience.
I have to tell you that MEXICO needs its citizens with degrees and an open mind, you are MEXICAN take your cause to your little town, and start a revolution, start Bienestar there. So really honestly who are “your gente” and what is your point?
My friends from Mexico who live there and have careers mostly in medicine ask the same questions of me, why aren’t these people going back to their communities and helping out. In particular my friend Samuel who has two MDs they practiced in Mexico City. Both were very poor, for his father it was a priest who fought tooth and nail to get him the money that he needed to continue his education for his mother yes his mother is also and MD she did what she had to do, working 24/7 and her mother and her father, really working 24/7 ALL their money went towards her education ALL of it, she earned her education. They never left Mexico, however you know what they did they went back to that little town and treated as many people as they could. She became an inspiration to her sisters to all the women in the little ueblito. Last summer when she came to visit and May 1st march was going on, she shook her head and asked me “de que raza hablan?”
I hope that perhaps you can demistify this “dreamer” idea. All the best to you.
I ask of you to look at him (and all the other people in the similar situation) as a human being and not as someone born in a country where he has not lived in for his formative years. Wherever he belongs in is not his country of origin, as can be clearly seen. If he feels happy in the U.S. he will stay there, and this goes for many other people. If they feel American, and have not done anything wrong, why should they be asked to go back and help a country that is foreign to them?
Furthermore, it was not his, or many of these kids’, decision to come here in the first place to study and ‘go back’ to better their country of origin. Said country is most often quite foreign to them.
You use the example of your friends, yet it is important to note that they NEVER left Mexico. They stayed there and decided to help those in need because that is their home.
I’m of course not saying do not help Mexico, or any other country in a bad state (which are many). I am saying that you should not look at these people as being from this or that country but as human beings looking for a place they can call home without being told their way of living is unlawful and wrong.
Alejandro I have received much backlash from my latino friends on the topic that you so are so passionate about and you call “the dreamers”, I have personally been “unfriended” “deleted” “accosted” for sharing my views about this whole ‘dreamers” dream. We may have more in common than you realize however I have to ask if you want to give back to “your community” as you describe, why wouldn’t you give back to your community? Your community the one that you left when you were a child. Your homeland, your place of birth. Is it fair to say that those people need you more? That there is more need for people with degrees? I ask this also of my parents, Why are they here? If the goal is to make a better life for one self I wonder what that definition of is ” a better life” I wonder why these “dreamers” after acquiring their education don’t go back and make a better MEXICO. In California and the places that you describe there are a gaggle of queers and people who are already willing to do the work so much so that these groups often become “clickee” and “polarizing” to new recruits.
I am of the 187 crowd, that was the hot topic in my youth, and boy was I active I was a student at a predominantly Jewish high school in Orange County a blue ribbon school, Ive prosted, Ive been up by the police, Ive done the one man mission myself and realized that for me, If I wanted to be serious about “my people” I would have to go back to where I came from and make that a better place, I owe it to them, it is the place where my core comes from, the place that has given my my customs. So the question is an honest one? What makes you think that the work you do is needed in the California and not your hometown? After you have received an almost free to low cost education isn’t it only fair to go back to where you come from and teach them all that you have learned so they can have an opportunity of a free education and the choice to participate in civil disobedience.
I have to tell you that MEXICO needs its citizens with degrees and an open mind, you are MEXICAN take your cause to your little town, and start a revolution, start Bienestar there. So really honestly who are “your gente” and what is your point?
My friends from Mexico who live there and have careers mostly in medicine ask the same questions of me, why aren’t these people going back to their communities and helping out. In particular my friend Samuel who has two MDs they practiced in Mexico City. Both were very poor, for his father it was a priest who fought tooth and nail to get him the money that he needed to continue his education for his mother yes his mother is also and MD she did what she had to do, working 24/7 and her mother and her father, really working 24/7 ALL their money went towards her education ALL of it, she earned her education. They never left Mexico, however you know what they did they went back to that little town and treated as many people as they could. She became an inspiration to her sisters to all the women in the little ueblito. Last summer when she came to visit and May 1st march was going on, she shook her head and asked me “de que raza hablan?”
I hope that perhaps you can demistify this “dreamer” idea. All the best to you.
I ask of you to look at him (and all the other people in the similar situation) as a human being and not as someone born in a country where he has not lived in for his formative years. Wherever he belongs in is not his country of origin, as can be clearly seen. If he feels happy in the U.S. he will stay there, and this goes for many other people. If they feel American, and have not done anything wrong, why should they be asked to go back and help a country that is foreign to them?
Furthermore, it was not his, or many of these kids’, decision to come here in the first place to study and ‘go back’ to better their country of origin. Said country is most often quite foreign to them.
You use the example of your friends, yet it is important to note that they NEVER left Mexico. They stayed there and decided to help those in need because that is their home.
I’m of course not saying do not help Mexico, or any other country in a bad state (which are many). I am saying that you should not look at these people as being from this or that country but as human beings looking for a place they can call home without being told their way of living is unlawful and wrong.