To all Dreamers!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm reposting this here...

You know I think this is a great and powerful forum I have talked with dreamers who live in all parts of the country from Illinois, to Florida, to Texas, to California and New York and I’m sure all of us have great skills and talent's.

Thanks to the power of this forum and the internet we have a chance to apply our skills, and knowledge together to create something new, something powerful and something that will help build the momentum that will finally help the Dream Act pass.

There are dreamers already doing what they can for the movement. There has been Pedro from California who told his entire university he was undocumented, Lucy Martinez who lasted the longest in the Dream hunger strike in Taxes, and Isabel Castillo from Virginia who just received an honorary Ph.D for her work on the Dream Act.

Visualize what can be done if a coordination of a new branch movement of dreamers from across the country can be establish.

Guys it’s time to step up!!! As I saw in a recent commercial the cost of freedom is always high and of course it’s never free.

It's time to put all things aside and hold sacrifices like these dreamers have done for the movement…

I for one am prepared to sacrifice my self so that other dreamers and my brother have a chance at the Dream.

One thing we can do now is find out where we stand.

1. What state are you from?

2. What skills or talents do you have?

3. A suggestion on how we can build movement for the Dream Act.

Marketing, Public Relations and Advertising including direct mail Is something I know. I know webdesign (including social networks) and I’m also very ok when it comes to public speaking.

My suggestion would be to bring dreamers together via this website and work together to coordinate and achieve movements both online and across the country. I would like to see a Dream Fund establish where we can donate money to hire lawyers and PR firms. (I’ve personally have anonymously donated money to this forum, because I know some old lady somewhere is donating money to websites like numbers usa.)

I would like to get in contact with some dreamers who hang around Senator Dick Durban and see if he would set up this fund.

In all honesty I know dreamers who have spend hours and days calling, emailing, and faxing Senators and that can’t be our only approach guys. We need more.

I know ericakim212 is ready for a fight..The question here is anybody else also willing to step up and do more???

I agree wholeheartedly. I think we should include the human argument for our cause as well. For instance, many of us are in our 20's and getting older each year. All these years we have had our parents and relatives taking care of us but now it is our turn to provide for our families. How are we to do this without being able to get jobs? I wouldn't be surprised if many undocumented families are having problems with basic needs. Again...this is about providing for our families...without documentation you can't obtain jobs or even any government assistance.

2Face it seems to me that nobody on here wants to work together and it's sad that we all complain but yet are unwilling to sacrifice or do something..

I can't do it alone I need help.

I think this is just a case of everyone being down from the lack of inaction on immigration. I may seem very optimistic on here but I'm with everyone else as well. The morale is at an all time low I suppose. What is the magic potion that will get DA through? We've definitely done all that you said in your original post but clearly nobody is hearing at the other end. One has to be very naive to think Obama's El Paso speech had no political motives behind it.

Well to serve as motivation you have to understand that this is also are chance to get into the history books. I loved learning about the individuals who did so much during the civil rights movements.. Including Rosa Parks..

There are already dreamers that will be remembered forever..

Maybe in the upcoming month we will all get the motivation we need..

I'm in. I've posted about this before but I'm looking for compelling stories about success stories/struggles of DREAMERS. I am doing this as part of an undergraduate research project. Anyone willing to tell me their story please message me. I am looking to publicate it eventually. Btw, all identities will be anonymus. Thanks!

I agree with this, and already trying to do something about it. In the past two months I have joined the Immigrant Youth Justice League in Chicago, been in contact with members of ICIRR and another pro-immigrant organization, coordinating with my universities undergraduate admissions office in order to see what I can do in my state which is not really pro-immigration (I attend a private university in Illinois that I have learned is very much committed to going beyond to help dreamers but I am from the state of Florida). I am also working with the counseling services, and one of the psychologists will be donating her time and resources to helping IYJL and members of the university as well as bringing information to the university through workshops. I found a member from ICIRR (Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Right) who wants to give an informational presentation on my campus. I have already set up a meeting with a counselor from my high school to inform her about the options and hopefully I will get in contact with dreamers that are active in Florida to see what we can do to the end of ensuring people understand that there are options in the national level for higher education. And all throughout I have given my information if they know anyone that is a dreamer and wants to learn or may not know enough about how to navigate the system to contact me personally and I may refer them anywhere.

I have also coordinated my university to be present in a webcast that was aimed at high school teachers and counselors only organized by United We Dream, and it seems like I will be an elected candidate in an organization within my university which will get some money with the intent of providing textbooks to dozens of dreamers that are coming in next semester alone.

And you know what, all of this is exciting stuff, the more active you become the easier it becomes that if the unforeseeable event does take place where you are facing the challenge of deportation you could have a large community from all places that will petition and actually have a good amount of material to fight for a deferred action to your deportation.

As to how we can improve the dream act, well there have been discussion in trying to change the term people use from illegal immigrant to undocumented immigrant and some are trying to change the term to dreamer, however, I feel that those terms are still dehumanizing in nature. It is a common issue that is observed through industrial organizational psychology where it easy for someone to say to fire 30 carpenters or hire 20 engineers, in this case the term carpenter or engineer dehumanizes the individual it represents and it would be much harder to say fire John.

I think a good strategy is to come out with more stories of exceptional dreamers that will become the face of the DREAM Act, more and many dreamers who are going through with higher education, who are the most likely members of society that would be able to contribute greatly to this nation through their exceptional skills, and its why I am aiming dreamers that could go to college to apply, and planning to work with IYJL and my university to target dreamers as early as middle school to let them know that it is possible to get higher levels of education so that they may be encouraged to graduate and my university is taking it a step further in how they visualize this but they would like to have people in this predicament helping dreamers that are still in secondary ensure that they have access to information, resources and help with someone that they can relate to, and I think that is a pretty good option.

There are indeed many dreamers within here that are exceptional in their own ways, who have amazed considerable amount of knowledge regarding the immigration issue, who are far more experienced than even a lot of the counselors or psychologists on this issue, and that is something else to target, sources where dreamers might reach out to first to ensure that there is a way that they could get their questions answered and ensure the mitigation of their worries or concerns, as well as ensuring counselors, teachers and anyone that is likely to become a source of first contact knows where they can go for more information.

I don't think that most americans are against the DREAM Act, polls time and time again show that, but I think many that are against the DREAM Act are only against it because the information that they are getting is incorrect, or they are attributing dreamers to a very biased look of an individual that simply jumped the border to take advantage of this country and not work. I am committed to this country, I am a dreamer and I will continue on giving my time to ensuring resources are available not just for dreamers for the purpose of the DREAM Act, but as a nerd in the renewable energy field I have been elected to a position in my university's renewable energy organization and will be giving presentations in public schools of Chicago on sustainability on my own free time.

Look being undocumented is not an all encompassing issue, we can still function in society. Yes, there are many challenges that we must overcome, challenges that the average person does not have to worry about or overcome, but its not impossible. I have been able to complete internships in labs while in high school of which I am pretty certain there is no way in hell I could have been able to intern in because of the very high technology involved which is not available other countries, I will be working on projects next semester tackling technology that will ultimately be a contribution to the mass of knowledge on the field, we can still do a lot if we are willing to get there, if we don't allow immigration to be the factor that define us, and in the end, it will only make our stories that much stronger.

It sounds like you guys are doing so much. It's great to know we have so much talent on our side. I look forward to what we can accomplish..

I am but a drop in a bucket of talent, I feel like a lazy bum compared to some of the people I have seen within IYJL, they seem normal like everyone else and then bam, I receive an e-mail and apparently they are involved in some very interesting outreach project involving senators or they are involved in drafting some of the bills that may eventually become laws and moving entire groups of people. I have just become a member but seeing what they do only motivates me to do much more, so certainly, if you have the ability to get in contact with such organizations within your area, and there is a map on this website, try and do so, and see what you can do to help. You are certainly not alone, there are supposed to be something like a million dreamers out there, tens of thousands that graduate from high school every year who have grown in this culture and know this culture rather well. (at the very least I know this culture far better than I know the country where I was born, as I have mentioned many times, I cannot even understand my cousins when they speak, and its funny and stuff, but yeah... not the culture I identify with)