Immigration reform advocacy group FWD.us has released a new app, Push4Reform, that will help people who care about changes in America’s immigration policy to connect with their representatives and make their voices heard. Entrepreneur and technology guru Joe Green founded FWD.us using his connections to Silicon Valley honchos–including his college buddy Mark Zuckerberg–to press for immigration reform, an issue Green has been passionate about since he was in high school.
In November, Green, Zuckerberg, Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn and FWD.us sponsored a hackathon for undocumented immigrants whose parents brought them to the U.S. as children to come up with ideas about immigration reform. Push4Reform is one of the first results, the winner of the hackathon’s “best advocacy” prize.
Users of the app can enter their zip code, learn about the immigration positions of their senators and representatives—both how they’ve voted and public statements they’ve made about the issue—and find out how to contact them.
The three developers behind Push4Reform, Luis Aguilar, Justino Mora, and Kent Tam, have a personal stake in the outcome of immigration reform. Aguilar came to U.S. from Mexico when he was nine and taught himself computer programming, but was forced to drop out of community college because as an undocumented immigrant, he was required to pay high out-of-state tuition rates. Mora, who arrived in the US at age 11, is a student in computer science at UCLA, and Tam studied at UCLA. He’s been an undocumented immigrant since his family brought him here from Hong Kong when he was nine. According to Pando.com, Tam recently received a work permit that will allow him to apply to jobs with tech companies, and hopefully the Push4Reform app will make such a happy ending possible for other immigrants.
MORE: When Immigration Reform Got Stuck in Washington, This Entrepreneur Stepped Up
Tag: immigrants
This Woman Is Inspiring the Next Generation of Female Engineers
When Mini Balachandran immigrated to the U.S. from India as a young woman, she struggled to learn English. But math and science were languages she always understood. Her father, a mechanical engineer, had taught her how to fix broken items around the house, which sparked her interest in engineering. Now Balachandran is the Production Lead for Naval Air Systems Command Manufacturing and Quality Division in Maryland, and in charge of media outreach for a program called STEM-ing that encourages girls to pursue science and engineering careers. The acronym stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, Inspiring the Next Generation, and that’s exactly what it’s doing. A group of 13 female scientists and engineers volunteer their time to teach a series of workshops for local girls and visit schools. This year’s event will bring in 140 girls in sixth through eighth grades who can choose to take classes on everything from DNA and veterinary medicine to the science of ship wrecks.
MORE: This Nonprofit Is Teaching Immigrants Much More Than Just Language
Think You Can’t Afford To Give? These Inspirational Immigrants Will Change Your Mind
Sometimes people with the least to give are the most generous. In Pittsburgh, a group of about 90 former refugees banded together over the holidays to donate hundreds of necessities for new refugees. The group — most of whom had arrived in the U.S. over the last several years from Turkey, Bhutan, South Sudan and Thailand — are all students participating in the Greater Pittsburgh Literary Council’s English language classes. They first started giving back about three years ago, when their program services manager, Many Ly, saw a poster seeking donations for military families and decided to implement the idea with the ESL students. Ly thought that sort of cause would teach the students to help others the way they’d been helped when they first arrived in America.The donations were small at first: pens and pencils, a handful of peanuts and a $1 bill. But after the first year of giving, the ESL instructors began teaching their students about poverty in America. They now give caches of household goods, toys and clothes. Tulasha Rimal, 45, who came to the U.S. from Bhutan four years ago, told Stephanie Hacke of Trib Total Media, “I came to the United States. It’s home now. It’s important to help others. … I understand now. Now I help new people.”
This Non-Profit Is Teaching Immigrants Much More Than Just Language
The Burmese Immigration Project is a nonprofit organization in Milwaukee that helps new arrivals from Myanmar learn English and settle in to their new lives. As volunteer coordinator Becca Schulz explains in this video, people fleeing ethnic conflict in Burma often end up in places they’d never imagined—like Wisconsin. The 35 volunteers in the Burmese Immigration Project use English immersion to teach immigrants the language, and provide kids with tutors twice a week to help with homework. Another part of their mission is introducing the kids to American culture—so the Burmese Immigration Project takes the kids to Brewers games and the zoo, and throws parties for their families to experience Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and Halloween.
We Can Save Some of America’s Most Vulnerable Women from Violence
How can we reduce violence against women? According to George Washington University’s Global Women’s Institute, one crucial solution is currently stalled in Congress: immigration reform. The study notes that giving undocumented refugees and immigrants a visa or a path to citizenship will help protect them from exploitation by employers and partners. Legal status would give these vulnerable women the means — and the courage — to stand up for their rights, both at work and at home, and to seek health and social services without the threat of deportation.
Women account for more than half of all foreign-born people in the U.S. and 48% of refugees, and yet only 27% of work visas issued in the U.S. go to women. GWI’s study suggests that if comprehensive immigration reform were passed, it could significantly reduce the overall level of violence against women in America.
“Every day that we delay action on reform that reflects the needs and contributions of immigrant women, our country is paying a terrible price,” said Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of We Belong Together, a campaign to mobilize women’s support of immigration reform that would prioritize women. “We are tearing families apart, missing out on the talents of millions of dedicated women workers and putting women’s lives in jeopardy.” Now it’s up to the politicians in Washington to act.
When Immigration Reform Got Stuck in Washington, This Entrepreneur Stepped Up
Tech entrepreneur Joe Green was Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard roommate and Facebook’s sixth user, but he doesn’t share the political disinterest of some of his Silicon Valley colleagues. Having attended the mostly minority Santa Monica High School where he had a lot of undocumented friends, Green ran for the Santa Monica School Board at age 17. He won on a platform promising a living wage for service industry workers, many of whom were immigrants. In college, he studied community organizing with Marshall Ganz, who’d once worked with Cesar Chavez, and discovered parallels between community organizing and social networking. “Community organizing is all about friendships. And the Internet is all about relationships,” Green recently told Elizabeth Lorente of Fox Latino. “I ended up being someone who cares a lot about politics who also worked in tech.”
A co-founder of the company Causes, which uses social media to spur funding for nonprofits, and NationBuilder, which encourages political organizing, Green is now pressing for immigration reform through his political advocacy group FWD.us. He even got his old buddy Zuckerberg to help fund it. The group generates political support for immigration reform, on both sides of the aisle, and also works with immigrants directly. Recently FWD.us sponsored a hackathon for 20 young undocumented programmers, and afterward continued to work with the contest participants.
As Green told Fox Latino, he sees immigration as quintessentially American: “There’s a lot of stuff that America is not the best at, but when you travel around the world you see that America is pro-immigrant. … We are better than almost anybody else at welcoming people from around the world.”
A New Weapon in the Immigration Wars: Hospitality
Social justice is programmed into David Lubell’s hard drive. The grandson of Jewish immigrants, he grew up with a keen appreciation of America’s open-door policy toward people from foreign lands, and learned that charity wasn’t the only way to help the nation’s newest arrivals. His sensitivities deepened when he began volunteering at a West Philadelphia youth shelter—when he was still in 7th grade. He studied social justice in college—and, after graduation, traveled to Ecuador to learn Spanish, a skill he figured he’d need to continue along his chosen career path.
“In Ecuador I was welcomed with open arms by my host family and the community where I taught,” he remembers. When he later moved to Tennessee, however, it was a different story. “When I arrived in Memphis after Ecuador, the reception Latino immigrants were receiving was anything but welcoming,” says Lubell. “This disturbed me greatly. And as I began organizing in the Latino community in Memphis, this was something I deeply wanted to change.” Continue reading “A New Weapon in the Immigration Wars: Hospitality”
Kanye West Probably Won’t Answer This Young Woman’s Letter, But You Can
Girls Write Now provides mentorship and college prep to aspiring writers in New York City. The nonprofit specializes in helping young women who especially need a boost—almost 70 percent of the girls it serves live below the poverty line, and 20 percent are immigrants. Girls Write Now matches girls with professional writers who help them put together a portfolio, and publish their work. Girls Write Now is seeking donations to support its expanded mission–it now makes therapists available to all participants, and as Dani Green’s moving poem demonstrates, they can use them. “Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I write a letter to rapper Kanye West,” Green explains. She speaks movingly about wanting to climb out of the poverty that has gripped her family. She wants to escape “this place where dead dreams lurk in the footprints of everyone you’re close to.” With the help of Girls Write Now, she’ll have a more promising future.
What These Kids Do For Their Parents Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity
Kids of first-generation immigrants often find themselves playing the role of translator for parents trying to navigate the English language. The Literacy Council of Montgomery County in Maryland decided to encourage those kids’ roles as important teachers for their parents by offering multi-generational English classes for immigrants. The classes are offered once-a-week at several schools, and encourage parents and children to work together on literacy skills, especially those that are useful to parents on a day-to-day basis, such as making budgets and reading supermarket signs—though the kids might be hesitant to teach their parents to read report cards too closely.