Sawyer Seminar Spotlight Ep 4 - Immigration (im)mobility

Kiss: [00:00:00] Hey,

Damon: [00:00:06] Hello,

Kiss: [00:00:07] this is AirGo

Damon: [00:00:08] Welcome, welcome in.

Kiss: [00:00:10] Come, come on in

I'm Kiss.

Damon: [00:00:12] I am Damon.

Kiss: [00:00:13] And what we do here is reshape the culture of our city and beyond for the more equitable and creative.

Damon: [00:00:20] We are so excited to come back with another edition of the Sawyer Seminar, Radical Care, Real Alternatives brought to you by UIC's Social Justice Initiative.

Kiss: [00:00:31] This episode features a conversation between Amalia Pajares and Tania Unzueta about immigration and immobility. It was a fascinating, deep dive into Tania's experience as an advocate and organizer for undocumented rights here in the United States, going all the way back to her days as a teen fighting for the Dream Act.

And she got to share all that in conversation with one of her former professors, the wonderful Amalia Pajares, who is the Associate Chancellor and Vice Provost for Diversity, as well as a professor of Political Science and Latin American and Latino studies at UIC.

Damon: [00:01:08] So this was a great example of the type of learning and unpacking we can do in the seminar space and seeing some of the relationship between teacher and student, and, you know, this reciprocal knowledge was really a treat.

So we hope you enjoy this next edition of the Sawyer Seminar.

Kiss: [00:01:25] Here we go,

[Transition Music]: [00:01:27] like I'm doing a seminar, I'm doing a seminar. I'm doing a seminar. .

Amalia Pajares: [00:01:33] Welcome to the Sawyer Seminar for Radical Care, Real Alternatives. I am Amalia Pajares, here with Tanya Unzueta from Mijente. Welcome, Tanya.

Tania Unzueta: [00:01:46] Hi, Amalia.

Amalia Pajares: [00:01:47] I'm so excited to have this opportunity to chat with you.

We have a history, a great history. Um, I was your advisor when you wrote your thesis. And I knew you from before from all of the immigrant rights activism, you and your family were working on. And, um, but I haven't seen you for a while and we haven't had the opportunity to talk for a while. So I was hoping this conversation would be a way to kind of think a little bit and reflect a little bit on the past and your journey.

And then, um, talk more about also this present moment. I wanted to start with --a long time ago, you and I talked about the fact that as an undocumented immigrant ,young, very young immigrant, you had been involved with, um, the initial efforts to pass the Dream Act in the early 2000s. And that you were in fact scheduled to advocate for the Dream Act in Washington, DC, and then 9-11 happened. And that interrupted that. And recently we had the 20th anniversary of sort of the Dream Act proposal from its first time it was proposed, and I was wondering if you could reflect on that and think about what today's Tania thinking about this anniversary would tell the Tania of 20 years ago about what you have learned, what that journey has been in terms of advocating for the Dream Act and for the rights of undocumented youth.

Tania Unzueta: [00:03:15] Yeah. Thanks for that Amalia. When the anniversary happened, I was definitely thinking about all of that. I remember having the plane ticket to go to DC, to testify around the Dream Act. And then September 11th happened. And so much of the immigration world changed, right? Like I didn't have as much an idea at the time about just, like all of the surveillance stuff that was happening, particularly with the Muslim communities, all of the ways in which like the Homeland Security apparatus sort of like, sprouted out of a lot of the stuff that was happening there. Um, I just sort of saw, right, that the path that we were going in, in terms of like finding, uh, a solution around the Dream Act just like stopped and like conversations stopped and everything got canceled. I, I've been also thinking about what, like the Tania then would tell me about my organizing now and I'll go into that.

But like, I think I would let me know some of the bigger context that I didn't know about, sort of the paying attention to the surveillance stuff that was happening, which like, I feel like we're barely sort of thinking about now in some ways. I think I would tell me more about the ways in which Democrats and Republicans play politics with immigration, which I felt like I didn't have a grasp on back then. And, and it's played such a huge part in my organizing over the last like 10, 15 years. I feel like my organizing around then felt, maybe because I was lacking some of that context, like just felt very, very much about what I needed to survive and like what my family needed.

And so like, my organizing was around responding to a particular, like, need and an urgency. And I feel like some of the best organizing happens when that's what people have in mind, rather than, like, trying to move on ideology. There's just something special about organizing that's about solving a particular need by people directly impacted.

And I feel like I was very much in that place. So anyway, like years, years later, part of what I think about is like, as I'm organizing, I wanna base my organizing in what I need, what my family needs, what my community needs, and not just all the things that I've learned about

politics and theory and like... Yeah, I can go into more details, but I feel like I've been, that's all stuff that I've been thinking about recently.

Amalia Pajares: [00:05:59] Thank you, Tania. Those are all really interesting themes that I think we're going to continue to explore in the next hour. Let me touch on that last part about, sort of, the immediate needs and the urgency and how important it is to keep that in mind and center that. and you know, we are framing this as kind of radical care and thinking about care of self, care of community, collective care. And that makes me think about sort of the next decade after that initial moment, when you were not able to testify, when 9-11 happened, was a kind of really active intense moment and immigrant organizing immigrant politics, and 11 years ago, March 2010, coming out of the shadows, which is really stemming from, um, the organizing of undocumented youth who at that point kind of really changed the way of thinking about this issue and decided to take some strategic steps to really do things that were unprecedented. And we're also, you know, I think assuming your own agency, thinking about direct impact and the voice of those who were impacted being engaged. Can you talk a little bit about that moment when undocumented youth and you were central to this, um, in Chicago and in the country?

What was going on? What was the thinking? What were you responding to in terms of previous immigrant rights politics and what did you want to change?

Tania Unzueta: [00:07:24] I didn't go into it thinking about the change that we were going to go internationally. My family and I had been involved in immigrant rights organizing for a long time.

I feel like I had, you know, tried to help organize the 2006 marches. Like I remember helping with the press and things like that. There wasn't a lot of conversation about what it felt like to be an undocumented immigrant. Everything was about your politics and the policies. You know, I, I was working at Radio Arte, which was a small radio station owned by the National Museum of Mexican Art.

And I was helping run one of the youth programs where something like 60% or 70% of our students were undocumented, just because, you know, we didn't ask around immigration status. There weren't that many opportunities for undocumented students. Um, most of them were Latinos and. You know, the key moment was when, one of the folks who was my prospective student at the time, Rigo Padilla, got stopped by a police officer got turned over to ICE.

I remember he like at some point, like asked for support and it was just that thing where like, I felt like it was wrong, that he was in deportation proceedings. I reached out to everyone that I knew to see whether they could support and found that there was a lack of spaces for organizing. Um, it was still that same thing of like, there wasn't a group of undocumented people who were supporting in Chicago or who were willing to like organize around the deportation.

And so, yeah, we just ended up like finding other people. Like I remember. You know, we were reaching out to student groups. We were talking to different organizations, putting out

stuff on Facebook and online, and people just started coming to us saying like, 'I'm undocumented too. I've been looking for a space like this, let me help in whatever way I can.'

And I think with that, and we just created a small group of people who at the heart of it just wanted to, fight for ourselves, like find spaces for like stopping deportations of this friend of ours. And it just seemed like we just saw each other in him. He had been here since he was six years old. And I remember like all of us thinking --that could be us.

And it's a little bit ridiculous that there isn't, a system set up to defend each other. And it just so happened, you know? Well, it didn't just so happen. I'm sure there's all these historical and social reasons for this, but at the same time, it was around the time when nationally other undocumented students started to organize at the same time, started to fight deportations right? The first public case was also in 2009 when we were doing that case with Rigo. And so anyway, like I think, part of my Master's work at UIC was really sort of exploring like, what are some of the legal and policy and like historical reasons why, like that year in particular became a year where there were just, a lot of us were organizing who were undocumented, who were around college slash post-college age, who felt very much like we had the right to organize and were using our stories to do so.

Um, yeah.

Amalia Pajares: [00:10:39] This organizing in that particular case, um, that deportation was stayed, which was, uh, I think a significant moment. And after which, you and others founded the Immigrant Youth Justice League and also came out of the shadows. As did many other youth as undocumented and unafraid. I want to talk a little bit about what happened later in that year. So after the coming out, the undocumented youth movement started a phase of sort of advocating for the Dream Act that was accompanied by civil disobedience. And I want to talk about this because, I mean, I think that was one of the first times when I think about radical care, and I think about sort of the things you shared with me then, because I think there was a lot of concern in general about protecting the youth from deportation, right? And so when, when civil disobedience was beginning to get started in that period, there were some actions that were done by citizens and residents, and some concern about not including undocumented people, because of the concern that they could be deported, right?

And so I remember having many conversations with you about that. And when, when you all started doing that and you're sharing with me how, how thoughtful you were being about it, how intentional, how you were thinking about who was doing it, how you were thinking about caring and supporting for each other and having a kind of way of protecting each other.

And that was really, I think, eye opening for me, I think, and for many people, in terms of like that particular transition and that particular decision to do that. You know, heightening the risk of your activism, but at the same time, doing it very thoughtfully and thinking about care as you were doing it.

And so could you share more about what the thinking was and, and how you came to that collective decision and what you learned from it?

Tania Unzueta: [00:12:28] Yeah, I think it all sort of built on each other. And, and that's why I start with the deportation defense story, because it was sort of like facing our own fears at the same time as like pushing the boundaries of what we could do in this country.

Right, because like, we were so frustrated. And I say, we, like, I feel like there was this collective feeling and conversations, like we were frustrated about not being able to go to school about like, seeing our parents not being able to work, about not being able to travel. That was a big deal that, that lots of folks responded to.

And I think when we were able to stop some of the deportations, it literally made us think like, If we can stop the deportation of someone who got stopped by police, why wouldn't we be able to stop the deportation of someone who got arrested at a protest advocating for a policy like the Dream Act, the thinking 'what's the worst that could happen?'

And because we were all coming from deportation defense, like we knew the different ways in which people got treated depending on their immigration history, depending on their criminal history, right? So we took the same intakes that we would do to assess deportation cases and just applied them to assessing the risk of someone doing, uh, civil disobedience, right? And so there was that, there was considerations about how like local laws and local policies... we were coming from an organizing... theory that is about making people in powerful positions, make a choice. I don't know why we were all coming from the same place, but I feel like around the time, a lot of the organizing in the immigrant rights movement was when you do an action, when you propose something to elected officials, you have to make them make a choice. You know, we talked about the Dream Act, being the strategy at the moment. We talked about wanting to make people just like, say, 'are you going to move forward on the Dream Act, or are you going to let us get arrested?'

And we like were really purposeful about playing with imagery, right? Like we talked about, wearing caps and gowns. Like we wanted politicians to see the image of people in caps and gowns, getting handcuffed and arrested. I think we can have an entire other conversation about like respectability politics and like, you know, I feel like so much of the post Dream Act organizing has been about thinking how to shift some of the things that we established back then.

But I think like at the moment it just felt like, the most impactful thing to do would be to put people in this position. I didn't know this language back then, but now I know that part of what we were doing was like creating replicable actions, meaning like, you know, stuff that people could just take on, on their own and like do in every part of the country, which like because of the networking, because of the organizing that we were doing, like it happened like that. And so years later it also became something that we helped adults who were undocumented assess and think through and like push and organize, and so I think that that was also an important part.

Amalia Pajares: [00:15:49] Connecting back to the, the Dream Act and the failure of the Dream Act to pass by, I think 2010 at the end of that sort of initial campaign, there was a change in the thinking of the youth who had organized, um, those initial actions. And there was a move, a shift from undocumented and unafraid to undocumented, unafraid, unapologetic. How would you define that shift and what is unapologetic?

Tania Unzueta: [00:16:18] I mean, I think for me, it was two things, one an assessment of strategy because in 2010, we were very focused on like, this possibility that the Dream Act would pass. And so at that moment, to me, that meant doing everything possible, to convince as many people, right, to move it forward. And so there were the folks who did, the Dream Army, I remember was one of the things, which was like a group of undocumented people who wanted to join the Army and who like wanted to present that to elected officials. And I think to some of us... you know, like I've always been, anti-war like anti recruitment and all of that. But like I saw that the point of it was to get those Republicans, to get whoever the army stuff would appeal to. And so I think there was a lot of stuff like that, that we did. I think there was like, you know, we didn't talk about our parents as much because we knew that it was about undocumented young people. We sort of, you know, didn't call out politicians as much when they like blamed our parents, or we would do it in private. I'll say like, we would do it in private but, but we knew that like, as soon as it passes, like we just have to like, make sure that it passes. And I think when it failed, it sort of released us from all of that.

It sort of like, gave us space to sort of think outside of what had been this like super intense campaign where we felt like if we said something wrong, like it would fail. You know, unapologetic just felt like it reflected the not being able to talk about our queerness because there was all like, the DOMA hadn't been repealed at the time, so it made it all complicated. We didn't want to apologize for our parents, right? Or like, we didn't think they needed to apologize for bringing us here or for coming here with us, because there was a lot of that language from Democrats. I remember we organized some coming out of the shadows that were about being undocumented and queer, for example. I think that's around when the, like Julio Salgado did his like UndocuQueer series. And a lot of us just started being like, 'we've been sort of keeping pieces of our identities, like on the back burner because it didn't fit the strategy.' Um, and so anyway, yeah. And like, I think that there's. All of those choices that we were making along the way. And the failure of the dream act in some ways sort of like released us from feeling like our identity was so tied to the policy campaign.

Amalia Pajares: [00:18:56] That's so, so interesting. And there were so many directions as you talk about so many directions in which things went, that ability to explore what being Undocu Queer was and meant that ability to start thinking more generally about all undocumented immigrants, about parents and bringing them into the actions and not only the youth. And that ability to really kind of move forward much more explicitly on something that you had, as you mentioned, you had already started earlier, but I think really begins to kind of be far more the focus of attention, which is really the anti-deportation work. And also the kind of like really challenging the structures of a securitized state of the immigration, you know, system that was sort of leading to these deportations and detention and all that.

You know, I know that that sorta was manifested in the case of Illinois and, you know, the transition to Undocumented Illinois, and the focus on that. And I know that you also were, you know, beginning to work on sort of a national level at, with the Not One More organization. So I wanted you to just share a little bit about what that particular shift and what it meant to go from a focus on youth to this broader and, um, national campaign and just very specific focus on deportation detention... I think that was a real change that I think shaped and framed, um, the movement and has changed so many things. So could you explain that a little bit more.

Tania Unzueta: [00:20:26] Yeah. And I think I saw people going different ways after the failure of the Dream Act.

I think in addition to the identity piece that talking about our parents, we were including our parents a lot more in the coming out events and the Coming Out of the Shadows events. But I think also there were people who went in the direction of state policy, New York, for example, passed the New York Dream Act eventually. And so they were sort of like 'whatever federal policy let's focus on state policy.' I think Illinois passed something too. Then there were those of us who sort of dove into enforcement issues. Like at the time Secure Communities was a thing. Obama was rolling it out nationally. And I think it was around the time they were trying to make it mandatory --basically like collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE. And we ended up organizing this walkout from one of the community meetings that DHS was holding. And then there were also people who went like, like, I think it's important to talk about the folks who sort of kept pushing the envelope past deportations. So like the, Bring Them Home campaign, for example, that like started talking about people who'd been deported and the right to return, just like pointing out the different sort of directions that we all went. I think a little later, some of us started getting involved in electoral politics and whatever we can get into that too, but, you know, you see sort of the different things.

And so for me, I sort of got recruited into working with tackling immigration enforcement. Particularly of like immigrant adults, right? Not just young people. And they asked me to share the lessons learned around how we had done deportation defense and how we had done civil disobedience with youth and like, see whether we could apply it to their membership, which was mostly like undocumented adults working class, uh, not just day laborers, but also folks just like in community. It was a hard thing because it wasn't... not everyone in the like undocumented youth movement agreed that that was the way to go. You know, we, when we were doing undocumented youth organizing, like, it wasn't so much about organizations. Like we were sort of trying to create our own stuff rather than like seed into some of the stuff that had been done.

And so I had fights with people and I don't know, like, I feel like if I, if I had had a different awareness about like the nonprofits, like, I, I, I feel like I would have been a little more hesitant, but at the time, to me, it was very clear that like, they had a base of people. They had people who were interested in like understanding what we had done and using it to move forward, good stuff. And so to me it felt very clear that like, that was the place to go and, and it was great. Like, I remember I had this, uh... we would have fights sometimes with

some of the organizers because now a good friend of mine Jacinta Gonzales, and my coworker, you know, would sort of ask me, what does it mean to for a day laborer to come out of the shadows?

Because if I'm a day laborer and someone looks at me and they actually assume that I'm undocumented, and then I'm coming and being like 'I'm undocumented,' people are going to be like, 'Yeah.' As opposed to like, there, isn't that shock of like, I speak perfect English. I graduated with you and I'm undocumented. And so she was like, 'what does it mean for my members' from like, she was working at the New Orleans, uh, Congress of Day Laborers at the time 'to like come out of the shadows?' It wasn't a strategy that they were like super excited about at the time. But then when it came to like fighting deportations, that was something that like made a lot of sense.

And so we were, it was just our own finding, like how do the strategies that, that, what are the new things that we have to deal with? It wasn't the caps & gowns anymore. Right? It was the day laborers. It was the like adults that people usually think of as undocumented. And so, yeah. I mean, I think it got harder. It was, it was a challenge, but like, I at least feel like I played a role in expanding some of the tactics that were mainly used by youth to undocumented adults too. And, and other people were doing similar work too, right? But yeah.

Amalia Pajares: [00:24:31] Thank you, Tania, for that really rich description of the post Dream Act fiasco scenario, and sort of some of the, that example of the uh, the difference between you and Jacinta, or like that conversation is really a reflection of some of the... what happens when you start working with other communities, right? And then even this term, undocumented immigrant, encompasses sort of a very broad set of people, right? With sort of very different positionalities, right? And so how do you do that work?

But in addition to the complexity of the internal differences, both in terms of locations, positions, and ideologies, I wanted to talk a little bit about what is performed to the external world. So respectability politics is really important because in the immigrant organizing world, it's sort of, we talk about this distinction between the good immigrant and the bad immigrant or the deserving and the non deserving, right? Both in the courtroom, as well as in social movements. Organizing and so forth. So one of the things that's distinctive about Not One More, and a lot of the deportation protection work you were doing was to kind of like say, we're going to work with this particular case, even if it's not a perfect poster child, even if this isn't an honor student or whatever, even if this person has a record of some sort, and that was, I think a really important step. And it took a lot of kind of creative thinking and organizing, and I wanted to ask you how, how was that possible? Like how were you able to do that? What were the discussions around respectability politics and why it was so important to kind of push the boundaries on this?

Tania Unzueta: [00:26:13] Yeah, I think it changes over time and it depends on political context. When we were doing organizing around undocumented youth, I feel like I leaned a lot more into emphasizing the good things, right? Like I was just like, whatever, we're honors students, we speak English, like came here when we were young. Like whatever. Like we're not trying to make a political point. We're just trying to like, get people to understand that

this is the, the situation. I think when I started going into the, Not One More campaign and dealing with adults, and like understanding more of the political context, I was still trying to have a balance between what I saw as my responsibility to the individual that was trusting us in like stopping their deportation and not pushing forward a narrative that would hurt other people.

I remember having discussions with local organizers cause my job for a while was to support local organizations that were trying to like, stop the deportation of their members or local community folks. And, you know, to me, my philosophy was like, If the person you're trying to defend is a Dreamer, call them a Dreamer. Maybe they have a DUI and they're a Dreamer. In the media, it's going to play well that they're a Dreamer or we're going to get more support from elected officials, like just do it, call it. And then same thing, like if the person had like three U.S. citizen children, like say it, say that they have three babies, that like, are U.S. citizens, and that's going to... Cause, cause to me it was about like the responsibility that I have towards the person who like, um, I'm stopping their deportation. And so it was like, Why would I not use the things that work like, and the things that I know are going to get compassion and are going to get support from, from people to stop their deportation.

And if they don't have three U.S. citizen children, I'm still going to take on their deportation. And if they have a DUI I'm still gonna like fight it. And it was about like, still defending their humanity, right. Or their right to be here because of whatever it was that they had. Part of the difference was that there were organizations who were saying like, 'no, if you have a criminal record, I'm just not going to fight your deportation.'

And I think to us at the time it was, we're going to have to figure out how we talk about it, but like we have to push the limits of it. And I don't know. I mean, I think like the. I think there's more room now. I think that was very much under Obama and I think it's important to say that organizing tactics should also change as the environment changes. Under Trump it was a whole different thing because it wasn't about being like, look how good this immigrant is. Cause they just didn't really care either way, and like things just got a lot harder in different ways. But I actually think under Biden, I hope that we don't have to go back to some of the tactics that we had to use in the past.

And that like the like little bit of pushing that we've been able to do, it means that we're in a different place in terms of how we're able to talk about who deserves to stay, who does their system, their deportations.

Amalia Pajares: [00:29:16] I think that's a very interesting point. And I think that the house proposal, proposed legalization doesn't include their status as parents, doesn't do it on the basis of whether they're parents or not, which is I think interesting change from Obama and DAPA.

So I wanted to move forward in time a little bit, you know, so you are with NDLON and doing Not One More. And then you are a founding member of Mijente and, where you remain as their political director or director of political organizing. One of the things that's striking about Mijente is it comes out as sort of not just this desire to kind of do a broader set of issues around Latinx organizing around a whole number of more issues in addition to and

intersecting with immigration, but the kind of very intentional thinking around coalition politics, right? That Mijente is bringing together the immigrant rights movement with the Movement for Black Lives, with LGBTQ rights movements and really forming a national coalition and creating an agenda that sort of really moves us forward in all these directions.

Um, and so I wanted to ask you about coalition politics, about, you know, how do you decide to work in advocate together with different organizations and different movements? What is effective? What is challenging? I know it's a lot and we don't have a whole lot of time, but it's just such an important transition.

And I think it will take us soon to the next steps of what you have been engaged in, which has electoral politics.

Tania Unzueta: [00:30:48] Yeah. So around 2014, uh, Marisa Franco, who's the co-founder of Mijente, started talking about the gap that existed nationally in Latinx organizing, you know, saying like, when we think about people who are advocating for our community who are like

national figures or national infrastructure, like it was either folks who were elected officials in Chicago, Chuy Garcia, Luis Gutierrez, or celebrities was another one, or Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. The way that she talked about it was the only place to organize around Latinos' issues is the immigrant rights community. And even that isn't obviously like completely Latino. It's not even completely people of color led. She talked about, um, around that time, there was a, a young queer woman who got shot by the police, a young Latino woman in Denver, Colorado, I believe. And she was sort of like, who's going to speak for her, right. She's not an immigrant. She's not undocumented. She's not the perfect example of whatever, she's not involved in queer organizing. And so, yes, I think like all of those things, we needed to get involved in political work, electoral work, and dealing with government and how to govern and what it means to have power in different ways. All of those factors sort of came together to think about creating something that filled that gap and which, which became Mijente. I remember thinking at the time that for me, it was sort of like expanding my brain from like thinking of myself as an immigrant to thinking of myself as a Latina, who was an immigrant, who also cared about policing, and cared about Puerto Rico and cared about electoral politics. Now that like I've, I've gotten a lot into electoral politics now. There was just something that like had to shift in my brain that, that made my world a lot bigger. And I think that was also part of the point of Mijente, to sort of like expand the possibilities, the ways in which we can get involved, the ways in which like you can be a Latina in the United States, and like what that means.

And this other piece that you're talking about of like being very intentional about saying one that Latinos are multi-racial, we can't say Latinos are brown. We have to talk about Latinos being brown, Black, indigenous, white. Um, and just like the different ways in which that plays into police violence, for example. Like, like right now, we're, we're talking through what it means to do a national campaign around police violence and how it has to be both about how Black Latinos are impacted and the relationship that Black Latinos have to the police, which, you know, relates more to like Black Americans than maybe brown Latinos. But then there's also the experience of brown Latinos and, and different parts of the community and sort of like what it means to have both of those experiences within what we're trying to

address. And then there's the relationship to folks who have been leading the fight that are like Black led organizations, like the Movement for Black lives and Black Lives Matter for example.

And so anyways, I feel like there's a lot of intentionality around thinking through all of that and around embodying what it means to be a multiracial organization that's about the Latinx community.

Amalia Pajares: [00:34:13] Yeah. And, and that has led also to new directions. I do want to talk a little bit about your electoral politics experience and of course, it sort of, was connected to your work with immigrant rights because you started it in part in Arizona, but also in Chicago, but then it's sort of expanded and all the way to Georgia very recently. Um, so I wanted you to. Share a little bit about that experience. And you keep talking about having to kind of learn new things and kind of reshift and like what was different about electoral organizing and what was actually not that different?

Tania Unzueta: [00:34:51] I had never thought about myself and electoral organizing. I say this often, but I feel like I was that person who, if you approach me with a voter registration form, I'd be like, 'I'm undocumented, I can't even vote' and was like slightly hateful about it. And I did feel like it was this thing that didn't include me, didn't make sense to me. And because a lot of my work was federal, right? It was about dealing with senators and with the president and like, I, yeah, so like the local government stuff just had never been part of my like world.

And then Chuy Garcia gave me a call and asked me if I wanted to be part of his mayoral race team back in, what it was at 2015. And it just so happened that like I was moving out of NDLON, you know, it seemed interesting. I was a little flattered that he would like, think about me. Like I've never done electoral politics. So I was like, sure, let's try this out. I feel like I didn't realize this until like the end of the campaign, but like, what I realized was that a lot of the skills that were used, particularly in like field and in the part where you're talking to people, are organizing skills, right? It's about like knowing how to listen to people, knowing how to talk about the issues that they care about, proposing solutions and taking actions and, you know, figuring out how to get people's attention. Also, I got sort of like really interested in the power struggles around the resources that are dedicated to Latino communities when it comes to electoral campaigns, because there were all these fights between the campaign and different organizations that were supporting about like how much money did we put into Latino communities that are super low turnout versus how much money do we put into like white communities that are high turnout, but don't know who Chuy is. And like, what about the Black community and how much money do we invest in it? And so what I realized is that like, in the larger, big picture, basically Latinos are the lowest voting population. Seems like no candidate has figured out really how to talk to us. Seems like there's a lack of resources dedicated to the community from the parties and from elected officials.

Like, I feel like having been inside it and haven't even seen that it's like a question, right? Like you start realizing that like others may not even see it as a question. And just assume you don't talk to Latinos because they don't vote. I just became really interested in, in, in the

power play around it in what I felt like I had to contribute as an organizer into like this question of how you get Latinos out to vote. And I think at the same time, we were like starting Mijente and really playing with this idea that like, we need independent political infrastructure that we actually can't expect the candidate or the Democratic party to always be the ones who are reaching out to Latinos and who are knowing how to talk to us and who have an investment in like mobilizing us towards like good stuff.

And so I think the last couple of years has been, I worked around the Bazta Arpaio campaign, and like that was a campaign to like, get Arpaio out of office, but that was, you know, where the door knockers were, the folks whose families have gotten detained and deported. And so

like, you know, it wasn't for a particular candidate. There's lots of lessons there. The other big campaign that I did, was in support of Stacey Abrams, mobilizing Latinos in Georgia to support a Black candidate for governor. And so, yeah, again, sort of thinking through, like, what does it mean to build an independent infrastructure, that's not the Democratic Party,

that's pushing Latinos to vote with like a radical lens around like what it means to support a Black candidate who has progressive politics like StaceyAbrams. And she wasn't as known at the time, right? Like she, she sort of like exploded from there. So anyway, yeah, I think like I've been sort of exploring what that means.

And then this year we're sort of getting into the question of like, 'Now that we have some of our members for elected officials in office, like, what does it mean to co-govern? What are the things that we can move from inside of government?' I feel like to me, it has just opened up a whole world of possibilities. Like I, you know, for like over 12 years, my world was like stopping deportations and like, I think it's absolutely necessary and so difficult that like, some of the electoral work is allowing me to have an expertise that's not just about my experience. Um, it feels good to like, think about organizing and think about power in a different way. And then just like, thinking about the possibility of not having to try to convince people that I'm like a good person, but actually like get people elected that already think I'm a good person. So anyway, like I feel like it's just a different way to like use my skills.

Amalia Pajares: [00:39:36] I'm thinking about the last presidential election. I want to make sure that we're able to talk a little bit about your reflection about this transition in presidential administrations. You know, after the work that Mijente did to help support the outcomes in Georgia. You know, having survived, you know, the past administration and looking forward, you know, I know Mijente is already looking at sort of pushing this administration to follow through on some of its commitments. What are you hopeful for? Like, what do you think you'll be able and collectively to accomplish with this administration. And what are the next steps for thinking about these bigger issues that you were talking about? You know, securitization, detention, there's so many concerns about whether the system is really able to change. To what extent it can be changed.

Tania Unzueta: [00:40:29] Yeah. So at minimum, I feel like I have very basic hopes that don't even feel like they're for sure. I hope that like good things happen from the federal government. Like, I hope that there's like some solution around immigration that means that my parents don't have to like fight deportation. That like maybe even means that they can visit family outside of the country. I hope that there's like health insurance changes. That means that like people have better access to healthcare, including undocumented people. I have some hopes around like minimum wage and, and people earning more money and like what that might mean for working people and for poor people. I have hopes that there's like, better people who are running for elected office in different parts of the country. Like I think that there are just more people who are movement people who are, who are like seeking different ways of getting power, and I have hopes for what that means in local places. I remember when, when Biden was becoming the candidate of the Democratic Party. And like the first feeling that I got was sort of dread of like, 'uh, I don't want to have to like deal with another Obama presidency, just like with all the deportation stuff and whatever.' And so I hope that it's not that, that, like, we're able to see that we've moved to a different place. And then I think that there's all the places where we get to push that like maybe we'll get some stuff. So like, you know, we're pushing really hard right now as we can stay on the criminal bars and on the different ways in which people with criminal histories get excluded from immigration reform, from deportation reform stuff.

There's more movement people. Like, I feel like we've had to convince less people that, like, this is a thing they should say. You know, I feel like I see people within the Democratic party trying to move more progressive policies and that like, I hope the stuff like the Green New Deal and like other stuff gets passed. But like all of that, I don't know. It just feels harder. Like even like, I think in Georgia, when we were talking about the two senators Ossoff and Warnock, there was this feeling that like, We're trying to get Democrats the majority. And that's a good thing, right? Because it gives us a better chance than Republicans having a majority, or like now it feels a little bit harder.

Like, you know, I've heard senators and other people say like, you know, that they don't even have all of the Democrat votes to move stuff forward in the way that we, we hoped that they would. And so I think it is, I feel like there's the basic things that I hope that like, I kind of think maybe will happen in the next four years.

And then there's the things that it feels like are gonna be the same.

Amalia Pajares: [00:43:06] Yeah. Yeah. There's always going to be work to do. I want to ask one more question. That's sort of a bit more personal and touches on this theme of radical care that's so important. So you and your family, you're all people who have an incredible,

amazing history of radical care of, of caring about their communities through activism, organizing, educating, advocating, but also have been yourselves, very vulnerable in different situations. So you're both sort of have been, you know, subject to sort of all the kinds of vulnerabilities that this immigration system, but also you've been protecting and caring and engaging in this collective care. What have these experiences taught you about each other? Like what have you learned from the work of your parents and you know, what do you think they've also learned from, from you? What are your family members learn from each other about radical care?

Tania Unzueta: [00:44:01] You know, I learned from my parents that you can do things to organize when you don't like the situation. I feel like they learned from me that the things that you do can be very different. Like, you know, the, the tactics piece. And I think we've

learned together. You know, my parents now, for example, have their own organization, Chicago Community and Workers' Rights. They've both been building it. And my sister has been helping out and I feel like it's that thing of like when infrastructure that exists, doesn't work, you have to build it yourself. And I think that's something that we've learned with each other. They've been a part of building up Mijente and been part of the conversations of where we go and what we need to do. And that's been really good to sort of know that it's not just about my experience, but like really thinking about their experience. Um, they've all been involved in civil disobedience at this point, and I feel like it's been inspiring to see them participate. And my mom in particular, I think played a big role in, in talking to other parents when they didn't understand their kids participating in civil disobedience. And I think that was really helpful to a lot of us, like I've seen them stretch, my parents in particular about like, trying to understand what me and my sister are doing. And like, not always understanding it, wanting to be protective, but I think in the end, at least like the way they've done it is like end up supporting us. And that's been sort of the best. Like, even if they don't always understand it, like they've, they've ended up supporting us and then often joining us and doing the different things.

But I think, yeah, it's. I think sometimes my parents feel guilty. Like I know my mom in particular has like, talked about feeling guilty that we have to deal with all of this stuff and being undocumented, and having had to like learn all these things? And I feel like it's also just been trying to like address that both in our personal conversations and in our political work, right? Of saying like, no, like it's, it's, it's not about her having to feel sorry. So anyway, like, I feel like it has been all these like weaving of, of sharing these feelings with each other and like sometimes in very public spaces, like these marches and like when you're creating speeches. And then I think, like trying to have responses that are both about like caring for each other in ways that also like, sometimes it's again in like public meetings and public spaces that's been weird. But I feel like a lot of my work really has been about finding ways to survive and thrive and not just like, let the institutions block you. And I feel like my parents have both like taught me a lot of that and I've been able to bring them along. So it's been good.

Amalia Pajares: [00:46:45] Thank you so much, Tania. I learn so much from you every time we talk, and this has been so eye opening and keep on doing that is sort of energizing and inspiring so many people, so many of us who follow you. Thank you.

Tania Unzueta: [00:46:59] Thank you Amalia.