Video-Blogging a Week of Action With the Trail of Dreams

I was invited by SEIU to Washington, D.C. to support the last phase of the Trail of Dreams, a historical 1,500-mile walk undertaken by four immigrant students from Florida to give the undocumented youth a voice. My trip started with a bang on April 27, since on that day the controversial SB 1070 bill in Arizona was everywhere in the media. Even the 200,000 people in Washington, D.C. on March 21st demanding comprehensive immigration reform didn't get people talking about real reform the way Arizona's action has.

April 27 - Meeting Trail of Dreams Walkers, Walter Lara & SEIU

I headed to the SEIU HQ to meet the Trail of Dreams walkers and Walter Lara, a Dream Act Candidate from Miami who fought deportation and is currently in the country through a deferred action. Though we'd never met in person before, we had an instant connection, since we already knew so much about each other from our stories. It was like re-encountering old friends. I also got to meet up with SEIU staff, including Joaquin Guerra, Josh Bernstein, and Ali Jost, who were big supporters during my campaign to stop my deportation. Walter and I began video-blogging our adventure in D.C.

April 28 - Trail of Dreams Press Conference

On Wednesday, in front of the White House, the Trail of Dreams held a press conference where they reported that, after requesting three months in advance to meet with the President, the Obama Administration had remained completely unresponsive. Listening, I was thinking about how many times President Obama said during his campaign, "Change starts from the bottom and up," and here I was, filming four young leaders who walked 1,500 miles during the past 4 months for a cause they strongly believe in, yet were left without even a response.

Alonso Chehade on Becoming a Promoter of Positive Change

My name is Alonso, and I am alumni of the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. I am also an undocumented student who has been fighting deportation during the past year. I am still in the country thanks to the support of many, including SEIU, who not only supported me during my struggle with immigration, but has also given me the opportunity to be part of the last phase of the Trail of Dreams, an inspiring story of four students who have walked 15,000 miles from Florida to D.C. to give the undocumented youth a voice.

A year ago, on March 15, 2009, I was stopped by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities, charged, arrested, and sent to jail for two weeks. What’s crazy about this is that I was brought by my parents at the age of 14 through a tourist visa, which then the family overstayed, so it wasn’t really my choice to come here and be undocumented. On top of that, the reason my parents had to immigrate through a tourist visa was because doing it through our U.S. Citizen relatives would have taken more than 10 years, which is literally a big slap in the face. We are talking about the hierarchy of needs here and the reason my family decided to move to another country was because of the lack of the physiological part of it in our home country Peru.

Before my incident with immigration I wasn’t too knowledgeable about the immigration system until it hit me hard. I still remember passionately reading a huge book called “Know your rights” while I was in jail, and that was a turning point in my life. The more I learned, the more I knew that I had to get out there and tell the world.