Feminists Around the World: Sara Mora

Today we shine a light on the works and advocacy of Sara Mora, an immigration rights activist.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and whatcome stuff? I
never told your production by her radio.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And we are officially in Hispanic Heritage month. So for
today's activists, we are talking about the works and advocacy
of Sarah Mora. So Mara is a fierce immigration rights
activist who has dedicated her life to advocate for the
rights of immigrants in the US. She actually moved here
at a very young age with her family from Costa Rica.

(00:40):
When I say here, I'm saying US, so I should
probably put that in there. It didn't take her long
to jump into advocacy work, as in fact, according to
her side Miss Sarahmura dot com, it was at the
age of ten she was already a vocal leader in
her church and community, and in high school she continued
to be a leader and advocate for her community, for

(01:01):
her people like this was the thing that she did
from jump. So in fact, soon after high school she
would go on to interview the Costa Rican Vice President
about immigrants in the US and people who had left
Costa Rica and DACA rights and how the country of
Costa Rica and other countries could support the young people
who are in the US. So DACA is a deferred

(01:22):
Action for childhood arrivals which passed in twenty twelve, which
quote offers a two year renewable legal status to undocumented
immigrants who entered the US as children. Recipients receive a
social Security number and are eligible to get a driver's license, job,
and start on a path to potential citizenship. So that's
from Assembly dot Malala dot org just a little bit

(01:43):
of information on what that program was. It could also
be referred to as dreamers, which we haven't heard as
much of recently, but obviously it's still a big thing.
We haven't heard too much about that, mainly because of
the whole issue of deportation, illegal arrests, and illegal attainment
of refugees and immigrants, so DACA would obviously be also

(02:05):
a bigger part of that conversation. It was in twenty seventeen,
during Trump's first administration that DACA was ended, which risks
the livelihoods of almost eight hundred thousand young people. In
an interview with Malala dot org, Sarah talks about how
DACA has been instrumental to her and her family. So
here's what she says. She says, DACA helped my sister

(02:26):
and I because it opens limited opportunities to function normally
within our spaces, for example, by providing a driver's license, opportunity,
working authorizations, and a Social Security number, driving to school
and college, supporting our family by being able to drive
my mom to hospital appointments, as well as being able
to drive to work has meant everything. I feel like
that should be a common sense conversation because we know

(02:49):
that the legalities around that is kind of harsh, and
in areas like Alina, in areas like Florida, in areas
like Georgia, and in most the Southeast, transportation is an
issue and there's not really any really sustainable transit systems,
and so having this type of assurance like insurance and

(03:12):
driver's license is really important to anybody's livelihood. So after
the ending of DACA, Maura publicly shared her story of
being undocumented and why DACA was so instrumental to her
life and many like her. In another interview she did
with seventeen dot com, she talked about why it was
so important for her to reveal her status. So she said,
it was important for me because I felt like I

(03:33):
lived in part of the country where that wasn't common.
You didn't talk about your legal status, especially not publicly,
So I feel like talking about it publicly was my
way of saying I don't care anymore. I always felt
like in that moment it was urgent to publicize the
tragedy that is migrant policy. After I got so many
messages from different people, young and old in New Jersey

(03:53):
saying thank you for sharing. Manie said that it made
them feel like if they ever wanted to share it,
they could, but even if they didn't, it was overwhelming
to see someone else speak out about it from her website,
Missarahmura dot org. After organizing and using her story publicly
to emphasize the complexities of an immigrant narrative, Sarah was
faced with learning the frustrating reality that, like her story,

(04:15):
migrant folks stories were not mainly used in a way
that empowered the character, but in a way that totally
erased the identity of the impacted person. She grew a
hunger for wanting immigrant parents, elders, in the entire migrant
community to be able to reclaim their stories and know
their rights as storytellers. Her experiences with organizations were negatives
that turned into the core of her passion. She knew

(04:36):
and had experience seeing with her own eyes the tokenizing
and exploitation of migrant people's stories, and so she took
her anger and worked on individual campaigns, beginning in twenty
eighteen with Nuestra Belesa Latina. This campaign was one of
Sarah's first bigger steps into mass impact messages on what
it meant for companies like Univision to recognize and acknowledge

(04:56):
the undocumented population, which is a huge percentage of people
in the LATINX community. This campaign led to online conversation
on the matter, and when former winners of the Beauty
Paget heard and reached out to Sarah's campaign, she was
blown away by how simple it was to have gathered
that collective concern. And I think it's such a big
part of what we've talked about when we were able

(05:17):
to tell our own stories or where people able to
have platforms to share their stories and why that's important.
And also I think we've talked recently more about how
we're trying to be safe in being knowing our boundaries,
because unfortunately this country is not totally safe for everyone.
And I say to the MANI experiences I think both

(05:37):
Anie you and I have had in this business right
and as she continued to share her personal experiences and journey,
she talked about how so many others have come to
talk to her about their own experiences and stories. She
has used the power of social media to continue to
show the humanity behind so many of the undocumented immigrants
in the country and other places. In the Malala dot

(05:58):
org interview, she gave it advice on how to mobilize online,
saying be thorough and ensuring that the information and resources
you share are accurate and build a community by engaging
with the people that engage with you on your platform.
Mobilizing people online in this concept of online activism is
truly about being of service to others and not about
the ego. The time is now to speak out. History

(06:21):
is being made as we speak. Staying silent and quote
minding your business makes you complicit to the oppression of
thousands and thousands of people. All resources, talents, and voices
are welcome in a movement of change that is fighting
against an aggressive force of oppression that does not rest
and all of these things that is important and being
able to publicly at least support one another is a

(06:42):
huge part of that and whether it's having an opportunity
to share other people's stories or to bring light to
other people's stories, that's such an important part of this.
So her work has continued strong. She is working very strong.
In fact, she just was recently named one of Times
one hundred Creators and she was a past awardie of

(07:05):
the Kings Senators twenty twenty four Youth Influencer Award. She's
also the founder of the population Mike, where she tells
the stories of the marginalized people in a respectful and
impactful manner. So love seeing that work. She is huge
on the platform, so we definitely are watching and I'm
excited to see what else she does.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yes, absolutely, and as always listeners, if you have any
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(07:46):
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our executive Prusma and a contributor Joey. Thank you and
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