My internship at Long Island Wins has been a wonderful and informative experience. The time I have spent here has opened my eyes to what is going on in politics today and how it affects our communities on Long Island and across the nation. One of the tools that helped me learn the most was the documentary “The Dream is Now” which showed various stories of young undocumented immigrants. The most touching story was about Joaquin, an undocumented high school graduate who dreamed of becoming a civil engineer but could not afford to go to college because undocumented immigrants do not have access to financial aid. This resulted in Joaquin taking his own life. It was after watching this with tears in my eyes that I realized that what I was meant to do at Long Island Wins was help in any way that I could to communicate to the world and to the immigrants in my community that there is hope.
The impact of this documentary is why I chose to create this DACA PSA. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, often referred to as DACA, provides undocumented immigrants, who were brought to the U.S. as children, with temporary protection, from deportation and the ability to get a temporary legal work permit for two years. I wanted to shed some light on what DACA is for people that might not know about it and to make the point that DACA recipients are a part of our community and losing them can affect everyone. My goal is to spark the same impact that I got from watching “The Dream is Now” documentary with this DACA PSA. I hope that after people watch this video, they make an effort to educate themselves on what is going on in their communities and do what they can to help. More importantly, I hope to inspire others to fight in order to give everyone an equal opportunity at citizenship and the American Dream.
