Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Frictions.

• Speaker #1

  Give me your tired. Give me your tired. Give me your poor. Give me your poor. Give me your huddled masses. Give me your huddled masses. Yearning to breathe free. Yearning to breathe free.

• Walid Hajar Rachedi

  We all know this line engraved on the Statue of Liberty. On the East Coast, Ellis Island became the symbol of welcome. But that promise had a flip side. On the West Coast, Angel Island told a harsher story. Around 60% of arrivals there were held, often for days, weeks, and sometimes far longer, in San Francisco Bay. By 1924, America had already turned welcome into a filter and the border into a test. When I lived in New York, I discovered my own version of that test, the Kafkaesque maze of the immigration system. Endless paperwork, rules that can change while you're still in line. In 2009, the financial crisis put an end to my visa and reminded me that here, nothing is guaranteed. Today, that promise feels like a dead letter. Early morning ice raids, families separated, the National Guard patrolling cities. The criminalization of migrants is no longer an exception. It's official policy. Latinos, now the country's largest minority, live between economic exploitation the constant threat of deportation and the need to stay visible. And the last presidential election made one thing clear. They are not just a labor force or a campaign talking point. They are an emerging middle class, more educated, more organized, and decisive in swing states. In Atlanta, far from the border, but at the heart of these tensions, two women helped me understand what that reality looks like from the inside. I met Gigi Pedraza. At the Night of Ideas event in Atlanta, on the Common Ground panel, she was wearing a t-shirt that said, Orgullo, Pride. That one word said a lot about the politics behind the organization she founded, the Latino Community Fund Georgia.

• Gigi Pedraza

  My name is Gilda Rosa Pedraza Morón. That is my full name. But here in the U.S. people know me as Gigi Pedraza. Hi,

• Jennifer

  my name is Jennifer. I am a Freedom University graduate. I'm 24.

• Walid Hajar Rachedi

  Jennifer, the pseudonym she chose for this interview, belongs to that new generation, self-reliant, clear-eyed and politically awake. Together, their voices bring into focus a reality we don't hear often enough, one that still needs to be documented. What's Left of the American Dream, an audio documentary by Walid Hajar Rachedi. Episode 3. Nuevo South.

• Jennifer

  When we first arrived, it was me, my older sister, and my mom. I have a brother and a father, but they both stayed in Mexico. Being three at the time, I don't really remember much, but the way I remember coming here was like in bits and pieces. We were walking on the highway and we would dodge every time we'd see police cars. we were obviously trying to enter the United States, so we couldn't risk getting caught. It was like a group of us. It was women and other children. That's the most that I can remember. I have an item from that day still, a childhood blanket I brought from Mexico. I remember lending it to a lady on the way here. Ended up getting stuck on a fence or a branch, but now on the blanket I still have today, you can see the memories of going from Mexico to the United States. The reason for coming here from Mexico, I know for my mom, it was to get a fresh start. She left an abusive marriage, wanted better for her kids. We lived in California, I think at most one year with an uncle of mine, I believe. And then I think things picked up in Georgia. So we came in completely unseen. So we never checked in with Border Patrol. We never had a fully established status, which... current day proves to be a real hassle when it comes to trying to get status.

• Gigi Pedraza

  I am indigenous looking and in Peru there's also a class system. The whiter that you look, the more beautiful you are. I did struggle a lot getting a good job and benefits, which influenced my decision to come here. I came here because I fell in love with someone that happened to live here and that I was a citizen. I was really chasing love. or a potential opportunity to better my life, but I was not escaping violence. or abject poverty like so many people. For me, it was like a vision forward. Once I came here, everybody thought I was dumb. Everybody thought I did not go to school. Everybody thought I wasn't able to learn or anything like that. And I dropped half of my name because it literally does not fit. I realized the barriers, the challenges, the stereotypes, starting by being given this blanket label like Latina or Hispanic. You too, papi.

• Speaker #0

  You two poppy? What you trying to get into? I poppy and just doing my job. You call me poppy, you get it. Don't seem like you're just doing your job. I hear your little accent over there.

• Gigi Pedraza

  It was very strange. So it took me like 10 years to be able to embrace that label and feel ownership and agency. The image that I have with the U.S. was informed by very bad movies, probably. It was this boring, well, a suburb. where all the houses look the same, where all the families look the same. I did not see any cultural references I consider interesting. When I was growing up in Peru, I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to travel, and I don't want to worry about paying my bills. That was my dream. But when I came, I realized the importance of securing a home as the number one safety so that you can have a place to return, so that you can build wealth. because of family and the number of people that just did not have that in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. That was a huge shock. I did not see those houses. Before I moved to the U.S., I lived in Spain for a while. I came to Chicago first. I moved to Boston, then to Atlanta. The first thing that shocked me, it's how quiet it is to live here. People live inside. Their windows rolled up, AC, or heat. There's nobody on the street selling candy. There's very few people walking dogs. That is all stuff that I experienced in Europe, in South America, and in China. People leave very much out. In Peru, a sense of safety would be that I have to check in my bag when I walk into a shop because I look like maybe I could steal something. But the feeling of safety here, it's different because I have been yelled on the street because I speak Spanish. And I have been accused of just having babies so that I can take away from Americans. Not recognizing that I'm also an American, right?

• Jennifer

  One of my like fun facts, every time I meet new people, it's like I've moved over 20 times. That's not a joke. I've lived in parts of Georgia that are predominantly white for a very brief period of time. And then I've just stayed in a more diverse part of Georgia, which has always been what I call home. And that's closer to Atlanta for a good reason. I mean, it's black Mecca. So, yeah, I could never see myself in terms of status. But culturally, I saw my family and myself everywhere. Where we grew up was predominantly Latino, so that was never an issue. Like, my mom didn't really have to struggle with learning English because everyone there also knew Spanish. That wasn't a problem. But when we did live more north, it did become more ever-present. Especially as the years went by, you'd see certain political signs that would tell you very clearly that we weren't welcome there. No one looked like you. No one spoke like you. No one could understand. The household structure you even had to begin with.

• Gigi Pedraza

  Georgia. I loved how green it is. I grew up in Peru where it's mostly like in the coast, which is mostly a desert. It never rains. So I love how lush and how we have seasons and that you have so many places where you can walk and experience different shades of green. It was something that always struck me. For me, Atlanta is now home. But the other thing that I was really shocked by when I moved here, because again, coming from Boston, coming from Chicago, was how segregated it was. One of the cradles of civil rights movement, the idea that Atlanta is this global international city, that there is an Atlanta way in which we all get along. And I came here, I couldn't see anyone that looked like me at all. In fact, they told me, those people live over there. You should move there. There's a huge segregation in church, in schools, and in neighborhoods. for the Black community and the white community, there is a struggle to even get recognition in the history for the African-American community, then a lot of our stories become even less important. And I think there is an intentional, very intentional decision that keep a binary conversation happening in the city, but also in the state that completely erases the two communities that are growing the fastest, the Latino community and the Asian-American Pacific Islander community. The first European language spoken in what is now the U.S. was Spanish. It was. You know, it's difficult to make the argument that... Why are we supposed to be here when we were always here? You won't see us invited to many of the tables, so we have to start creating our own tables.

• Walid Hajar Rachedi

  In Atlanta, it was the first time in my life I had a car. Highways, strip malls, gas stations, parking lots. The city stretched out like it didn't want to be held. Driving across this endless sprawl, I kept wondering, where is the center, the place where people actually cross paths? Not just the Beltline or Piedmont Park, but somewhere real where lives actually mix. Because in Atlanta, you can live side by side and still never meet. Diversity doesn't always mean connection. Sometimes it's just parallel lives running in the same direction. Jennifer grew up here, in the orbit of the Black Mecca, so I wanted to hear how she sees it from the inside.

• Jennifer

  I actually feel privileged having grown up by Atlanta. I've realized in talking to friends in college and other people who've traveled way more than I ever could that it is a privilege to grow up somewhere that is not predominantly white. To see faces that I could at least trust more or to talk to random strangers that I know we have more in common based on how our whole households are ran. It's a privilege because I never had to feel left out in terms of culture. I have a lot of pride in seeing younger generations speaking up, specifically like in the Latino community. Unfortunately, a lot of anti-Blackness exists there. And it's really nice seeing a lot more young people speaking up and having difficult conversations with their families saying like, you know, this is where we live. Some of these mentalities you have are not OK. And it's something you need to work on and improve. And sometimes it's hard and sometimes it means distancing ourselves from family. And sometimes it means difficult conversations and then learning like they actually do. take in what we say. And that's always very rewarding because then they go back out into our communities with that energy and they no longer treat other communities any different because at the end of the day, we're all facing very similar struggles. I don't think I'd be who I am today if it weren't for all my Black and Brown friends. We always attributed where we are as an immigrant movement to the Black movement in the South. We couldn't have known we've known if it wasn't for them starting it.

• Gigi Pedraza

  When one of my daughters was eight years old, she asked me, Mama, are there other Latinas in Atlanta, or is it just you and your friends? And I said, oh no, there's like half a million of us. There's so many. Let me show you. And I went to Google, and I typed Latinas in Georgia. And all that came out was pornography. I shut down my laptop. It was a watershed moment because I realized our narrative, our identities have been stolen. from us by other people that are monetizing from us. It was a void. And so I started a blog called Latino Connection, talking about Latino issues from a Latino perspective in English. That was my personal incentive. I wanted to do something to fully represent and uplift our stories as human beings and our contributions to the state. And then at the same time, the Latino community was not only centered in certain portions of the city. It was growing, diversifying, and going to the suburbs because it was cheaper. Atlanta became too difficult, too expensive to live in. And there were groups of people organizing around those communities to try to meet the needs, to work with the families, with the students, with the entrepreneurs. And so we, a group of us, like eight of us, said, what if we put together $100 a month and we create a giving circle? We pull together those dollars and jointly decide what organizations, what groups are doing good work to support our community because nobody else cares. Nobody else is investing. Nobody really wants us here. They love our food. They love our work. They just don't love us. And so we incorporated in 2017 as an organization that is both a direct service provider, an advocacy organization, and a membership organization. We're also a philanthropic intermediary, so we regrant to our member organizations power. It's never given up. Power is always taken. And that's what the African-American community did with Maynard Johnson, the first Black mayor. There was a negotiation and intentional organizing from the Black community to secure voters, to register people. And when they realized, oh, actually voting has power and we have gotten what we need, now we can negotiate. There was massive voter registration. And so the political power, it's important. And with that, then you create opportunities for economic power, which then gives you social power. It's almost like a domino effect.

• Jennifer

  When I did start paying attention to politics was I think 2013 around there when he passed DACA. I was old enough to understand that. DACA is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and basically it is a protective status. It is not a visa or pathway to citizenship at all. So what it guarantees is a work permit, your ability to get a driver's license, and basically deportation protection. So I wasn't eligible for that. because my parents were never fully divorced. So I had to wait till I was 18 to get my own passport and then I could apply for DACA, but it was too late. But my sister has always had access to DACA. So she was the only one in the family with a legal Georgia driver's license, the only one that could ever get like a job that required a work permit or social security number. Meanwhile, my mom and I had to find other routes for employment. Most of the time when we do find employment it's because people decide to be understanding whether it's hiring us as contractors, because we do pay taxes using our ITIN, Individual Tax Identification Number. Yeah, we don't have a work permit, but we're still contributing. And sometimes also they'll just pay in cash or it'll be odd jobs like child care, working in restaurants, waitressing, which is dependent on tips.

• Gigi Pedraza

  One of the things that I really love and continue to love about this country is due process, right? due process. That is something that we are losing rapidly. And it makes it extremely complicated to train people when policies and laws change and when there is defiance to the rule of law. We work with folks so that they remember that regardless of immigration status, language, people have human rights and constitutional rights. For example, if you are a business owner, how to protect your assets if you are detained, deported. What do you do with your child? Do you abandon them? Do you take them away from the opportunities this country offers, even though they are American citizens? It's an extremely difficult decision.

• Walid Hajar Rachedi

  Thanks to Gigi, I got connected to El Refugio, a hospitality house in Lumpkin, Georgia, that supports families visiting loved ones held at the Stewart Detention Center. Free meals, a bed, a porch where families wait for their visitation slot. From Atlanta, it's a little over two hours by car. Lumpkin is a tiny town, around 800 people, and right next to it sits Stewart, holding roughly 1,700 detainees. People drive from across the South, sometimes nine hours, just to see someone through glass, whole families, kids in tow, trying to act normal while they wait. Before the visit, Lauren waits, house coordinator at El Refugio. gave us some guidelines.

• Lauren Waits

  We are really not allowed to bring anything at all except car keys and a form of identification. If you want to leave bags, personal possessions, that is great. And this house is going to be locked all day. This is a new policy from Edwards-Wooheow because of concerns about ICE. There have not been any actual problems with ICE here at this house, but because of new concerns and that Art and I as house coordinators are the only people who should be letting people in. to the house. We think that'll give our guests a little more comfort too about knowing that there's a protocol in place. They told us not to appear any later than 1230. Women are allowed to receive visits until about 2 p.m. and then at 2 the visits change to men and men can receive visits from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. We have had so many families visiting male detainees lately that It is unlikely that we will be able to make visits to men because, of course, we always give priority to friends and family who've come from away to visit their folks. But I have already gotten some cards out for women and for men who have requested visits from El Refugio. And you guys have already taken a couple of names of people to visit. It looks like great. None of the women remaining who have requested visits this morning speak English, but we have Spanish, Mandarin, Uzbek, and Russian. There's one big gate for security reasons. They open that gate and let us pass through and then it closes and there's a second gate. We wait at the second gate. When that one opens, we can walk into the waiting room. We will all have to sign in and you'll have to complete paperwork. The paperwork is identifying the person that you're going to go visit and you swear that you don't have any contraband. When it asks for the reason. You say you are here for a visit and want to ask for your relationship, unless you're actually related to the person, we just write front.

• Walid Hajar Rachedi

  The entrance, officers hand you forms, the kind that feel easy to get wrong. They are picky, impatient, sharp when you make a mistake. And as you step inside, something tightens in your chest, the sense that here, things can turn arbitrary fast. Stewart is privately run. The same company that runs this place also builds schools. Before the airport-style security gate, there's a wall of employee of the month photos, smiling faces, like any normal workplace. Then you pass the checkpoint, and the setting really hits you. Long corridors, beige paint, fluorescent lights. It looks like a high school, except nothing about what happens here is school. That day, we went in to see two women. We met Olga, a former schoolteacher from Russia. who had fled after speaking out against the war in Ukraine and suffering sexual violence as a result. She had reached the U.S. via Mexico, crossing the border on foot, and was first held in a county jail in Arizona, then in a detention center there, before being sent to Stuart seven months earlier. When we saw her, she was furious about the food, her medical care, and the constant tension in the women's dorm, where detainees were sorted by color code, fights regularly broke out, and no one around her could understand her because she spoke only Russian. We were also meant to see Natividad, but she had already used up her visitation quota. One of the volunteers told me about her instead. She was raising her seven-year-old son on her own and had been detained with him in North Carolina before he was released, and she was transferred here. She kept repeating, how much she missed him, worrying about who was looking after him now, and waiting for a hearing that could send her back. At Stuart, ICE pays for a guaranteed minimum of 1,600 beds at a fixed daily rate. Every extra body is revenue. Detention isn't just policy, it's an industry. But it starts much earlier, with forms, with gates, with the quiet habit of telling yourself no before anyone else can. A kind of survival instinct. And Jennifer put words on that.

• Jennifer

  I created a ceiling to protect myself. Instead of filling out these lengthy applications and going through all this work of hoping I get a specific job opportunity, a specific school opportunity, or even going on college tour trips, I told myself no before anyone else could tell me no, and that's something that followed into adulthood. It was senior year, and I always really liked being an academic. spaces. So it was a bad year because I was seeing my friends and classmates getting accepted to colleges, seeing them go on tours that I didn't get to do. And it just kind of made me not even want to consider it. And so I remember one day typing into Google, like, universities for undocumented people, and Freedom University came up. I thought it was like some kind of scam or ice trick, so I ignored it. And then... Later in the month, my philosophy professor showed us a video by Freedom University, and they were explaining exactly what they are, what they do, and their goals.

• Speaker #0

  The same public universities that ban undocumented students today also ban Black students in 1960. These bans are not based on academic merit. They're banning young people who have most have gone K-12 in Georgia public schools, not based on their academic potential or how they can contribute to society, to their communities, but based on where they were born and on... a social status. The most successful thing that Freedom University does is giving back our students their human dignity.

• Jennifer

  I was like, okay, so maybe they are legit. And a big thing at Freedom University is offering rides for their students. And so that's what really broke a crack in the ceiling I had created because now the only person telling myself no was me. There were no more obstacles in the way. I could actually attend the classes. They were actually meant to help me get into higher education. It made my dream of going to college more real, and it made me feel more independent, which is something that I hadn't felt in a long time. Freedom University had this summer college prep class, and we were invited speakers from different occupations to speak with us. I remember there was this lady there who had studied sociology, and from her description of it, I knew that's exactly what I wanted to do.

• Gigi Pedraza

  So, just me, I have a tourist visa. I have had a work permit. I have been undocumented. I have had a green card, and I'm also a citizen. Five. different immigration statuses in maybe 10 years. One of the things is that the immigration law is so complex and it hasn't changed in decades. So the current law does not reflect the realities of immigration. And so what happened in the Biden administration, it is true that a lot of people crossed through the border, but it's also true that they crossed the border in a way that was the legal way. To request asylum, you have to to at any point of entry, and that can be the border, that can be an airport, you turn yourself in to the Customs and Borders Patrol, and you plea your case. During the first Trump administration, a lot of people were put in detention with kids. Some of the wins for immigration advocates were that there was a screening done, and then while people that applied for asylum had their case process, they were given the opportunity. to get in the state and get a work permit so that they can sustain themselves. What happens now is that all of those million people that came and applied for assignment, that President Trump has canceled all the appointments. And so what you have is you have over a million people that had pending cases that all of a sudden have no status, are no longer protected from deportation. And it is completely irresponsible because you're playing with the lives of people and with employers. The economy is based on undocumented labor in many industries. employers rather pay you $5 than have to pay you $15 for the work. They will protect their pockets. So they will not denounce you. They will make sure that you stay in that job. And by default, that means a lot of undocumented people get to stay, that they have no safety net, no social contract that works for them. It is this unspoken agreement.

• Jennifer

  Healthcare is rough. Obviously, not having access to health insurance is tricky. So you just learn to find places that are affordable for self-pay. I went to a dermatologist recently and I wanted to make sure I didn't have any suspicious moles. And that costed me like $700. That's not money I was ready to give up.

• Gigi Pedraza

  I think people are caring more and more because they are realizing that it's also affecting them. I know of a couple of business owners that voted for President Trump and they came and asked me, My cooks don't want to come. What can I say for them to come? Because if not, I have to close my restaurant. And this is important to recognize that there are a lot of people that are not Democrats, but are Republicans that are also working very hard to try to build process and minimize harm. There's people on both sides of the aisle that are very much concerned about what's happening. Unfortunately, for many people in America, if it does not affect you directly, Your loved ones, your pocketbook, your job, they will not see it. They see it as someone else.

• Walid Hajar Rachedi

  I keep coming back to this paradox. Entire industries rely on undocumented workers while pretending they don't exist. It's a cynical business model. Keep people cheap, keep them afraid, and the whole machine keeps running. Obama, whose own story was shaped by migration, was supposed to break that cycle. Yet even his campaign drew its iconic slogan, Yes, We Can, from Si Se Puede, the historic rallying cry of Latino labor and immigrant struggles.

• Speaker #0

  When people in Arizona said, they told me, No, Dolores, no se puede, you can't do this in Arizona. My response to them was, Si se puede. Si se puede, si se puede. Dolores Huerta came up with the slogan. The rallying cry that would later come to define the presidential campaign of candidate Barack Obama. Of course, when he gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he had to correct himself.

• Speaker #10

  On a personal note, Dolores was very gracious when I told her I had stolen her slogan, Si se puede, yes we can.

• Walid Hajar Rachedi

  From the outside, that era looked like a reset. But for immigrant communities, representation only matters if it makes you safer. And that's where things get complicated.

• Gigi Pedraza

  He had overwhelming turnout and engagement from folks from all... box of life. And it's really what motivated me to become a citizen so that I could vote for him, because I felt it was bigger and it was more important that we join an idea like that. I think he was certainly someone that brought a lot of those intersections, but they were played down because I think the country was never ready, really, to talk about immigrants and their value. I mean, he was, he's still even challenged for a reverse certificate, right? By the time he had the presidency. It was very clear to me that a lot of the political negotiations were always going to fall into excluding immigrants. We're always the first in the chopping block. Even now, when there's a negotiation. It's always us to blame. It's too complex to fix. We kick you out from the table. And so I think we're still like second-class citizens.

• Jennifer

  The way I viewed the U.S. and U.S. politics has changed dramatically. When I was younger, seeing a Black president was life-altering. I was like, okay, so things are changing. But then it got to 2016, and that's when I was forced to pay even more attention to politics. And so Trump being elected president in 2016, when I was getting to that stage of like, I have to apply to these colleges, I have to think about what I want my career or future to look like. is it going to be in the United States or is it going to be in Mexico? Looking at that, I realized neither political party really cared about us. I saw the statistics and I was really shocked to find out that like Obama had deported more people than Trump in his first time in office. And I thought people were lying to me when I read that. But no, no, he says really great things. But the way he treated my people and children was not OK. And I've realized like neither party is. For our benefit, one is just better at talking.

• Gigi Pedraza

  I thought that Hillary was a very qualified candidate and not a perfect candidate. In my personal capacity, I was hoping that she would win. I have two daughters. My daughters were so excited. They fell asleep at, you know, first we meant president, we watch. And then when he won, it was very hard to comprehend that the majority of the votes that matter went to someone that make jokes of... people that had disabilities just make light of sexual abuse and all of these talks. It was really devastating to me. I struggled for like a week. I couldn't barely move my house. For the second trauma administration, I was much more prepared. It was still shocking after everything that we have gone through. We consider it with our network like it's another COVID-19. It is an existential threat to our network of organizations. to the way that we live, the communities that we serve. But we have already demonstrated how we could work together to fight the best way we can to protect each other, protect our institutions, protect the work that we do. We switched to defense mode.

• Jennifer

  In terms of Trump's re-election, I wasn't shocked because of all the work and community building it had done. What did shock me, though, is currently the speed at which fascism is happening in this country. Specifically now seeing how ICE or immigration is now an ever-present fear for documented people. I thought that was just a me problem. But now seeing documented citizens or residents getting essentially kidnapped, that I was not expecting. At least now there's more focus on imagining a future without this intense policing. As immigrant groups for years have been saying, abolish ICE. And we've always been told that's too radical. What about securing our borders? But they never understood why we said that. It's because our families are being separated and there's a lot of mental trauma that comes with not even being able to trust a police officer if something happens to you. And now that they're saying that people are being detained, there was a woman who ended up encountering ICE just from reporting abuse. It's everyone's worry now and it's being force. They're forced to see it.

• Gigi Pedraza

  On the way here, I was just talking to a legislator and a community member that had experienced a raid in the district where a door was knocked down, six people were taken. And so I think that it is going to be a hard realization for people that thought, oh, I'm not undocumented. That has nothing to do with me. When they no longer have someone to care for their babies or their parents, when they no longer can finish the renovation in their home. When they... can get sick and go to the hospital and the doctor is not there. I think it's going to affect everyone and that's going to be a reckoning.

• Jennifer

  I ended up going to Oglethorpe for my bachelor's degree in sociology and a minor in philosophy. Having studied sociology, I feel like it finally gave me the why to all the questions I had had in my life. Like, why is my family living in the type of situation that they're living in? Or why is this country treating immigrants the way that they do? And the biggest answer is always just, well, capitalism needs labor. We're just cheap labor. And that's why we hear all these statements about, if you deport all the Latinos, who's going to harvest your crops? We are more than just laborers.

• Walid Hajar Rachedi

  In France, we love that argument too. Immigrants get the job done, even when it comes with the best intentions. It's always bothered me. I saw immigrant fathers, mothers, including mine, reduced to one role, provider. And when you lose your job, you lose more than income. You lose a sense of self, a sense of dignity, in society and at home. Once dignity becomes conditional, you start to feel like a tool. And tools, by definition, can be replaced or discarded. That's how individuals and whole communities end up treated as less than fully human. disposable.

• Jennifer

  The foundation of the country is based on white supremacy. So when I hear anti-immigrant rhetoric, even though even economists are able to back up showing that we contribute to this country, there's nothing else to blame other than white supremacy. My husband's family is mixed status. And it's frustrating because you would think logically Latinos would never consider voting Republican considering all the anti-immigrant rhetoric.

• Gigi Pedraza

  The Border Patrol is largely Hispanic. ISIS is largely Hispanic. They're unbelievable people. And then they say, oh, we discriminate against, I love Hispanic. I did the highest. Nobody ever got numbers like I got from the standpoint of being a Republican. I won the entire border along Texas between Texas and Mexico. It never happened before.

• Jennifer

  And that's the problem I've struggled with my community, kind of making them think, why are you thinking this way? And it always just boils down to they have this preconceived prejudice in their minds that they just can't shake off. And it's hurting them, clearly, because now you're seeing a lot of Latinos who have voted for Trump regretting it.

• Gigi Pedraza

  The national role in support for President Trump is real. One is that if you are Latino or an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants, you are working so hard to be seen as American. You want to prove that you are for the rule of law and for folks from. countries that have terrible abuses of power. The narrative is they are going to take away what you have. So I think if you mix those two, it's a toxic combination. However, in Georgia, that only moved one point, which is really, really small, because the majority of adults in Georgia that are Latinos aren't immigrants like me. And that's why I said it was also a privilege growing up in Atlanta, because you're forced to think about everybody. People come here from all over the world. People talk about a melting pot, right, that America is a melting pot. I like to think about it more as a mosaic, which everyone gets to keep their identity, their individuality. You have your own community. It's like when you put together a puzzle, you find the pieces that go together, and together they form a much better, beautiful image, but they are not all the same. When you look at statistics of Georgia, only half of Georgians have a passport. Let me give them a window into this world so that we could better work together, better live together, so that my kids can be appreciated by their potential and their talent, not immediately judged by how they look and what their stereotypes are. I don't go to church. I'm not a religious person, but we do have three rules in my house. One is that we include everyone. We treat each other how we want to be treated, and we do the best we can at everything we do.

• Jennifer

  Recently, I've been on this grind of trying to think more positively in spite of the anxiety about everything related to ICE. What's helping is reassuring myself, our people, we're all going to be fine. We're very community-based, sometimes to a flaw. At the end of the day, we're going to be there for each other. We're going to be okay. We've always been told about the DREAM Act and how this policy could give us basically a pathway to citizenship. For the longest time, I thought that was perfect. But in recent weeks, I've realized that I don't think that would ever be enough. Having citizenship or even permanent residency will never guarantee things like health care, housing, accessible, affordable transportation. This tied in with my view of the American dream. I don't think it's something that can be reworked with what we have right now, but it's something we have to bury. and think of something else probably not even call it american dream because it's so tainted with false hope and heartache what is it that we really want and how can we work towards it i want to go back to this thing that i said at common ground that america is a country of possibilities you can pursue your

• Gigi Pedraza

  aspirations that is not only possible it's probable that if you really work hard you still have that chance that's what i would love that We go from possibilities to probabilities.

• Walid Hajar Rachedi

  What's left of the American dream? An audio documentary by Walid Hajar Rachedi.

• Speaker #0

  You've been listening to All Identities Combined, the podcast that explores our singular stories. Produced by Frictions. Find all our stories on our website, frictions.co.