70,000 people urge New York Times to stop using the dehumanizing and inaccurate term, “illegal”, from news coverage

On Tuesday, April 23, 2013 The Applied Research Center (APC) and The Drop the I-Word Campaign joined with activists, including Fernando Chavez, attorney and eldest son of Cesar Chavez, and Jose Antonio Vargas, award-winning journalist and founder of Define American, to deliver petitions signed by 70,000 people to the New York Times urging them to stop using the term, “illegal” from their news stories when referring to individuals.   Mr. Chavez, Jose Antonio Vargas, the ARC and a coalition of supporters and activists delivered the petitions to Jill Abramson’s office, the executive editor of the NY Times.  The petition was started by Helen Chavez, Fernando Chavez’ mother and widow of Cesar Chavez.

The petitions were delivered only a few weeks after the Associated Press announced their decision to drop the dehumanizing and inaccurate term from describing individuals and would instead only use the word “to refer to an action.”

We feel the term is provocative, dehumanizing, and racially charged.  It is also imprecise and inaccurate.  The term does not take into account the variety of reasons a person is undocumented; many came here legally and have overstayed visas, were brought here as children, or overstayed fleeing persecution.  It creates the stereotyping of a group of individuals, mostly people of color, and centers the immigration debate around border control, when borders are not the issue.  In an interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Rinku Sen, the ARC’s Executive Director and President, said it best.  It is an “imprecise term that is applied in a blanket way,” and we feel it needs to change.

A few hours after the petitions were delivered, Philip B. Corbett, the associate managing editor for standards, who oversees The Times’ style manual, made an announcement that the Times updated its policies.  Unfortunately, it would continue to use the word “illegal” to describe “someone who enters, lives in or works in the United States without proper legal authorization.” It encourages reporters and editors to “consider alternatives when appropriate to explain the specific circumstances of the person in question, or to focus on actions.”

The AP announcement earlier this month was a victory, and we can only hope that more major news sources, like the New York Times and the LA Times “get with the times” and drop the i-word.

For more information, please visit colorlines.com/droptheiword

Uprooted: Turning the Tide from Hate to Human Rights

In our effort to support migrant justice organizers, last weekend, the Uprooted team attended the second annual Turning the Tide Summit in Arlington, VA where hundreds converged and forged new alliances to turn the tide against criminalization. Attending trainings and workshops with some of the country’s most influential and dedicated organizers has reinvigorated our project and has demonstrated the need for media made by and for social movements!

This video by the National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON), skillfully captures the inspiring organizers fighting against the Right Wing’s strategy of Attrition through Enforcement.

In his letter to attendees, Pablo Alvarado, Director of NDLON explains the importance of grassroots organizing for migrant justice as follows, “By organizing block by block, the affected people become subjects of change…Building to the Turn the Tide means organizing barrio defense committees wherever conditions exist, challenging all forms of police and ICE collaboration and asserting our right to remain in a country that enjoys the fruits of our labor and the wealth of our culture, but does not accept our humanity….It means creating spaces for us to tell our own stories and tirelessly working for legalization from the bottom up.”

Uprooted turns the tide by creating a space for migrants and their allies to document and distribute their narratives. We want to support and amplify your work– connect with us, together, we can build a more just and humane immigration system!

What does building to Turning the Tide mean to you and your community?

A Nation of Poorly Educated Students?

In a post on peopleofcolororganize.com, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz deconstructs the myth of the United States as a “nation of immigrants.” For Dunbar-Ortiz, that myth sanitizes the fact that the United States as we know them began as a colonial enterprise. The first European men and women to settle this land were not “immigrants,” as there was no already-established nation to emigrate to, save for the nations of Native Americans already present. Those arrivals should, instead, be remembered as settlers that dehumanized and displaced millions of indigenous Americans while taking their land through a strategically administered combination of force and diplomacy.