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Dear CERI Community,
This month we want to share a special memory with you. We are inviting you to read a journal written by Moragaut S., a participant at CERI’s youth leadership program. Moragaut wrote this journal after her father, who was scheduled to be deported to Cambodia, was released from ICE detention. Now 13, Moragaut is a participant at CERI’s Young Asian American Storytellers (YAAS) program, funded by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, serving youth (ages 11-24) from the Southeast Asian community at CERI.
In March 2019, a historic anti-deportation movement ignited to free Moragut’s father. Organizers from Asian Law Caucus, Asian Prisoner Support Committee along with CERI’s elders, youth and Children, and healers, activists, and religious leaders of the community came together and created a circle of hope to uphold the families impacted by deportation. Through their legal effort, Moragut’s father was released later in the Summer of 2019.
Moragaut wrote:
In My Shoes “SB54 [California Values Act ]”, I painted that statement on my shoes to show my people that I have hope and faith in them no matter where they are. Everyone makes mistakes and when young, you don’t think straight. They say teenage years are the hardest and also the best years of your life. They are the hardest because the teens themselves don’t learn properly to express their feelings. They are confused and they feel pain in many more ways than adults can understand...Truth is, I know some of that pain. ...My pain wasn’t just about my father being deported, even if he left, I knew we would be okay and we would try to live life to the fullest, but the pain was thinking my siblings would grow up without a father…I was mad at the world. I was mad at the privileged people. I was not jealous, just mad. Mad that the “all men are created equal” declaration was the biggest lie ever told. The crimes committed by young-ins shouldn’t make them deportable like I said everyone makes mistakes...
To read Moragaut’s full journal on our website click here.
*** During the shelter-in-place directives, YAAS Leaders continue to engage in social justice actions. They have been joining political workshops to learn more about the anti-deportation movement, writing letters to detainees, calling the Governor's office and ICE detention centers to release community members. From the collective efforts of this anti-deportation coalition, seven people were freed from ICE in the past months.
Please join Moragaut and the other YAAS Leaders in their efforts to release those whose lives are at risk by the COVID-10 pandemic at ICE detention centers by clicking on these links: FlattenICE and Right to Reunite
In Community,
CERI Team and The Youth Leadership Program
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