Valeria Noemi on her personal immigration activism!

Immigration MIC California Edition!

I sat with Valeria (a months long fan of the podcast) at the Plaza de La Cultura Y Artes in Los Angeles to talk about:

🔵 Valeria is a US citizen, who is passionate about one day becoming an immigration activist because of her family’s experience with the immigration system.
🔴 Her parents are from Mexico - at 8 years old, her parents decided to go back to Mexico, knowing that her mother wouldn’t be able to return, dividing their family.
⚫️ “Emotional damage” is the term that Valeria describes to talk about the effects that the immigration system that caused her family to “break apart”.
🔵 In 2011, Valeria went to fashion school to study the creative and development parts of the fashion industry - eventually working as a retail buyer.
🔴Later on, working at American Apparel, inspired by the founder’s commitment to immigrant rights, and by working directly with sewing workers, Valeria became inspired to begin researching immigrant and workers rights.
⚫️ “You come to LA, and a building away, there’s a damn detention center right over there”
🔵 She talks about the emotions she experienced during the election, but also seeing the reaction from her community. “[Trump] makes it OK to say it’s you, versus us.”
🔴 We talk about her future goals, to get her BA in sociology, looking to fuse her education with her inspiration to be an activist.
⚫️ Valeria reads a passage from Valeria Luiselli’s ‘Tell Me How It Ends”, and talks to me about the coincidences she found in setting up our interview - an incredible personal moment.

And much more! Tune in for the next six episodes from California each coming week!