Zuley's Immigration Activism on Long Island! (Inspired By Immigration MIC)

On Episode 96, Zuley from Long Island talks about how the Immigration MIC podcast helped launched her immigration activism!

Zuley is a DACA recipient from Mexico - she tells us about being aware of her undocumented status growing up, but more so how being a daughter, a sister, and the ambition to be a leader makes up her identity. 

Her passion with working with immigrant students comes from the challenges she’s faced in her educational career, being set back from a lack of support, and going to a two year college, instead of a four year college like she had always dreamed of doing. 

Zuley talks about not having seen her parents for almost 9 years; her mother had to make the decision to live to take care of her own mother, and coming to understand their choice to return to Mexico. 

Zuley is a huge sports fan; she played tennis in high school, is a lifelong Lakers fan, (sometimes a Golden State Warriors fan too), and her dream is to see Serena Williams play. 

She’s currently working at a health center that provides quality care to undocumented and low income individuals, and is using the experiences to fuel her ambition to become a social worker in her career. 

“It was a sad year” Zuley says of the 2016 election and talks about the emotional reaction she had thinking about what the future would hold for her and her community. 

She talks about the projects that she’s worked on, including advocating for the NY State Dream Act (which passed earlier this year), working with unaccompanied minors, and accessibility to a quality education. 

“Now I speak in front of 500 people” — today, Zuley is a leader on Long Island, leading the Hempstead chapter of the Long Island Immigrant Student Alliance; her message to the listeners “don’t give up — there’s always a positive to every negative.”