Topic archive for "Brave New Foundation"

By Gabriel Lerner

Jorge Gutiérrez, 27, was addressing a hall packed with almost 200 young people in Memphis, Tennessee.

Like him, they were brought to the United States as children. Like him, they grew up as Americans. Although they were bilingual, English was their first language.

Their parents came illegally, so they too, are undocumented.

Then, he told them that he is not only undocumented, but also gay. He asked the pro-immigrant organizations represented there to be inclusive. If there were others who, like him, were undocumented and LGBT, he asked them to stand up and come down to the front.

One by one, more than 20 activists stood up and approached. Some of them were revealing their sexual identity for the first time. Some were well known activists in the DREAMers movement.

Gutiérrez, currently lives in Santa Ana, California. At the age of 10, he arrived illegally from El Cora, Nayarit, Mexico, with his mother, two brothers and two sisters. In 2008 he graduated from Cal State University – Fullerton with a BA in English.

He is undocumented and queer, one of many.

“Some of the most recognized leaders of the DREAMer movement, who never talked about it, are now out of the closet, and are calling on others to do the same,” he told The Huffington Post in a series of phone calls.

Read the full story at Huffington Post’s Latino Voices.

By Aurelia Fierros

Bianca Molina es una joven y entusiasta latina llena de sueños y expectativas, que se prepara para ingresar a la universidad en el otoño y que ya está lista para hacerse cargo de los desafíos que le deparará la vida.

Pero hasta hace poco, sus objetivos no eran tan claros, y su existencia giraba en torno a una sola pregunta: “¿soy o no soy gay?”

A las dudas, confusión y remordimientos que llenaban su vida, cuenta Bianca, se agregaron largas noches de lágrimas y desesperación, todo en el más completo de los secretos.
Hasta que llegó el punto de ruptura.

“Yo tenía dieciséis años y estaba muy deprimida. Vivía escondiendo mi identidad, en el closet. Yo sabía que algo estaba mal, sentía que estaba mal, porque estuve por tantos años en una escuela católica, donde predicaban con mucho énfasis contra la homosexualidad y todo eso estaba en mi cabeza y yo no era capaz de aceptarme a mí misma tal como era”.

“Pero entonces a mi madre le diagnosticaron cáncer. Esa fue la gota que rebasó el vaso. Sentí que Dios me estaba castigando por tener esas emociones, por pensar como pensaba, por sentir lo que yo sentía, y que me culpaba por todo lo que significaba perder a mi madre. Decidí quitarme la vida.

Read the full story at AOL Latino.