A Rough Draft of Some Historical Context

Historical Context

From the first immigration laws in the late 1800s, US immigration policy has revolved around limiting undesirable ethnic populations from immigrating, and encouraging desirable populations. The reality of this meant that prior to 1965 white, Christian Western Europeans were encouraged to immigrate, while Asians, Italians, Jews, and Eastern Europeans were either excluded entirely, or their immigration was extremely limited. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended this quota system, allowing for equal immigration opportunities regardless of national origin, and resulted in an explosion of non-European immigration. This, however, is a small part of US Immigration policy.

In the 1930s over one million mestizos (of whom 60% were US-born citizens) were repatriated to Mexico, many of whom were forcibly deported, in an attempt to deal with the labor surpluses of the Great Depression and to appease the growing anti-immigrant sentiment and prominence of the white supremacy movement. This changed during World War II when the US developed the Bracero program, an agreement between the US and Mexico wherein seasonal migration to the US would be allowed in exchange for border security, in order to meet the labor needs of American agribusinesses. However, the bureaucracy of the Bracero program, which required extensive paperwork and had requirements for fair wages and housing, was too cumbersome for many American companies. Many actively ignored the law and knowingly recruited illegal labor. 

In the post-war years this schism between Agribusiness’ desire to recruit and exploit cheap Mexican labor and the Government’s desire to strengthen and militarize its border patrol infrastructure to prevent illegal immigration has defined the immigration policy debates. The United States has been unwilling to deal with the reality that economically it requires undocumented immigration, but culturally it still struggles with racism, xenophobia, white supremacist movements. DACA is a major first step won by immigration activists to addressing the current paradox in immigration policy by acknowledging the complex factors that create undocumented immigration and allowing the children of undocumented immigrants, who are culturally American, to be treated with dignity and have a path by which they can earn citizenship.

FightOn For DACA Research and Directions

MISSION STATEMENT:

• The FightOnForDACA campaign aims to raise the USC student body's awareness of the challenges unique to living undocumented in the US and to stimulate political involvement on the campus, state, and national levels. FightOnForDACA casts a wide net through social media, video production, and on the ground activism to make "sanctuary" a central part of USC campus culture. We move Trojans to Fight On! for deportation-protection for DACA recipients and their families; to keep the USC administration honest and specific in their commitment to protect the undocumented in the Trojan Family; and for a congressional bill that provides a viable path to citizenship for undocumented Americans.

WHAT IS DACA?

• The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, is an executive order signed by Barack Obama in 2012 in light of Congress's failure to pass the DREAM Act. The DACA program shields high achieving undocumented youth from deportation and grants them work permits. The program requires applicants to have entered the US when they were under 16, to be currently enrolled in or have completed training in high school or the military, and to have no significant criminal record. Current enrollment is roughly 800,000, though 1.4 million are thought to be eligible.
• DACA @ USC still needs fleshing out, but some issues include:
• Limited access to financial aid/loans
• Lack of designated physical Resource Center for Undocumented Immigrants
• (despite there being many various resources, there is no center especially for undocumented USC students)
• Data surrounding DACA for USC context:
• LA is home to 1 million undocumented immigrants

ACTION IDEAS:

• Interview/Get President Nikias to record a video offering his specific story as an immigrant in support of undocumented/dreamer students
• already precedent for that in his latest memo.
• Involve Edwin Saucedo, USC alumnus, previous Student Body President, and current MA candidate in Public Administration at USC. His father's deportation motivates his activism and community organizing.
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwinsaucedo
• http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-campus-conversations-usc-student-president-20170508-htmlstory.html
• Campaign for USC to join the UC system's lawsuit against the Trump Administration's DACA decision.
• http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-essential-education-updates-southern-uc-sues-the-trump-administration-for-1504896004-htmlstory.html

FACTS TO BE ADAPTED (to tweets, etc.):

• ECONOMIC IMPACT:
• Ending DACA would cost the economy over $215 billion dollars in lost GDP and the federal government $60 billion dollars in lost revenue over the next ten year

• SOURCE: the Cato Institute https://www.cato.org/blog/economic-budgetary-cost-repealing-daca-state-level

• 200,000 of those who gave the gov't their fingerprints and addresses were Californians. All 800,000 are now imminently in danger of deportation.
• "About half of those estimated to be eligible, more than 800,000 people, gave the government personal information such as their fingerprints and home addresses to get a two-year reprieve from deportation and a work permit. A quarter of them were Californians." SOURCE: <http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-dreamers-california-daca-20170917-story.html> 

SCRIPTS:

• Calling congress for DREAM Act:

Need inspiration? Here’s what we suggest you tell your Member of Congress:

Hi, my name is _______ and I’m a constituent. I’m calling today because DACA, a program that protects nearly 800,000 Dreamers from deportation, is under attack and Dreamers need your help.

Dreamers work in every industry and at nearly every single major company in America. They are teachers and nurses, managers and military personnel. They are part of the fabric of our nation and we’re stronger because of them.

The bipartisan DREAM Act was recently introduced to provide Dreamers the critical protections they need to live, work, study and serve in our military. It is crucial that [district/state] support a viable path to citizenship for those members of the undocumented community that trusted the US government with their personal information.

Please sign on to the DREAM Act now and stand with Dreamers! Thank you.

Adapted from <https://dreamers.fwd.us/thanks-now-call>

MEME ARCHIVE:

VIDEO MEDIA!!!!

• USC Annenberg - Undocumented and Unafraid - great header material
• https://youtu.be/-A3yghOkZBI

MODEL FOR WEBSITE?

• www.letsfreecongress.org

HASHTAG/MARKETING IDEAS:

• #FightOnForDACA
• #FightOnDREAMOn
• #TroyWithoutWalls
• Or something like this..?!: #CitizenOfTroy
• "In keeping with USC's culture of intellectual inquiry, we ask Trojans what makes a citizen." Eh? Just some ideas.

Media Resources: Emergency Contact Number for Those Stopped by ICE or Border Patrol

Here are some especially useful resources from the USC Gould Law School Immigration Clinic:

• Imm. Clinic's Naturalization Classes:
• "USC is providing free Orientation Sessions during the week of September 18th. To register to attend an Orientation Session complete our online registration form, call 213-821-9627, or email immclinic@law.usc.edu."
• How do I contact the Project?
• Please contact us by telephone or email to be screened for naturalization eligibility. Telephone: 213-740-0497 Email: immclinic@law.usc.edu

• Citizenship orientation reg. - Google Form for DACA Renewal orientation registration - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf3Fy4tQa-mGIKFSy54rl5ZHAGvxs21TsGqXcVVTMq9dnDGiQ/viewform

Compiled List of Resources for DACA

Announcement on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: What We Know
Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights, September 5, 2017.

ACSBlog: Trump Rescinds DACA
Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia and Lorella Praeli, September 5, 2017.

Penn State President Eric Barron's Statement on DACA Announcement
Penn State News, September 5, 2017.

DACA Announcement: What We Know
Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, September 5, 2017.

Frequently Asked Questions on the Rescission of DACA
Department of Homeland Security, September 5, 2017.

Memorandum on Rescission of DACA
Department of Homeland Security, September 5, 2017.

Jeff Sessions' Letter Calling for End of DACA
Mahita Gajanan for Time, September 5, 2017.

Twitter Thread Coverage of Attorney General Press Conference
Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, September 5, 2017.

DHS Press Release
Rescission of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Department of Homeland Security, September 5, 2017.

VIDEO: Attorney General Announces Recission of DACA
New York Times, September 5, 2017.

Practice Advisory: Screening Potential DACA Requestors for Other Forms of Relief
Created by Patrick Taurel for the American Immigration Council, Sept. 1, 2017.

DACA Update: Five Things You Should Know
Fact sheet from the National Immigration Law Center and United We Dream, August 2017.

What Do I Need to Know if the DACA Program Ends?
Community Resources on DACA from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, August 2017.

NPR Talk on DACA
NPR, August 30, 2017.

DHS Reviewing Status of Obama's Deferred-Action Program for Illegal Immigrants
Washington Post, August 24, 2017.

Letter on Legality of DACA
Medium, Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, August 13, 2017.

Statement from President Barron defending DACA
Penn State News, November 30, 2016.

ACS Webinar: Texas vs. the DREAMers, Again
ACS, August 24th, 2017.

Notes from American & Ethnicity Studies Meeting (9/7)

• Need to do more to help students/faculty in need, conversations about specific communities/departments, what can should be done at local level(s)
• Especially focus on Muslim ban/DACA/transgender rights/restrictions
• Disappointed with responses from USC admin; should have been low-hanging fruit; things did get done, but quietly
• 2 task forces dealing with immigration issues at large (didn't remember full name/acronym); lots to do with mental health & stress of students; pushing for more public statements (re: lawsuits, etc.) --> have asked for mass expansion of naturalization communities/assistance with process (classes, legal advice, loans for fees, etc.); no other (major) universities have asked for this (progress?)
• Still waiting on Dream Center (guarantees of financial support, summer help, etc.)
• What can/needs to be done immediately?
• Get word out to staff about naturalization classes; lots of faculty (janitors, food services workers, etc.) haven't gotten direct communication about resources available
• DACA renewals; forms in next 25 days (October 5 deadline); potential funds service emerging --> assume 200,000 people need renewals, organizations will be swamped over next 6 months, we want to provide help on campus, open up services
• Issue: lots of services actually available, but no point person/centralized responsibility for getting word out, no accountability, primary point of reference; "typical USC"--lots of resources floating around, hard to actually pinpoint/get hands on; USC response always short and late, ought to be able to do better with vast amount of resources available
• How do we keep putting pressure on USC admin to keep up with constantly changing government policies?
• Associate Dean of Religious Life (Vanessa?) - also point person for immigration issues, acting as case manager at the moment, closest thing to USC expert for these issues
• Continue outside pressure; good to focus on students, but remember staff as well
• Pople connected to USC/Bovard College scholars, high school local students ~ up to 40% undocumented ~ who is reaching out to them? No one responsible at the moment
• USC Neighborhood Active Initiative (NAI) - 6th graders support to secondary/higher education, lots of pro bono services from previous grads/now attorneys  (JEP? partnerships)
• Most correspondence in English, not enough translations among flyers and circulating material
• USC has plenty of language departments--why not get involved in process of getting information out? Internships?
• Translation services should be constantly available (websites should be translatable)
• There is Dean's Committee for these issues but unclear what they're actually doing
• Need for realistic, achievable short-term goals
• Space in offices (this [A&E] building?) for pop-up Dream Center, could be done in a week; lead to permanent place for information/translations, office hours, etc. 
• Engagement grants/stipends? To keep working with these centers/departments - emergency funds
• Idea: study abroad California program (for students who've been advised not to/cannot leave country)
• Want departments/units to be creative with ways to open opportunities
• Concern about language used by administration, i.e., "will not give out student info without judicial order" --> so what happens with a judicial order then? Want admin to show backbone, would like better sense of actual legal actions, make sure everyone knows their rights
• Worst case scenario: list already circulating of faculty/grad students willing to take students into homes 
• Fate of campus church? Other campus/local sanctuaries? (Mosque is already)
• USC church ownership in state of flux; collaborate with other religious establishments in the neighborhood; need to find out which are already sanctuaries, make contact with leaders
• Make public the ways you are helping people
• Is there a comprehensive list of resources? 
• Food pantry resource expanding --> best advice: do something (helping) until they force you to stop (ask forgiveness, not permission)
• Admin PSA? New profile/series on groups like NAI and community of immigrant/DACA students -- Annenberg? Get some new videos made, wary of maintaining student anonymity, not just singing praises
• One stop shop/website that is translatable --> vanessagb@usc.edu - email with resources)
• Currently most things accessible from Provost website, memos from admin as they've come, still hard to get to if you don't know where to look
• Worried about extinguishing hope, need to combat that, provide something more hopeful about purpose of education for students now anxious (DACA announcement comes right at beginning of school year, some students now thinking 'What's the point of continuing going to class/school if I'll be out in six months?'); every department should have funding set aside for undocumented students who want to go on to USC grad school, motivation to keep them coming to class
• Continue pressure on CA government to fund Dreamer grants, etc., maintain active relationship with CA legislature

(Sorry if these aren't super clear, I was writing as fast as I could to keep up with the conversation but definitely missed some important details like names of people/groups/places, but this is the general idea of how the meeting went and the major talking points. I also bolded the points that seemed most important/discussed/memorable. - Sasha)

Just some brainstorming and poking around the internet... [Updated with website mockups]

So I thought I’d post some thoughts and what not. I’ve also been emailing with Eli and I think we'll both have some web ideas as well. Also, wasn't sure where to post this... feel free to correct me if there's a better place.


Possible actions:

I noticed in the DACA letter sent by the provost (https://www.provost.usc.edu/memo-students-faculty-staff-daca-resources/) that Vanessa Gomez Brake, the Associate Dean of Religious Life, has been charged with facilitating campus groups who want to lend their help and support. Could be a place to start if we know what direction we want to head, 213-740-6110 or vanessagb@usc.edu.

Inspired by https://undocu.berkeley.edu/ it would be nice to see USC’s resources for those affected by the repeal (and the undocumented in general) be more clearly put together and organized in a single place/website. I thought this could be a possible goal for the class. I also like the idea of a simple site where USC students can take immediate action.

I found this (https://unitedwedream.org/thank-deportation-defense-card-handy-phone/) resource on United We Dream and this one (http://www.carecen-la.org/request_a_know_your_rights_presentation) on Carecen, we could make an effort to make sure USC students know their rights, maybe by circulating pamphlets or creating a website.

Spread the stories of Trojans affected, find a way to give them a voice.

I also found IDEAS’ site (https://ideasusc.wordpress.com/) and it doesn’t seem to be updated for the repeal. Keeping in mind the idea that we don’t want to give them any unnecessary/extra work, it may be worth asking them what they need help with.

Congress has a six-month deadline to find a solution, we could encourage USC students to push congress toward a progressive solution. This might be too big a goal but considering that USC students are from all over the country, maybe it could be helpful?

Given that students may need money considering possible job loss, possible loss of federal aid, legal/DACA fees, etc, fundraising could also be an option. In addition, we could point students to the organizations helping people renew DACA apps and get legal help for free (this could be more in line with above solutions that would put resources in one place).


Some extra resources:

This is a list of congressional swing voters that can help save DACA: https://dreamacttoolkit.org/

This guide on LAist lays out LA specific renewal help/procedures, legal help, and fundraising/financial help: http://laist.com/2017/09/06/daca_resources.php

This is a list of community based resources from the mayor: https://www.lamayor.org/community_based_organizations

Define American gives students/schools the ability to create a petition specific to their campus to protect undocumented students: https://defineamerican.com/petitions/

Carecen is having a DACA renewal and citizenship workshop: http://www.carecen-la.org/daca_renewal_citizenship_workshop

From the provost:

The USC Gould School of Law Immigration Clinic’s Student, Faculty & Staff Legal Advice Project will give students legal help: http://gould.usc.edu/academics/experiential/clinics/immigration/

You can also donate to the clinic, although it's hidden in a dropdown: https://giveto.usc.edu/?fundid=21&appealcode=WLAW0001&buttongen=1&hidetop=1

USC resources: https://www.provost.usc.edu/memo-to-the-usc-community-regarding-daca/

Financial aid help for students affected: Financial Aid Outreach Associate Dean Diane Anchundia, 213-740-5445 or anchundia@usc.edu


9/11/2017 UPDATE:

I wanted to mock up a website that was simple and mobile friendly in the event we decide our goal is to make action easy for students who want to get involved. I used USC colors given that we probably wont be allowed to use USC’s logo. The design is made to easily modify for cellphones, as that’s how most will come to the site—especially if we use stickers to spread the word. On a desktop/laptop the text box can be set to a third or half of the screen and on mobile it can be set to fill up the whole width of a cell phone or tablet. I wanted it to be incredibly simple, allowing students to quickly and easily take action and make it easy to code and maintain in the event we decide to build it. I’ve included three mock-up images, one homepage, one that the “HELP NOW!” button leads to, and one that demonstrates what would happen if you selected an action, in this case if you wanted to “Call a Congressperson.” Of course, all the terminology and wording can be changed. For example, I wasn’t sure what we would want to encourage people to tell members of congress so I simply put “…tell them to save DACA and protect the undocumented.” But we could come up with something more specific. Look forward to feedback and collaboration!

 

Clips Week 3: AIDS Activism

Angry Initiatives, Defiant Strategies (Greyson)

https://archive.org/details/ddtv_16_angry_initiatives_defiant_strategies

Ihab Hassan’s chart:

http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/HassanPoMo.pdf

Doctors, Liars, Women:

https://vimeo.com/55793020

examples from Crimp:

http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/gran-fury-collection#/?tab=navigation

Kissing doesn’t Kill 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcr4CZs5Ciw

DIVA:  https://archive.org/details/ddtv_34_be_a_diva

Tom Kalin:

Quick clip: of They are Lost to Vision Altogether

http://www.vdb.org/titles/they-are-lost-vision-altogether

Ashes, a later piece for Commissioned by VISUAL AIDS for the 25th Anniversary of Day Without Art:

https://vimeo.com/112308207

"99% OFF" (WK 3)

Income inequality and the need for campaign finance reform are directly linked, of course. Despite the clear robbery of neoliberal policies that cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations – with US productivity increasing 73.4% as opposed to wages increasing only 11.1% since 1973 – “tax reform” (read: “tax cuts for the wealthy”) is expected to be the only legislation that Trump’s administration and Republicans in Congress will be able to agree on. Jane Mayer’s book Dark Money is a great intro. into the relation of these two things, but one need only look to the sad hypocrisy apparent in Ted Cruz’s backing Donald Trump after meeting with their mutual donor, Robert Mercer. Shortly after Cruz’s refusal to endorse Trump at the RNC, video of Cruz phone-banking for Trump surfaced. Mercer ultimately provided Trump’s campaign with Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, assets almost as valuable as the millions in campaign donations and outside expenditure. The military-industrial complex is of course another enormous branch of corruption in our political system, benefiting from a ballooning defense budget for at least 25 years.

I decided to create my image based around appropriation of an iconic image that most would recognize and that, in its way, has some interesting function of its own. I am drawing most from Crimp’s ideas of appropriation and how stamps function in our national discourse, especially hoping for it to resonate with the idea of food stamps. But primarily, I was looking for the dissonance of seeing a familiar image changed enough to catch the viewer’s eye. I doctored the original “Forever” stamp that read “Equality - FOREVER” to be more realistic given the disproportionate influence that corporations and the wealthy can have in elections – especially at the state level. In 2012, for example, candidates for House representatives who outspent their opponents won 95% of the time. So I changed the stamp’s year from “2012” to “2010,” the year of the Citizens United supreme court decision, which allowed undisclosed and unlimited outside expenditure in political races. The flag features corporate logos hearkens to the Citizens United decision, which allows corporations to be seen as legal Persons and sanctifies campaign spending as exercising their right to free “speech.” Also, as they are in place of the stars, I hope the broader feeling of the rich representing the people comes across. Now, for example, the public relies on swaying big business and the rich to advocate on our behalves, such as opposition to the Paris Climate accords and the work of billionaire Tom Steyer in bringing spending on lobbying climate change to a level comparable to wealthy interests such as the casino lobby. My only regret, looking back, is finding a way to fit “99% OFF” on the price tag in MS Paint!

Resources for fighting for campaign finance reform and info:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html?_r=0

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports/citizens_united.php

http://www.wolf-pac.com/

http://letsfreecongress.org/

- Teddy Lance

Shoot (Week 3)

Right before I decided to finally get down to business working on this assignment, I had been steadily sinking into a Twitter black hole of Tomi Lahren and Piers Morgan followers. There are no other living celebrity/social media personalities who make me want to wring my body into an all-but-obliterated pile of dust more than Tomi Lahren and Piers Morgan. This I know about myself, so allowing my addicted fingers to type their names into the search bar and scroll through their latest strings of idiocy is generally what some would consider an act of pure masochism; not only does it lead to such willfully ignorant imbecility as Ms. Lahren equating the email scandals of a former presidential candidate with the rising evidence of real-time foreign interference in our democratic elections, it leads to hundreds of thousands of equally willfully ignorant imbecilic followers with equally strong opinions, and with followers of their own. 

I should probably just block these accounts, as I have with the president's, to spare myself the agony of falling into these nonsensical, public political rabbit holes with the original poster and their leagues of admirers, but I haven't yet, for the same reason I haven't stopped reading the top comments on Facebook articles--as painful as they may be, there's something to be said for observing how people outside my mental intellectual sphere see the same things I'm seeing. 

Because I was entirely absorbed in my visceral hatred for these accounts and others like them, I decided to make that feeling the point of this assignment. I'm both eager and anxious to see how the history books will write about this era, twenty or thirty or fifty years from now, and to see how either totally shocked or utterly unsurprised future students will be to learn of the absurdly overinflated role of Twitter in these times. Twitter has become the social and political crux of the virtual world, much more so than other digital media and networking platforms, I believe, in no small part because it is the platform the president has chosen as his primary megaphone. 

Even before it became such a massive element of politics, Twitter was known as the platform most used as a no-pressure space for virtually any thought, possibly a draft of something later to be posted on Facebook or Instagram (the "old saying" goes, "No one is as happy as they seem on Instagram, or as sad as they seem on Twitter..."). Twitter is the go-to platform for our most careless, least thought-out thoughts--and it can also be an incredible way of reaching out and connecting to people. I've followed threads just in the last week of people in Texas whose phones were about to die, who still needed help, who sent one tweeted plea that got retweeted thousands and thousands of times, and ended up getting them saved. Twitter, more so than Instagram or Facebook, is frequently used to share iPhone footage direct from user to follower documenting personal experiences or observations of police brutality or other public demonstrations of injustice. Social media is amazing for its democratic qualities, but it's also a significant player in the ongoing debates around freedom of speech (whether hate speech is included in those constitutional protections, what constitutes hate speech in the first place) and public trust in mainstream and alternative news sources. 

Essentially: I go through brief phases when I would like to personally murder Twitter and all the inexcusably stupid things it has spawned, until I remember how much good is possible using the same tools (which, like video technology and others before it, has unsettling militant connotations). Worse yet, Twitter is the platform which reminds me, more than any others, just how many people there are who believe what they believe just as strongly and surely as I believe what I believe, and empathy and perspective are all mixed up with what is true. (I think of Facebook as "the original" platform used this way--which, by the truly young and hip, it no longer is--this is why the Facebook logo visually entraps the others.) The tagline is ripped from a Woodrow Wilson misquote when, in 1937,  unfounded suspicions arose that Wilson supported the KKK based on a claim that, after seeing Birth of a Nation, he stated, “It’s like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” The fact that this statement is "almost certainly apocryphal" (according to The New York Times) just lends itself all the more easily to the tragic, difficult reality of parsing through social media accounts in order to determine some piece of truth. 

Sasha Kohan

Superman is an Illegal Immigrant

In 2013, Define America launched the 'Superman is an Illegal Immigrant' campaign, which was meant to advocate for the rights of Dreamers, or undocumented immigrant children who were protected from deportation by Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The campaign used narratives drawn from popular culture to reconfigure one of the most iconic figures in the American cultural landscape as an undocumented immigrant who uses his considerable powers to assert his nationalistic identity. The underlying implication of the campaign is that as n alien from another planet, Superman is a literal representation of the most extreme state of undocumented immigration, and yet he is an American cultural icon who stands for "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" -- a statement which subsumes his legal immigrant status within his cultural assimilation in the country in which he grew up. The DACA program is currently under imminent threat from Trump, who has proposed dismantling it within a period of 6 months from September 2017. In response, immigration activists have launched the #HereToStay social media movement, which is meant to unite a network of people who are ready to support, and fight for immigrants at risk for deportation.

As a researcher interested in digital activism and participatory culture, I have always found memes to have significant political power, particularly because of the ease with which they propagate through social networks. The power of a meme lies not in its virality, but the degree to which it can inspire participation and remixing. As a meme, #HereToStay can be used in a variety of ways that signify the resistance of politically precarious populations to governmental attempts to index, and regulate their numbers, or even pose threats to their rights to exist and assemble in public. The biopolitics of precarity is opposed through the use of memes, which are essentially anonymous, and travel through vast networks through deregulated, connective channels of communication.

In the meme above, for instance, I used an image of Superman breaking through concrete walls (symbolic of Trump's most iconic campaign promise), and announcing his support of the endangered DACA program. Neither the image, nor the message are original creations. However, memes are not about originality; they are about the potential for creative remixing. By combining the graphic of Superman with a core sentiment of immigrant activism, the meme recalls the Define America campaign, and links it with themes of truth, justice, and social reform, while collectively enforcing the idea that immigrant rights are intrinsically American, as represented by the vociferous support of an intrinsically American (albeit alien) superhero figure.