My name is Gracea Martinez Rosas.

I'm the daughter of Luis and I Martinez.

My mother and my grandfather were both leaders in the church.

I am from the Otomy people of the central valley of Mexico.

When I was 7 years old, my family and I made the journey to the US from Idalgo, Mexico.

My mother and my father made the difficult and courageous decision to make a new life for their families and their four little girls here.

We decided to the only way that we could come here was through crossing the Rio Grande waters.

And I remember how cold the water was.

Sometimes I still feel the cold in my skin.

I remember almost losing my mother to the current of the Rio Grande.

I just also remember making it to the other side and being so grateful that my parents had been courageous and had brought us here.

We grew up in Dallas, Texas.

And in that same tightness that we had to hold each other as we move through the waters of the Rio Grande Valley, we remained tight in that way and made a life here in the US.

I remember being like in elementary school and feeling really scared about being found out for being undocumented.

That fear almost ate ate me up.

It almost made me feel like I didn't belong here, that we had done something wrong, that I should just keep my head bowed and not ask many questions and just be grateful for it.

But in my late teens when I was a senior in high school and I saw the passage of the Sense and Brener bill and the bill in itself would say that people like my mother and father who had given up so much who woke up every morning to build our family would be treated as criminals.

And not only that, the people that would choose to help us would also be criminalized.

And I just couldn't take it.

I couldn't take the idea of that.

And so when I was a senior in high school, my friends and I organized a high school walk out much like the walkouts that we're seeing in North Carolina today and LA and Chicago.

I felt unstoppable by then that I had a voice that I should shout from the rooftops.

Unfortunately, my life has been dotted by very daunting challenges in life.

When I was a sophomore in in college, my dad was detained and sumearily deported after just a couple of days.

We did not have the legal support that we needed.

We didn't have money enough to pay.

That feeling of being a teenager and feeling so helpless that and the inspiration and the guidance from the members of United Red Dream that led us to this year to launch the defending our neighbors fund to ensure that people in the US had access to due process into a lawyer.

And this fund in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Abundant Futures Fund has raised now $ 122.8 $8 million towards legal defense of immigrants just like my dad.

That story is part of the reason why I believe in youth organizing and why I believe in the power of young people to transform.

I'm not special.

I what I have inside of me is what's inside of everyone, every young person, every immigrant child.

But I was really lucky to be able to have opportunities to channel that strength and those gifts.

And part of my work at United We Dream is to do that for many, many other young people.

You started from the bottom.

Tell us about that part of your life.

Uh, United We Dream has been um a home for me and many others to be able to grow, to grow our skills, to grow our spirit, to grow our power, our voice.

When I first entered the organization, I was a member, someone that was part of the big 2010 mobilizations to Washington DC and fighting for the Dream Act.

It's the same places where that sensor Brener bill took place.

I was there calling on members of Congress to pass the Dream Act.

unfortunately fail in the Senate now have the great responsibility to be what I call a good ancestor, a good big sister to the young people that are now in high school and in college just like I was in that time.

Support them in their leadership of changing the conditions of this country for the better.

What would you say are the most important challenges right now for United We Dream?

Well, there has never been a more important time to be a young leader.

There has never been a more important time to be an advocate for the rights of working people.

And there has never been a more important time to be a proud immigrant than this time.

It's also the darkest time in our history.

We are seeing in this moment young people, children of seven years old just like I was on across the border having to defend themselves in front of the front of an immigration judge without any legal support or any parents with them.

We are seeing the disappearances of our loved ones every day while they're going to work only because of the color of their skin because they look Latino, because they speak Spanish, because they look Asian, because they look Southeast Asian.

It is challenging and horrifying time that unfortunately I think history will look upon with a lot of shame for the people that are making these decisions.

But history will also tell the stories of the young people of United We Dream that are organizing in their communities and hosting.

It is also the story of the young people that like got their teammate, their soccer teammate out of detention because they made the calls and they organized this moment.

What's most important for United We Dream is two things.

One is to bring together this new generation of leaders that are rising up all across the country.

and two to remind each other that even though it's immigrants that are at the center of the fight right now, everything that's happened to our communities is about our collective future.

Is our we have a shared future.

Whether you're undocumented or not, whether you're an immigrant or not, if you're someone that's a working person here in this country, this is a horrifying moment and you're not alone.

Many of us are horrified by what's happening in our communities, in our neighborhoods.

How immigrants are being hunted, literally hunted in every single street in this country and followed into child care centers and ICE agents covered their faces and detaining people.

Um, but what is exciting about the defending our futures fund is that u millions of Americans are taking an action together and saying not my neighbor, not this moment, not today, not ever.

What will you tell to those who want these deportation actions to continue?

More people like me to be detained and deported to the people that continue to support that agenda of hate.

I will say I love you.

Um this is my country.

This is your country.

We have an opportunity to make this better.

to the kids that are being separated from their parents and those that are harmed that every day wake up feeling afraid about what's going to happen to them.

I will say you're not alone.

Um we're fighting for you.

To those people that are standing up and organizing in this moment, I say thank you and we're going to win.

It is always a small group of people that are standing up for each other to not lose hope to take the rest that you need in this moment.

Let's rest up and then come back because this is our country.

Whether I am inside of its borders or outside of it.

For the Latinos, those Mexicos, Venezuelanos, Colombian, wherever part of Latin America you're from, um I want to remind you that we have something inside of us that no one can take away, which is our love for one another, our culture, our delicious food.

um that there that there is power in the and being Latino in this country.

Benito or Bad Bunny reminds us to take many more photos and remember the good times that we'll have with our families now and to not give up and give in to the fear.

My name is Graa Martinez Rosas.

I am undocumented, unafraid, queer, and unashamed.

We have come too far.

We will not turn around.

We will flood the streets with justice because we are freedom bound.

Those are the words of a black poet, June Jordan, and they ring true today.

Power.

Power.

Transformation.

Transformation.

Miracles.

Miracles.

I got it.

I want it.

I need it.

I need it.

I got to have it.

I got to have it.

I got to have it.