When she was just nine, Luz Chavez Gonzales started making frequent trips to Washington, D.C., to attend rallies and other actions for immigration reform with a high-school-aged cousin. “We were always, always in D.C,” Chavez Gonzales said.
Her family had come to the U.S. from Bolivia when she was 4, making their home in Gaithersburg, Maryland, a suburb about 30 miles outside of D.C. For plenty of young people, that geographic fate might have just meant primo access to some top-notch field trips, but for Chavez Gonzales, proximity to the nation’s capital set her on a distinct, social justice-oriented path.
As much as she enjoyed attending rallies and making her own “little posters,” Chavez Gonzales says that when she was younger, her understanding of why these events mattered, especially for her family, was hazy. She knew her cousin, aunt, and uncle were undocumented, but she didn’t fully understand the implications of their immigration status.
At the time, her mom explained that the change her cousin was pushing for would “give your tío and tía safety here,” but Chavez Gonzales didn’t totally get what that meant. It would be even longer before she learned about her own even more direct connection to the cause she was fighting for.
As a tween, Chavez Gonzales took government classes and began to develop a deeper understanding of the history of immigration policy in the U.S. By then, her cousin was in college nearby, and Chavez Gonzales, then 13 and 14, recalls helping her pass out flyers in crowded locations to boost attendance at protests and rallies. She took those flyers to school as well and encouraged friends to attend events via social media. (One of Chavez Gonzales’ very first posts on Instagram, brand new at the time, was about a rally in D.C.)
Her parents, who lived through dictatorships in Bolivia, were always supportive of her participation in immigration reform-related events, but as the work grew more demanding and civil disobedience efforts became more common, they started to express hesitation concerning her attendance.
Around the same time, Chavez Gonzales learned a staggering, dizzying truth: She was undocumented, and so were her parents and sister. (Her younger brother, who was in elementary school at the time, was a citizen since he was born in the U.S.)
“I [had] lived every single day not knowing this,” Chavez Gonzales remembers. “I knew that I was fighting for my cousin. I knew that I was fighting for my aunt and uncle. But I didn’t know I was fighting for myself. I didn’t know I was fighting for my mom and dad, or my sister.”
She ultimately learned about her status at 16, when her parents had her meet with a lawyer to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which gives some children of undocumented immigrants work permit eligibility and deferred action on deportation. Her parents told her they’d kept their undocumented status from her and her sister so they could reach their “full potential” and not “live in fear, and to live a normal childhood,” Chavez Gonzales explains.
That concern was justified. For a time, Chavez Gonzales’ knowledge of her immigration status made her shrink away from the activism and organizing work she was involved in before. “I was scared,” Chavez Gonzales says. “A lot of undocumented youth go through this stage of being afraid, and fearful, and in the shadows.”
The end of high school presented other challenges too: The cousin who initially emboldened Chavez Gonzales to get involved had moved to a different state, and Chavez Gonzales felt adrift and alone while navigating the college application process with her newfound DACA-mented status. (She got DACA in 2013, and graduated high school in 2015.)
Eventually, Chavez Gonzales regained her momentum with the help of what might seem like an unlikely motivator: The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump. Chavez Gonzales says that his rhetoric on the campaign trail, such as labeling Mexicans “rapists,” and his campaign trail promises to terminate DACA, made it clear, in her eyes, that his campaign was a direct attack on her community.
“It sparked that fear I had when I found out I was undocumented. But at the same time, I knew that there was a whole community out there that was pushing for legislative change for me and the youth like me,” Chavez Gonzales says. When, in September of 2017, the Trump administration announced it would end DACA (a move that has since been challenged; most recently, a federal judge ordered that DACA be fully reinstated), Chavez Gonzales recalls crying with her family while watching the news.
As the tears poured out, Chavez Gonzales’ mom stopped her and offered some tough love: “Either you’re going to sit here and cry about it, or you’re going to go out there and actually push for change,” Chavez Gonzales recalls her mom saying, to her disbelief. Her mom continued: “I’d rather see you going out and protesting, and asking for DACA back, and asking for more protections for everyone who’s sitting here crying all day about it.”
Then came what Chavez Gonzales now interprets as a truly serendipitous moment, or maybe even a sign from “the universe”: When she arrived on her college’s campus later that day, she took a last-minute trip to the dining hall. There, she noticed a bulletin board flyer asking for all DACA-mented or undocumented students, or those with temporary protected status, to join in a “rapid response action” in D.C. in light of the DACA news. Chavez didn’t even end up going to class that day; she drove from her college in Maryland straight to D.C., where she reunited with organizers from United We Dream, a youth-led immigrant rights network that empowers immigrant communities through trainings and campaigns. (Chavez Gonzales had worked with the group back when she attended rallies with her cousin.)
Since then, it’s been full steam ahead. Take her involvement in a summer social justice organizing program led by United We Dream, which introduced her to two other DACA recipients from Gaithersburg. They started a campaign to get their city council to pass a “freedom city” resolution, which would protect people on the basis of immigration status, race, sex, sexual orientation, disability status, and gender, among other factors. After a few months of intense, dedicated campaign work, it passed.
That big win was just the tip of the iceberg. Since her early days in the immigrant rights movement, Chavez Gonzales has now become a full-fledged leader, organizing events to empower undocumented students at her former high school with resources about the college application process and their rights as undocumented people, and coordinating a walkout to gather outside the Supreme Court during the November 2019 DACA hearings.
Here’s what she wants you to know.
1. What’s one piece of advice you’d give young people looking to get involved in activism?
“Your story is never small. Everyone has a story, and you shouldn’t downplay your story at all. There’s always a community behind you every step of the way. And never be shy to ask. You know, a lot of people [shy] away from a lot of these spaces because they’re too afraid to ask about what they can do to be more involved. For me, it was that one ask, that one action [in college] that brought me to where I am now. It also came from mentorship from people like my cousin. I was able to reflect on that to other youth that are currently in high school. We’re young, but we still get stuff done. We’re able to see [our efforts] reflected in everything that’s happening around us.”
2. Why are young people integral voices in immigration?
“Our voices span generations. And being able to be there for ourselves, for our community, for our families, it’s very important because we’re fighting a fight that’s been ongoing for decades now. We’ve been pushing and pushing for legislation, and every time it fails us. But now it’s our time to demand these changes happen. Young people are [unafraid] to push for a whole administration to bring a whole program to action.
DACA wasn’t just Obama’s signature. It wasn’t Obama waking up one day, [saying] ‘Oh, I’m going to do something for the DREAMers.’ It was the collective organizing of thousands of undocumented youth that are going out there and risking everything to share their stories, to come out of the shadows, and demand that the Obama administration do something about it … We’re here because we’re on the shoulders of giants.”
3. What are some tools or resources that budding young activists can use to inform and propel their activism?
“When I started out, for me, it was using social media, and it wasn’t that big at the time. Now, it’s a huge output of resources, and infographics, and petitions, and advertising actions that are happening around us. Social media is definitely one of the biggest tools you can use, but you also [have to] make sure you’re using the right information, not disinformation, to educate yourselves on what’s happening around you. We also have websites we can look into different progressive organizations and their toolkits on how to make change, because sharing [on social media] … and signing petitions is one thing, but another is showing up for your community … like mutual aid groups and volunteering with these groups that came out despite COVID and everything that’s happening.”
4. What would you tell someone who feels disillusioned with politics or the current state of the world? Why is it still important to get involved?
“We can’t depend on politicians every day for our livelihoods. It’s direct action; it’s fighting for what’s right, despite who’s in office, because at the end of the day, politicians are there for themselves. [But] if they’re pushing for changes for their constituents, we have someone that’s a fighter for us. We can see that with the new class of congress members that are in office right now, like AOC and ‘The Squad.’ They’ve been fighting for their constituents. If we can elect more officials that are like that, we can get so much done.
In the meantime, while we still have people out there indirectly and directly terrorizing our communities, we have to be out there and fighting, because change doesn’t happen with you just complaining about the system. It’s directly calling out the system that’s been put in place, calling out these institutions that have been disproportionately attacking us… being out there on the streets or signing petitions, or taking action. Despite what’s happening around us, it’s how we bring forth change, and it’s very important, especially with the Trump administration and now with the Biden administration. Voting was one thing, but taking action is another. We have to hold every single person accountable despite any circumstances that we’re in. So, that’s what we’ll be doing for the next four years.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.