Brainstorm #7 - Albert Lam

The readings from Week 6 and 7 build upon each other in that while the Week 6 readings explored how Chicanxfuturism plays into technology and change, the Week 7 readings elaborate on these technologies, specifically on how exactly social media and its algorithmos help individuals heighten and widen the spread of their art, their narrative, and their story. For example, undocumented queer artivist Julio Salgodo from "Layers of Humanity" speaks about how Julio can, "through the art," work to turn the hell queer people face by showing the community "in dignified ways that embrace the terms that make us feel like we are less than human" (300). By facing these terms and embracing them head-on, the queer community can disarm and de-weaponize those who seek to degrade them through hurtful terms. In fact, it is probably what they would expect the least.However, we learn from Costanza-Chock in "Out of the Closets, Out of the Shadows, and Into the Streets" that social media is merely one platform that the DERAM activists leverage. These include "print publishing, appearances on Spanish-language commercial radio and television shows, and, most crucially, face-to-face presentations in high schools, and community centers, and in other spaces across the country (137). So while the Internet and social media is certainly powerful, the digital means of spreading information, coupled with interactive and closer in-person engagements that serve to build genuine and deeper connections, is how the DREAM activists intend to deliver their message most powerfully. That said, the DREAM activists have also taken steps to try to build on the social media front in order to keep the positive benefit of being able to disperse information to a large group while relaying a meaningful message beyond simply "a homogenous message" (138). They do this by using social media to also "create spaces for conversation" (138). Through technology, undocuqueer activists are cultivating a community and a family of allies and fellow resistors.