Brainstorm Week 7 - Caroline Johnson

The interview and background with Julio Saldago exemplify the way that the undocumented queer community has benefitted from social media. It is an easy way to come out and find a community. These undocumented queer people who may feel alone are now able to connect and find a community that strengthens each individual and the community as a whole. He says how “I think social media has been a blessing and a curse; a blessing for communities like ours where we might not be able to travel, but a lot of us met through these networks” (Seif 307). He also adds how there still needs to be physical rallies and coming together. Social media is a great place to connect but for all the change to occur there still must be an in-person connection. His posters bring the community together and use technology to try and emancipate this undocumented and queer group. By bringing people together and creating a large movement this stops the idea of social death. These undocumented groups coming together to overcome the deportation movements and other ideas shows their resilience as they work together. They do not let this discrimination stop them, but they use it to try and create awareness of the problem. The social media usage by dreamers has three parts. First Costanza-Chock discusses how they use various forms of social media to get their message across. Then how social media is used as a place for conversation. Finally, these communities want to bring more undocumented youth into this movement through social media (Costanza-Chock 137). Overall, they use the ideas of chicanafuturism to try and stop the discrimination and bring equality and awareness to what undocumented and queer experience. Chicanafuturism which takes technology which is not meant for creating equality for Chicanos but actually makes it so that is its use is shown in these movements through the use of social media and technology to spread these movements and create community and action.