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Ningun ser Humano es Ilegal
(No Human Being is Illegal)
Mark Vallen 1988. Pencil on paper
19.5" x 22" inches
My
drawing was published as a bilingual street poster
in conjunction with a 1988 drive conducted by the
Los Angeles based Central
American Resource Center (CARECEN), to
secure the rights of undocumented Central American
war refugees in the U.S. The 5,000 posters distributed
popularized the slogan of "No Human Being is Illegal,"
a catchphrase that has since entered the lexicon of
today's defenders of immigrant's rights.
To
oppose the rising tide of discrimination aimed at
the undocumented in the U.S., from Arizona's racist
SB1070 anti-immigrant law, to efforts by members of
the U.S. Congress to overturn the 14th Amendment of
the U.S. Constitution (which guarantees citizenship
to children born on U.S. soil), I republished my poster
in August of 2010
By
special permission, my drawing appears as the book
cover of Lives
in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America.
Written by Roberto G. Gonzales, an Assistant Professor
at Harvard University Graduate School of Education,
the book specifically focuses on the stories of immigrant
Latino children and young adults who are caught in
the Kafkaesque U.S. immigration system.
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