"Relationship to Immigration: A friend and ally." - Caitlin Bartow
"It has been great to finally know (and see) a picture of my great-grandfather because of Ancestry.com and the work done for Perfect Union." - Jeremy Black
"Third generation European. Name changed to 'Breslin' from 'O'Breaslain' upon entrance through Ellis Island. Long family history of Italian seamstresses who worked hard to get by when coming to America." - Andrew Breslin
"Originally from the Midwest, I come from a mixture of immigrants from England Ireland, Scotland, and Prussia, as well as Cherokee Indian. I am especially interested in exploring stories of forced migration." - Cate Cammarata
"I'm a mutt, meaning I'm a big mix of nationalities. I don't know most of my family history. I'm more interested in the holes." - Eileen Casterline
"I'm a first generation Asian-American, I currently have family in Korea trying to immigrate to the U.S." - Devin Chong
"Everyone in my family except my brother and I are immigrants from India. They came in search for the American Dream and to establish a life for future generations. That's what it's about, legacy. The dream is there for the taking." - Mohit Guatam
"Last fall I was asked by John Lutterbie to co-teach or really co-collaborate with Jeanette Yew on a devised work class dealing with immigration. Initially it was solely out of my respect for John that I became immersed in the project. Then the dynamic atmosphere of the class created by Jeanette allowed me to bring my visual sensibilities to the discussion of the topic." - Dan Hess
"My grandparents came off the boat from Germany. They had to work extremely hard not only to make a living for their family, but only to get used to the new culture and learn a new language." - Jayme Liardi
"In 1985, my mother and my aunt hopped the fence separating the U.S. and Mexico and made their way to Oregon where they have spent the last 27 years establishing their lives here while dealing with challenges such as prejudice (ranging from blatant to passive-aggressive to unconscious), knocking down the language barrier, and raising children in a culture alien to their own on top of all the other shenanigans that come from childrearing. TL:DR - Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. Para las dos mujeres mas fuertes de mi vida - te quiero." - Christina Lydy-Mills
"As the generally-confused offspring of a second-generation Italian-American father and a mother whose Pennsylvania Dutch heritage goes back to the colonial era, I - like just about all U.S. citizens - am the child of immigrants. I feel very strongly that diversity is the lifeblood of any healthy democracy: a fact that everyone on all sides of the modern immigration debate must never forget as tempers rise and ideologies clash." - Mark Mancini
"I spent 2011 organizing an immigrants' rights campaign across Long Island. One of my goals is to teach immigrants." - Erin Mansfield
"My family is a mixture of a few European countries, and different parts of my family came to this country at different times. On my paternal grandmother's side of the family can trace our ancestors all the way back to that first passage on the Mayflower. My paternal grandfather's side of the family - and my namesake - is German. My mother's side is dominantly Irish, and they came over as little as four generations ago (myself being the fourth generation). America is an immigration country. Very few people in the United States can really say that they and their family have always been here, and that makes all of us proud equals." - Kati Overmier
"Both sides of my family emigrated from Europe. I also grew up in a richly diverse area and have been exposed to different cultures and immigrants." - Hannah Schneider
"I grew up in Tucson, AZ, which is about 45 minutes from the border. We aren't a 'border town' as such, but immigration and border issues are a part of daily life for us. The media often paints the issue as polarized, as black-and-white, with clear heroes, villains, and victims (though who fills those roles tends to depend on political ideology). But it isn't. It's an incredibly complex issue that can't possibly be condensed into 30-second sound bites or wrangled into a simple narrative of good versus evil. The human element gets lost in so much of the discourse about the border and immigration; it's easy to hate an idea or a philosophy or a law, but it's so much more difficult to hate a neighbor, a classmate, a coworker. Ultimately, we're all just people, trying - and sometimes failing - to live the best lives we can." - Erin Treat
"I was born in Detroit, MI, but grew up in Hong Kong. The first time I was asked, 'When were you naturalized?' I was very confused by the term. I am the only one holding U.S. citizenship in my family. When my parents first arrived in the U.S., they were attracted to the stability and opportunity; however, during the 1980s and 1990s, as the economics and political environment of Hong Kong became stable and thriving, they did not feel the need to seek immigration to any countries." - Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew
"I am a Chinese student, hence I have neither citizenship nor residential identity here in the U.S. However, immigration is a really interesting topic to me, since Chinese people now are the second largest group immigrating to the U.S." - Shan Xiao
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