Fast for Immigration Rights

The immigration struggle gain momentum in 2006 with the marches held in April and May to defeat HR4437, which was a proposed legislation to make undocumented immigrants and those "assisting" undocumented immigrants felons. Typically, when anti-immigration laws are proposed, the public is informed and activist react. However, what made this movement different is that millions of individuals became activist as they took the streets to protest in the marches. It is estimated that about 750,000 protestors took to the streets of Los Angeles on March 25, 2006. The legislation was defeated, and many considered the marches a great success to spark social, political and economic awareness of immigration. However, the momentum has seem to have been subdued over the past two years.

With the upcoming elections, the candidate that gets elected will have a detrimental decision to make in regards to immigration policies. A new movement has arisen, a tactic that was utilized to promote awareness in the 1960s movements: hunger strikes. A pledge has been made to fast for immigrant rights, and 100 individuals will fast for 21 days to promote awareness for immigrant rights and also to promote Latinos to register to vote. While the movement has been announced primarily on Latino media, it seems that YouTube has been utilized as a medium to promote the movement. The YouTube video below has been strategically composed to not only convoke the audience through images and speech, but also words and phrases. The voice over and the words are presented so as to reinforce certain ideas of the movement and elaborate on the history of immigrant rights. At the end, the propaganda uses the “Are you ready...” slogan to encourage individuals to fast and promote awareness of the movement.

The fast for immigrant rights will be in vain if awareness does not arise from the movement. Utilizing YouTube is a strategic manner of outreaching to the youth, who have the most potential of spreading the word faster online. Now activism will utilize the powerful tool internet to bring about issues.