Jesse Castañeda, chair of the Silicon Valley Alliance for Immigration Reform (SVAIR) and human rights activist, has been campaigning for immigration reform in an effort to bridge the gap between the immigrant and mainstream populations.
Jesse Castaneda, Chair of the Silicon Valley Alliance for Immigration
Reform, at the Light in the Darkness screening in San Francisco
Castañeda recently organized a screening of Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library in San Jose, Calif., using the film to facilitate a conversation about anti-immigrant sentiment in his community.
“My community is the community that Marcelo Lucero's family is part of—immigrants, mostly Latino immigrants, many undocumented. They do not have a voice in our society and live in the shadows,” said Castañeda.
silicon valley
After a Palo Alto middle school student was the target of a student-led “I Hate [Student's Name]” Facebook group, some Silicon Valley parents are calling for a community dialogue about cyberbullying.
According to the Silicon Valley Moms blog, over 100 young people participated in the online group. Many of the public Facebook posts “ranged from insulting, rude comments to actual threats of violence” against the bullied student.
Although school district officials took measures to remove the Facebook group, some concerned residents are calling for a meeting about the harmful effects of intolerance and hate speech, and what the community can do to get to the root of the problem.
Parent Roxane Dover encourages Silicon Valley to stand together against cyberbullying in Cyberbullying: whose responsibility is it?: