Aloe Blacc
On Thursday, President Obama spoke to dozens of immigrant rights activists at the White House, joining them in demanding immigration reform be put back on the table, post-shutdown.
For those most affected by a “broken immigration system,” as the President calls it, reform never stopped being an issue. While trying to carve out a slice of the American Dream politicians so often talk about, undocumented immigrants and their families are consistently faced with the threat of deportation, detention, bigotry, and criminalization.
Director Alex Rivera has encapsulated that struggle with a new music video for American musician Aloe Blacc’s new song, “Wake Me Up.”
From Colorlines:
“[T]he video includes appearances from Agustín Chiprez Alvarez, who is also a day laborer, Margarita Reyes, who was deported as a child along with her mother, and Hareth Andrade Ayala, who is fighting to halt her father’s deportation.”
This isn’t the first time Rivera has used real people to illuminate the harsh effects immigration policies have on immigrant communities and families. In April of this year, Rivera directed La Santa Cecilia’s “El Hielo.”