Laura Zhang
Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project
Los Angeles, USA
Hi all, my name is Laura Zhang and I am a junior studying at Gallatin with a minor in Creative Writing. This summer, I will be interning with the Esperanza Immigrants Rights Project, based in Los Angeles, California. Esperanza is one of the largest organizations providing legal services to unaccompanied youth in California and supports immigrant and refugee communities through educational, advocacy, empowerment, and representation programs.
Through the Released Youth Program, a subset of their Community Education Programs, I will work as a part of Esperanza’s determination that immigrants’ access to education and representation is a human right. As a part of legal orientations offered to unaccompanied minors and their guardians, my work will include and is not limited to conducting legal intakes, assisting pro se clients, developing materials for ongoing cases, and assistance in administrative work. Esperanza’s focus on immigrants who are especially vulnerable as youth, adults with mental health struggles, or cases of domestic violence that require particular rigor in their legal processes is critical so that no one falls through the cracks of immigration services because of aspects of their identity.
This semester, I have been particularly interested in how children are implicated in the politics of movement, the character of criminality, and their subsequent relationship to “resistance” and agency. As someone especially intrigued by language, and how it can be used to interrogate the human experience, I am curious what role narrative has in addressing memory and documentation in a legal setting.
In my time as a student at NYU thus far, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with other students in organizations including the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project (QDEP) and New Sanctuary Coalition’s asylum clinic. I am excited to carry with me those experiences into my time with Esperanza. As I prepare for the immersion into immigrant legal services I will have this summer, I also wanted to express my interest in the project of a ‘home’. I am interested in how vital, indefinite, and ongoing the project of a home is for children and am eager to learn with Esperanza how we are going towards it.