Archive for Site Updates

Fantastic Two Weeks of Victories

// January 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // Site Updates

I may appear like I am always ready for a fight but I am actually quite happy and content with life.

The last two weeks have been hectic, but also quite great.

I fought back home foreclosure, formed a public relations shaming campaign called OneWestFail, and received attention from the corporate office at OneWest. They just mailed a new package this week, and now my mom’s case is with an escalation specialist in the headquarters. They will not foreclose and have agreed to work with us for a HAMP Modification. Just yesterday I spoke with an LA Business Journal reporter who is looking into OneWest and stumbled onto the site. Apparently, I have quite a few people sharing their stories and putting their names down for class action. I will get back to them soon with corporate office contacts and list of lawyers who are handling lawsuits in various states.

The devastation in Haiti ironically presented a great opportunity for immigration reformers here to finally get temporary protected status. Deportations to Haiti were halted, temporary protected status granted and over the weekend I also pushed for humanitarian parole, which was granted this Monday. The intellectual side of me is finally kicking in and now I can step back and criticize mainstream media coverage of Haiti and the ongoing occupation of it by the North-Atlantic hegemony.

Anees Sous. I seriously don’t know why Mohammad feels compelled to help almost everyone who comes across our site, but I can’t say no either, so I agreed to help at least setup his site using the same template from the OWBFail campaign and push it out online at Change.org. We got a temporary victory, with Anees getting 30 more days, but only with Mo working directly with Congressperson John Conyers’ office. If we had more time, the online aspect could have been developed into a campaign to get the Arab-American community involved in immigration reform, but there are not enough hours in the day. Anyway, now Mo is working on putting up a site so that people can train themselves to organize for their own cases and all the sign-on requests can go to one place.

Today, I worked with Eric at NewComm to set up an action against the National Council of Science and the Environment to dis-invite gumball Roy Beck from their New Green Economy conference. Their ED was adamant about providing the white nationalist Roy Beck a ‘forum.’ I think the least I want from this is to send enough letters and make enough noise so that NCES seriously rethinks and issues a statement denying affiliations with the anti-immigration agenda. I also hope Beck chokes on one of his gumballs.

And the last two weeks, I have been ill so I am supposedly taking a long weekend off to catch up on playtime. I am still looking for a full-time job (resume here) but pretty happy with my current gig at Change.org as well. Maybe this elevated mood also has to do with making time for the gym daily and the full-tuition scholarship offers from good law schools in the United States. If I have to stay here in Fall 2010, I might as well go to law school for free.

Resume Update

// January 13th, 2010 // No Comments » // Site Updates

I updated my resume (available here) given I need a full-time job to save home from foreclosure and raise money for college.

I’ll do anything that I am qualified for especially in the following fields: LGBT, women rights, environment and anti-racism politics. And I can do new media jobs and weave movements in my sleep.

Peace.

New Look and New Server for the New Year

// January 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // Site Updates

I just moved my blog to a new dedicated server (from BlueHost to 1and1) and changed the look. I may have lost some data in the transition, especially the comments mysql file might not have updated properly and the IntenseDebate sync did not catch everything.

Comment Policy

Some moron (not worth naming) is baseless accusing me of deleting comments so I thought I would clarify in case other weird stalkers start complaining that I am somehow censoring them. As the promigrant sphere knows, I don’t waste my time sparing with racists, nativists and dumbasses in my private space or via email or even allow those comments to be published. I have the freedom and right under the law, to censor people who harass and accuse me on my private blog. There’s enough hatred in the world and we don’t need more of that in my space.

The accusation that I deleted comments that were already published on my blog is just moronic given I just went through some intense data transfer this past week. Maybe people should fact-check before making accusations but certain privileged members of our society don’t feel the need to do so. If you have that attitude, your comments are not welcome here. Rubbish belongs in the rubbish bin.

New Years Resolutions

  • Get Healthy and Fit Again
  • Worry only about things I can control
  • Use this blog more often
  • Change “public interest” to “Prerna interest”
  • Try to get less mad about dumbasses – the world is full of them.

Happy New Year.

What’s Your Rashee?

// September 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // Site Updates

I am not referring to the Priyanka Chopra starrer where she makes a new Guinness World Record for the number of characters she plays in the movie.

But the movie certainly brings up some unanswered questions for me.

What's Your Rashee

Earlier this year, I met with a Hindu astrologer priest at the insistence of my mother. I usually don’t participate in such things, but I thought I would just for my amusement. He had good things to say about me and my career but came with 3 main warnings:

1. Don’t network and associate with other people too much. You are starting to do this right now and it’s actually not good for you.

2. No one can really harm you, only you have the ability to harm yourself.

3. Someone close to you will betray you.

I didn’t listen to any warnings then. Now that hindsight is 20/20, I can see how these statements ring true for the past 6 months. I am not sure how I got to this point and I don’t know where to go from here but to just retreat from my associations and disappear into other worlds. It’s an ongoing project.

So if you get axed from my online networks, don’t take it personally. I am simply doing house-keeping.

Transition Phase

// July 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Immigration, Site Updates

Post New York-Chicago, I am in a transition phase and so this is a disclosure of priorities.

Some very amazing people work @ the best immigration organization in the United States – dreamactivist.org – so we are all working on transitioning as well into a body that works better, and includes the energy and talents of more people rather than overburdening 1-2 people. That can never be good. I will be taking several steps back to focus on other things but still be involved in whatever capacity the organization needs me. I did a fantastic job on it–I could have done far better in the past 5 months–but I will save that for my next project. I don’t doubt that something good will come out of this. The bottom-line is that I want to see the emergence of more fearless young(er) leaders running around for immigration reform and there are good people working on making sure that dream comes to fruition.

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Lessons from New York

// July 25th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Site Updates

I have never been to New York before but it isn’t places that hold importance–it’s people. And sometimes we meet and spend time with people who remind us why we are still residing in this #%#%% country.

I remember when I was a kid, I had made a speech about how friendship was the most important and telling relationship since it was one of the only ones that we aren’t forced to make or keep. This blog has many friendly stalkers and the ones in New York are both special and important enough to keep.

I inherited the red-eye on Thursday, spent the day in company of friends working to stop the deportation of Taha, had a smashing night with little sleep, got dragged to a meeting I had no stake in, spent a much longer part of the day ‘hobbling’ around New York/New Jersey over Taha’s case and partying the night away. I usually detest traveling but I spent quality time with people I love so the trip was productive.

And I did work. I owed Dave 10 blog posts over the course of the week and delivered duly. From the Senate passing the long-awaited hate crime bill to Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan and Kris Kobach to ICE breaking laws to apologies for racial discrimination and to the undying DREAM Act. And I learned some valuable lessons.

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Fundraising Pledges and T-shirts

// July 20th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Site Updates

Alright friends, we need help.

1. There is my 511 mile bike ride pledge. 511 miles between August 13 and August 22! For those who have donated or are thinking about donating, it is tax-deductible – TAX ID 94-10007751

2. We have DREAM Act T-shirts for sale for $15 here

DREAM ACT T-shirt

If you are sending a check, make it out to ‘Prerna Lal’ and mail it to:

P.O Box 7552,
Ann Arbor, MI 48107

This week I am blogging at Change.org Immigration before heading out to New York, Chicago and Wisconsin.

August 13-22: The 511 mile Bike Ride | Tour de Dreams

// June 12th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Site Updates

This is the first time I am fundraising for myself. I have fundraised for countless organizations as a teenager, we fundraise for DreamACTivist.org and other undocumented youth whenever we can, but this is the FIRST TIME I have put up a widget for myself.

This past year I got into all law schools of my choice. But I couldn’t afford to go.

I couldn’t take out student loans since my house is going through foreclosure and our credit is bad.

I couldn’t get any federal or state financial aid since I am undocumented.

I decided to delay law school for another year, to delay our dreams. This dream has been delayed since I was 16 and decided to be a public interest attorney.

Now, as I find myself suddenly fatherless, this dream seems more elusive than ever.

It’s not empty fundraising. I will be doing a 9-day, 511 mile bike ride in the summer heat from UCLA to UC Berkeley. It’s a distance that I have never covered and given that my body has adverse reaction to prolonged exposure to sunlight, it is certainly going to be a challenge.

Hosted by RISE-UCB, Tam and I will try and cover this event daily on DreamActivist.org, including daily video uploads and write-ups. I will twitter! We will do a kickass job of bringing the event to you, I promise.

I will survive and hopefully we raise something so I can afford to go back to college next August.

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