STAND WITH IMMIGRANTS THIS IMMIGRANT HERITAGE MONTH

In 2014, we launched our first ever Immigrant Heritage Month (IHM) to celebrate immigrants and their countless contributions to our country. As part of this celebration, we worked with elected officials to declare June as Immigrant Heritage Month and also had the privilege of working with the likes of Guillermo Diaz, Rocsi Diaz, Naya Rivera, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Paul Wesley and many more to direct or star in short films celebrating immigrants.

For the second annual Immigrant Heritage Month, we traveled across the nation for our first ever photo essay project which highlighted the stories of over 175 people from over 50 different backgrounds. #CelebrateUs showcased people’s relationships to the immigrants in their lives and featured people from Lincoln, NE; Miami, FL; New York, NY; New Orleans, LA; Philadelphia, PA; and Tucson, AZ. This project also kicked off our story collection program, which you see to this day across all of our social channels.

In addition to our #CelebrateUs photo tour, we also worked with Cassey Ho, Pitbull, Dania Ramirez, and Harry Shum to share their family’s immigrant stories with the world. The videos focused on intimate conversations between various generations of immigrant relatives and explored the rich and unique history of each family's American journey.

In 2015, President Obama publicly recognized Immigrant Heritage Month in his weekly national address. The President noted that IHM allows us to celebrate our origins as a nation of immigrants and that the basic idea of welcoming people to our shores is central to our ancestry and our way of life. In addition, the White House celebrated the month by sharing stories of Administration staffers' immigrant heritage.

To celebrate the third annual, Immigrant Heritage Month, we launched the I Stand With Immigrants / I Am An Immigrant campaign featuring the likes of Lupita Nyong’o, Miguel, Tom Colicchio, Tracee Ellis Ross and many more. The campaign, which highlighted over 120 celebrities, immigrants and allies of the immigrant community garnered over one billion social media impressions and was featured in People Magazine, Univision and Time Magazine.

In partnership with The California Endowment, we hosted “I Stand With Immigrants / I Am An Immigrant: A Celebration of Our Stories” featuring deeply moving personal stories to shine a light on the immigrant experience in the United States. Actors, artists, musicians and first-generation immigrants came together to highlight the often ignored and forgotten dreams of those that come to this country looking for a brighter future. The evening helped us celebrate that despite our distinct languages, cultures and experiences, our communal American dream is what contributes to the vibrancy, health and strength of our nation. In addition, the evening featured over 45 community partners across Los Angeles.

In 2016, after the successful launch of the #IAmAnImmigrant campaign, we embarked on our first ever story collection tour. The tour, which stopped in Las Vegas, Denver and Miami, invited over 400 local influencers, elected officials and community members to take a photo and share their stories.

In November of 2016 we hosted our first annual College & University I Stand With Immigrants / I Am An Immigrant Day of Action with the goal of providing students and educators across the country a platform to demonstrate support for immigrants in their community. This day of action has been hugely successful at various points featuring involvement from celebrities including Guillermo Diaz, Kumail Nanjani and Piper Perabo. Most importantly, the ISWI Day of Action has been utilized by students and educators as a tool to engage their community on critical issues related to immigration.

On February 14th, we partnered with Define American to launched the #ToImmigrantsWithLove campaign, a letter writing campaign for immigrants and the allies who love them to publicly acknowledge that we are standing with immigrants no matter what. As part of the campaign, we created an annual social media day-of-action encouraging everyone to share their letters online, including some of our friends such as Reza Aslan, Chef Jose Andres and Constance Wu.

For our fourth annual Immigrant Heritage Month we celebrated with a multi-day pop-up experience in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Each of these pop-ups were designed alongside local community members and were anchored on: storytelling, community building and resource sharing. In addition to programming designed around storytelling, comedy, food, and community organizing, each pop-up featured a story collection booth, art exhibition, an interactive art piece and a merchandise store.

Inspired by our interactive art piece featured in the 2017 I Stand With Immigrants / I Am An Immigrant pop-up experiences, we designed a public sculpture for each of the seven cities on our tour: Atlanta, Chicago, DC, Houston, Miami, San Diego and Salt Lake City. The public art piece encouraged participants to share their immigrant identity on the art itself by placing a flag of their identified heritage on the heart accompanied by a message to immigrants in their cities.

In 2018, we celebrated Immigrant Heritage Month with the creation of the Celebrate Immigrant Awards which were presented to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional dedication to the spirit of immigrant heritage, culture, and diversity. The ten recipients, which included José Andrés, Giannis Antetokounmpo and UndocuMedia, were all immigrants and allies who have made contributions to their community and empowered immigrant communities to thrive.

On February 14, 2019, we partnered with the Times Square Alliance to bring the #ToImmigrantsWithLove campaign to the iconic center of NYC. As part of the activation we asked people to write a letter to immigrants and share it online before dropping it into our very own mail drop off!

In April of 2019, we partnered with Broccoli City Festival to bring the #CelebrateImmigrants public art installation to DC during their annual two-day music, art and food festival. As part of this partnership, we activated festival goers to share a message of support for immigrants on a country flag and placing it on the interactive art installation.

In celebration of the sixth annual Immigrant Heritage Month, we worked with award-winning director, Yara Travieso, to create the short film “HOME.” The short film featured the stories of nearly a dozen immigrants and refugees, both those who are new Americans and those whose families have been a part of the American experience for generations. In the video, the participants express what “home” means to them, and provide the viewer a window into the diverse but universal experiences of their everyday lives. Individuals in the video attend graduations, prepare for the arrival of a new baby, and run their businesses - all while defining their original and new sense of home.

Following the success of the 2018 #CelebrateImmigrants tour, we hit the road again for Immigrant Heritage Month, adding four more public art pieces around the nation in Boulder, Dallas, Nashville and Philadelphia. Similar to the 2018 tour, the public art piece encouraged participants to share their immigrant identity on the art itself by placing a flag of their identified heritage on the heart accompanied by a message to immigrants in their cities.

In June of 2019, Airbnb celebrated Immigrant Heritage Month with an art show and panel entitled Faces. They photographed over 100 immigrants who make up the inner threads of Airbnb and featured the portraits in a beautiful gallery that became a permanent installation at their headquarters, celebrating the stories and many faces and backgrounds that make up our immigrant community.

In December of 2019 we brought together a cross-sector of 21 artists ranging from painters, photographers, musicians, poets and filmmakers to be in community with one another. Through this multi-day retreat during Miami’s Art Basel the artists explored their role in immigration reform through the lens of storytelling, narrative and on-the-ground community organizing efforts.

In celebration of the seventh annual Immigrant Heritage Month we worked with award-winning photographer, Shayan Asgharnia, to create “Out of Many, We Are One.” The photo and video project features the unique voices of dozens of artists and activists sharing their stories – including those with immigrant backgrounds, new Americans, and those whose families have been a part of the American experience for generations. This project uplifts aspects of heritage that resonate and are important to each of us, no matter our immigration status or where we originally come from: community, love, family, and food.

In June of 2019, we announced a donation of $15,000 to Frontline Foods to contribute to their mission of providing food from local restaurants to frontline workers and impacted communities during crises like COVID-19. The donation covered the cost of delivering 1,500 meals to frontline workers, and keeping four restaurant workers employed for a full month - while focusing particularly on lifting up immigrant-owned businesses that were impacted by shelter-in-place orders nationwide.

In June of 2021, still being in the midst of the pandemic, we worked with thirteen immigrant-owned small businesses to release 500 limited edition Immigrant Heritage Month story boxes which featured products such as Spicewalla Spices, Tepito Coffee, Di Camilo Cookies, as well as books like Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza and Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas.

In June of 2021, Netflix celebrated Immigrant Heritage Month by curating a list of amazing films and shows — featuring stories of immigrant characters, families, and more. The list goes live every June, check it out at at netflix.com/CelebrateImmigrants

In October of 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Walmart celebrated immigrant essential workers on their team, many of whom risked their lives in order to provide necessary services for all of our families and communities, despite not having long-term protections in this country. Read some of their stories!

In 2022, the Biden administration acknowledged Immigrant Heritage Month with an official proclamation to honor the very idea of America as a Nation of limitless possibilities that has been nurtured and advanced by immigrants.

In February of 2022, we launched #StoriesofBlackMigration, a storytelling project that provides a platform for Black immigrants to tell their stories and explore aspects of the relationships between and shared experiences of Black people in America, regardless of our immigrant heritage. Check out these stories and more!

In honor of the sixth annual #ToImmigrantsWithLove celebration, we partnered with Twitter to place digital billboards in iconic locations in NYC, Los Angeles, Miami, DC, and Atlanta. The billboards featured tweets from the likes of Debra Messing, Estelle, Karan Brar and many more. In addition to the billboards, we partnered with Twitter to bring back our “around the world” hashmoji to be featured alongside all the tweets featuring #ToImmigrantsWithLove.

Building on our 2019 partnership with Broccoli City Fest, we teamed up with Broccoli City Con in May of 2022 for a conversation about the Black/African diaspora called “Heritage, Migration, and Movement: Stories of an Ethnically Diverse Black America.” We were joined by esteemed guests: Dr. Charles H.F. Davis III, Founder & Director of the U of Michigan Campus Abolition Research Lab); Grammy-award winning artist Caliph; culture-curator and storyteller, Lagloria Wheatfall (Communications Lead, Paramount - Content for Change); and world-citizen storyteller, culture critic and Inclusive Brand Marketer at Twitch Bridget Kyeremateng.

Our ninth annual Immigrant Heritage Month marked the first time since the pandemic began that we could celebrate in person with our immigrant communities, so we came back with a splash. We partnered with Tom Colicchio, Joanne Change, Christine Ha, Byron Gomez and Hawa Hassan to craft recipes that were reflective of immigrant cultures, cuisines, and communities. Across four stops – NYC, Orlando, Seattle, and Minneapolis – we brought thousands of people together to celebrate Immigrant Heritage Month, eat incredible food, and share their relationships with their own immigrant heritage.

In August of 2022, we launched our partnership with The Word for Diversity, starting with their annual Margins Conference. Since then, we’ve worked together to celebrate immigrant authors and writers, from uplifting immigrant-owned bookstores across the country to celebrating immigrant authors and writers.

In November of 2022 we hosted our most successful College & University “I Stand With Immigrants / I Am An Immigrant” Day of Action yet with 246 colleges and universities participating in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Over the past few years this day of action has grown in participation and impact with students and educators making their voices heard on campus and beyond!

In honor of the 10th annual Immigrant Heritage Month and to celebrate a legacy of cultural change and storytelling in our movement, we released the first ever I Am an Immigrant / I Stand with Immigrants report—"Moving The Culture, Shaping Our Future."