Citizens for Immigrants

via @joseiswriting:

If 2012 has been the Year of the Undocumented Immigrant (please vote on this slideshow on TIME.com: http://ti.me/TBcN7G), then 2013 must be the Year of the Immigrant Ally.

The Americans in this photo, all of whom I met while I was a student at Mountain View High School, are the kind of allies we need to speak up and “come out” in support of undocumented Americans, Americans-in-waiting and hopeful Americans in communities across our country. The ordinary, extraordinary people in this photo did not need a green card or any piece of paper to consider me an American—to see me as a human being. They are family to me. They define American.

I write about them in honor of Welcoming America, one of my favorite immigration-oriented organizations in the country. More info here:http://www.welcomingamerica.org/

And I write about them because there are countless PJ Hylands, Rich Fischers and Daisy Moores across America who are inextricably linked to undocumented people like me. More than ever, as immigration reform fills the headlines, we need our allies to speak up and “come out.”

How do you define American? Tell us: http://www.defineamerican.com/stories