Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o, Tracee Ellis Ross, Guillermo Diaz and Kerry Washington are among the more than 50 actors and activists taking part in the #IAmAnImmigrant campaign in celebration of “Immigrant Heritage Month,” which Welcome.us and others are kicking off today.
The #IAmAnImmigrant campaign features portraits of famous immigrants by Emmy-Award winning director Cary Fukunaga, from True Detective, Beasts of No Nation, and Sin Nombre. The portrait campaign already includes known faces such as Kerry Washington, Lupita Nyong’o, Alan Cumming, and Guillermo Diaz.
Their immigrant portraits can be found on the website www.IAmAnImmigrant.com, which also features a meme generator for others to join the campaign and proudly self-identify as an immigrant by creating a new social media profile pic. Each user-generated meme will live on the website gallery as an ever-growing tribute to America’s diversity and our ancestors’ sacrifice and struggle to put us where we are today.
“What I think is so wonderful about America is the fact that it’s a society of immigrants,” says Nyong’o in the video. Nyong’o was born in Mexico to Kenyan parents, and holds dual citizenship from both nations.
“We are a nation of immigrants, and I hope we have the wisdom to understand that the best path forward is always to bring people together, not divide them,” said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook and founder of FWD.us, which supports Welcome.us. “Immigrant Heritage Month is a chance to celebrate this shared heritage.”
“Immigrant Heritage Month” was founded by President Obama in 2014 to honor America’s history as an immigrant nation. Individuals can submit their own immigration stories to share here.
