Growing up undocumented in Sesame Street

Carlo Alban came by to ACLU Studio the other day. His name may not sound familiar but he was a regular on Sesame Street TV show for five years. He was playing Carlo, a sweet teenage latino boy, friend with Big Bird. But all along, Carlo had what he describes as a terrible secret : he was illegal in the country. What is it like to live with the fear of being deported back to Ecuador at any moment when you are a 12 year-old on a world famous show? Listen to this podcast (3:35) that I helped produced and edited.




You can listen to the full length interview here.

Santas rehearse

How do you become a Santa? Do you start with the big belly? The "ho-ho-ho"? Which side of the head should the hat hang?

Every year, Volunteers of America takes the streets of New York City to raise money for the homeless. Their action? Dressed up as Santa Klaus. "We are Santa's helpers", one of the participants say. Some of them have never done this before. They had to attend a one-of-a-kind class: "How to be Santa Klaus?" I was there too.

© Cécile Gregoriades

Alabama's HB 56: "Harshest immigration law in the country"

Retired Judge, UW Clemon, Alabama's first African American Federal Judge, talks about the civil rights crisis caused by HB 56, Alabama's new anti-immigrant law. Clemon himself was deeply involved in the Civil Rights movement and in this interview for the ACLU, he explains how the new immigration law reminds him of what he fought against in the sixties.
I edited this video for the ACLU.

Rires

L'insouciance, sur la High Line de Manhattan un après-midi d'automne.

© Cecile Gregoriades

5 millions d'électeurs américains exclus des bureaux de vote

Novembre 2012, pour les Américains, c'est la prochaine échéance des élections présidentielles. Mais pour cinq millions d'entre eux, voter ne sera pas une option. Ils sont pourtant citoyens et ont la majorité requise. Mais ils sont passés par la case prison. Et pour ces détenus ou anciens détenus condamnés d'une felony (une catégorie désignant les crimes graves), la peine de prison se double d'une interdiction du droit de vote.

Pour certains Etats, cette seconde sentence n'est que temporaire, pour d'autres, elle est à vie. Une punition qui touche de façon disproportionnée les noirs américains, qui sont plus concernés par l'incarcération que les blancs, asiatiques ou hispaniques aux Etats-Unis. Sur 235 millions d'Américains en âge de voter, cela représente près de 3% des électeurs.

Voir reportage paru dans L'Humanité Dimanche sur le sujet.

Mississippi Takes a Step Back on Women's Rights

On November 8th, Mississippians will be voting on an initiative that will ban abortions, any form of contraception and IVF. It confers a fertilized egg the status of a person - any contraceptive pill would potentially be a tool for murder. Here is a video interview that I edited from a woman in Mississippi who opposes this measure, called Initiative 26. Angie Cruise, 45, suffered an ectopic pregnancy when she was younger. She now questions the impact initiative 26 would have had on her at the time.