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Welcome immigration and education advocate, musician/ hip-hop artist, and founder of Mass Dreams, Daniella Vieira to the Immigration MIC Podcast! \n\nDaniella tells us about her family\u2019s experience with immigration from Brazil and initially settling in Massachusetts, to them returning to Brazil and her being born into a mixed status family, eventually immigrating to Massachusetts again for good. \n\nHer experience growing up in Massachusetts, (which today has a booming Brazilian/ Portuguese community) Daniella initially going to school in a town where she was the first foreign language student, and the important support she received from an educator who is now the head of ESL program. \n\n\u201cI had to ramp up my lying a lot more\u201d: Daniella talks about the challenges she began facing her junior year of high school, and how DACA was announced the summer right before her senior year, while she was looking at colleges (and pays tribute to her parents for their encouragement)\n\nDaniella was accepted into all 8 schools she applied to, but was denied because the schools didn\u2019t understand DACA, and eventually went to Ohio State because UMass Amherst would be charging out of state tuition. \n\nThe beginning of her immigration advocacy in 2015 which began at an school event where she unexpectedly stood up to talk about financial aid for undocumented students and in turn empowered herself and other students. \n\nShe talks about the impact of meeting Hillary Clinton and reflects on the significance of the presidential candidate at the time stopping and listening to her story, and in contract, the very real threat of the current president\u2019s policies. \n\nShe goes into her musical influences, how she stepped out of her comfort zone and joining a hip-hop and beatboxing club at school, \u201cI could spill all sorts of secrets in a cypher\u201d, \n\nand the story of being a part of John Daversa's album,\xa0American Dreamers: Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom, which featured 53 DACA recipients, and being invited to be on stage at the Grammy awards. \n\nThe motivation behind her two songs 'Alien\u2019, \u201cowning my identity, and being real about the fears I have\u201d, and \u201cNobody Else\u201d which has a very interesting backstory, \u201ca middle of college weird dating culture\u201d song, which was written and produced over a long period of time. \n\nDaniella is currently studying to take the LSAT and weighing her options in her career, and working on her new organization called Mass Dreams to help undocumented students in Massachusetts, and currently focusing on mental health and looking for participants.