Immigration is once again a major talking point ahead of a presidential election. As the rhetoric flies, meet two people whose lives are being used as political fodder.

BY NIGEL THOMPSON ON SEPTEMBER 3, 2024

Daniela Morales in front of Mighty Writers table. Credit: Burkett Photography for ¡Presente! Media.

In her own words, Daniela Morales is a “23-year-old girl just trying to figure things out.”

“I like feeling like my day is used well,” she said on a hot summer day sitting at a table in Piazza DiBruno at the heart of Philadelphia’s Italian Market.

She ran a tube of lip gloss through the divots in the table as she spoke of her life to that point, and what was to come next. 

It had been an emotional week. At Daniela’s job, Mighty Writers El Futuro, where she’s an after-school teacher, it was graduation time for her students.

“I hope I’ve had an impact,” she said. “My teens tell me that.”

Throughout the school year, Daniela’s job was to make a home away from home for her teens. It was accomplished through any number of activities designed to empower them — cooking family recipes, sewing (one of Daniela’s many specialties), writing their feelings down or sharing them out loud.

“We do everything and we try to do it as positive as possible,” she said. “Anything to make them healthier kids in a fun environment, and just a community environment.” 

That would continue through the next three months with Mighty’s summer program, but first, she had to see her graduates on to greener pastures.

“I was invited to all their graduations and they wanted me there,” Daniela said. “For them to have trust in me, that’s the best thing I could’ve ever gained from this.”

But she also got to thinking about greener pastures for herself. Still working on an associate’s degree at the Community College of Philadelphia, Daniela wants that done before moving on to a four-year degree and then a master’s.

Then comes the book, the clothing business, the nonprofit, the library in her hometown of Puebla alongside her mom, and then a run for president of Mexico. Daniela’s plan was to be the first woman president, but Claudia Sheinbaum altered things a bit.

“She stole my title of being the first, but she won’t steal my title of being the best,” she said.

Daniela Morales. Credit: Burkett Photography for ¡Presente! Media.

Struggling with two identities

Born in a small town in Puebla, Mexico, Daniela’s parents brought her and her brother to the States when she was just two years old with dreams of a better life for their kids.

“Because in Mexico, there was no possibility in their minds back then of succeeding in a generational way,” said Daniela.

After crossing the border, they landed in South Philadelphia, where many hailing from Puebla have settled over recent decades, transforming the community. The cured meats and cheese still hang from the iconic greased pole in Piazza DiBruno during the annual Italian Market Festival, but the xenophobic gaze of former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, immortalized in a mural in the plaza looking south on Ninth Street, is long gone.

For Daniela, there’s a lot to think about growing up in the U.S.

“I love that as I grew up in the States, I have become a global citizen in a way,” she said.

Beyond the mixture of Mexican, Central American, Italian and other European cultures within her own neighborhood in South Philly, Daniela also went to high school in North Philly at George Washington Carver, where her predominantly Black classmates shared their own culture and experiences with her.

At home, however, she admitted to the difficulty of balancing the U.S. mindset of entitlement with that of her immigrant parents fighting to survive.

“I feel like growing up in the States, it’s been like struggling with two identities,” said Daniela.

Her mom and dad ran a series of successful corner stores for most of her life until 2020, when her entrepreneurial-minded mom decided it was time to open a restaurant, and Taqueria Morales was born.

It was helped in its early days by a viral tweet from Daniela promoting the new business that led to news coverage and features from local influencers. In true family-business style, she was a server, built the restaurant’s website, designed its menu, and while in a much more scaled back role today, still manages its social media accounts.

The hype has died down, but the business has been a success for the family.

“It’s been a journey, but I’m really happy it’s my family I get to do this with,” said Daniela.

What’s the point?

But through it all, there’s a bigger moment Daniela said her life revolves around — the day she became a DACA recipient.

She was 15 when her mom told her about the program, and before she knew it, she was in front of a government agent, being interviewed as part of the application process.

Eventually, Daniela secured her status full of conflicting emotions.

“DACA gave me peace of mind,” she said. “I felt, I guess safe, but it was also like: ‘What now? I can’t leave the country. What’s the point?’”

Adesola Ogunleye. Credit: Nigel Thompson for ¡Presente! Media.

The feelings were similar for 37-year-old DACA recipient Adesola Ogunleye. 

“I think initially, I didn’t really quite grasp what it was,” she said. “It didn’t really change much for me if I’m being honest.” 

That is, until she had to pay for her first renewal after two years. The community of friends she’s built over the last 13 years in Philadelphia have helped her fundraise for the cost a couple times.

“Yeah, the government makes me pay them every two years so they don’t deport me,” is how Adesola explains it to them.

The thought of doing it, and what it’s made part of her life in the U.S., bums her out.

“It’s also just kind of sits in the back of my mind as a reminder: ‘Oh right, you don’t have a permanent way of being here,’” she said, “knowing some people and some things are just not trying to let you exist in the way you would like to.”

Before DACA, Adesola lived most of her life undocumented in the U.S.

Assimilation and self-discovery

She was born in 1987 in Lagos, Nigeria, and first came to the U.S. when she was in third grade. Her parents had been going back and forth from the U.S. for many years, but Adesola traveled solo on her first big move, staying with her aunt and then a stepmother in Laurel, Maryland for a number of her formative years.

“It was a lot,” she said. 

At home with her aunt, Adesola could still enjoy some of her comforts from Nigeria like drawing and painting, the food, and watching her favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV. Outside, the U.S. was not all it was hyped up to be. She went from an outgoing kid to an introvert in the face of bullies.

Adesola Ogunleye. Credit: Nigel Thompson for ¡Presente! Media.

“I talked different and I dressed different, and the culture shock hit me harder than I ever thought it would,” she said. “I learned at a very early age to change a lot of aspects about myself in order to fit in.”

That became harder when Adesola moved to a stepmother’s house and faced physical abuse.

When her mom finally reunited with her when she was almost done middle school, they moved to Alexandria, Virginia. They were now in a richer area, surrounded by diplomats and lawmakers, but both had to assimilate.

“We hadn’t been together in a very long time and she missed a lot of my development,” said Adesola.

It also didn’t last, as her mom changed jobs twice, taking them to Wilmington, North Carolina and then to Cary, North Carolina, where she finished high school.

Throughout it all, Adesola remembers her mom’s visceral fear of someone finding out the legal status of her daughter.

“If I ever told anyone I was undocumented, that they will immediately call the cops the next day, and I would be kicked out of the country,” she said.

That finally changed when Adesola got away from home and went to college at East Carolina in Greenville, North Carolina. She studied printmaking and textiles in art school, got involved in music, and called the experience “life-changing.”

“College busted the doors wide open for me and my development,” said Adesola.

She said it was also where she saw what community could look like when it wasn’t blood-related.

“I don’t really talk to my family, but college is where I kind of started building out who are people I consider my family now,” said Adesola. “That’s where I made all that kind of community and was able to explore all the different parts of myself.”

The connections she made there also eventually brought her to Philadelphia.

A music friend from college moved to the city first, and Adesola would often visit from her mother’s house outside of D.C. The more frequent visits allowed Adesola to build her own group of friends with her own favorite spots in the city.

“The way I would meet people, it reminded me a lot of North Carolina, that southern hospitality,” she said. “There was also a confidence in the brashness of people that I really loved.”

From D.C., Adesola first moved back to North Carolina for a year to work at a Whole Foods, and then made her move to Philadelphia as a new store opened up in the city.

These days, she works from her home in Fishtown as an event and outreach coordinator for Cash App, but spent more than a decade in the food service industry. She went from Whole Foods, to helping restaurateurs open restaurants, and also trying her own hand at a mobile coffee business with Nigerian influences.

“Philadelphia is a place where, if you want to start a business, your community will support you,” said Adesola. “Philadelphia is all about homegrown businesses.”

Can we come to an agreement? Finding “peace”

DACA came into Adesola’s life towards the beginning of her planting roots in Philadelphia. When she thinks about its fraught political history, full of disagreements, she can’t help but feel exhausted.

“Yes, grateful, joy for DACA, but can we come down to an agreement for these people to have their lives back?” said Adesola. “It’s a very, very stressful process to be in.”

Daniela also previously said she kept up with the many twists and turns of DACA’s political life, but has more recently found “peace with the situation.”

“If I have to go back to Mexico, that’s just what happens and I’m okay with that,” she said.

Last year, Daniela was able to visit family in Mexico for the first time since she was six. 

“Thankfully, my uncle fell from a tree,” she said. “That was a good reason to be like: ‘Please U.S., my uncle needs me.’”

Daniela applied and was approved for Advance Parole, a facet of DACA that allows recipients to travel outside the U.S. for emergencies, study or employment.

“That was probably the best news of my life, being able to visit home. It felt really good,” she said.

It’s why that same sense of peace is what she’s taking into the 2024 Election, no matter the outcome. And if she doesn’t see any change from whoever wins in a couple years, Daniela said she will return to Mexico.

“I don’t want my life to go past,” she said. “I will just finally allow myself the freedom to travel and live an actual life.”

Hopeless, but staying involved

For immigrants and DACA recipients alike, both parties have used inflammatory rhetoric about immigration to antagonize them this election cycle, whether it be threats of using the military to round up and deport millions of migrants or gutting the process of asylum for those crossing the border.

Tsehaitu Abye is the Pennsylvania director for African Communities Together, a nationwide organization that uplifts African communities through advocacy in many different fields, including politics.

She said for immigrants this election, “both scenarios aren’t looking that great,” but still drove home the importance of engagement for communities.

“There’s always going to be fear about what’s gonna happen after November, but I think for us, it’s important to engage folks and get them excited about taking action,” said Abye. “That’s how things are done in the U.S.”

Despite her fear and a sense of hopelessness when it comes to the 2024 election, Adesola still wants to be involved. She mentioned wanting to work more with friends who are involved in local organizing to spread the word of civic engagement.

“I cannot vote, but that’s where I want to spend most of my time,” she said. “It’s also scary because this country doesn’t really educate people from a very young age about the power of voting, about the power of community organizing.”

That power, Adesola said, can start small — on your block, street or in your district.

“You can be involved and it’s not a far away thing,” she said. “You can do small things to help and change and see the policy change you want to see.”

Daniela too, despite her own doubts about the election, said she would be involved and continue getting the word out to her friends who can vote.

“I can’t vote, but I could volunteer. I can still advocate and learn things and convince people to vote for certain people,” she said. “I’m part of the community. Documented or undocumented, I’m still here.”