UPDATE: On August 3, Iván Ceja announced his resignation from UndocuMedia.
On July 23, Karla Estrada wrote a piece on Medium that raised serious allegations against Iván Ceja, executive director and co-founder of UndocuMedia. Karla’s very honest and brave words have led to several accountability questions about Ceja and UndocuMedia. We spoke with Karla about what this all means.
Since Karla’s piece came out on July 23, others have also written about UndocuMedia. Here are some of those pieces and posts:
- A July 25 Facebook post by Denae Joseph
- A July 25 Facebook post by Fredy Ramirez, Jr.
- A July 26 piece by Yadira Martínez
Also, this Twitter thread by César Miguel:
It’s really sad that Undocumedia began as a community effort to share and build skills only to turn into a platform for the advancement of certain individuals whose primary activities seemed to be stealing the creativity of the community and amplifying establishment voices
— césar miguel (@cesarmvm) July 26, 2018
We’re still waiting for Iván to acknowledge Karla’s statement and take accountability, but I hope once that begins that we also take the moment to look at these platforms/org and whether they truly exist to amplify movement voices and whether they’re truly movement run
— césar miguel (@cesarmvm) July 26, 2018
And movement run has to mean that it’s accountable, accessible and steered/owned by the community for the community to address a need beyond visibility and easy co-option by major media outlets and politicians the way U/M has been for a very long time now
— césar miguel (@cesarmvm) July 26, 2018
Issues of misogyny and of anti-blackness are issues beyond Iván (though he absolutely needs to take responsibility for his actions) and they’re issues which can’t be addressed within org structures that are opaque and only ultimately accountable for one or two people in the org
— césar miguel (@cesarmvm) July 26, 2018
It’s time we look at all the most visible organizations/platforms advocating for immigrant communities and to take them to task for creating environments where power imbalances and predatory behavior thrive by addressing how they’re structured and who they actually serve
— césar miguel (@cesarmvm) July 26, 2018
UndocuMedia co-founder Justino Mora, who supports Karla, posted the following on Facebook on Saturday:
Latino Rebels reached out to Ceja and Barragán on Sunday for comment. Neither of them have responded.
