Telling the Digital Latino Story

I LOVE THIS STORY!

OK, I’m biased. I love storytelling and I love taking down the walls of stereotypes. This story does both.  An organization called Mobile Voices is putting cell phones in the hands of immigrants to help them tell their stories. First of all, that’s a wonderful idea, and secondly, it puts a swift fist in the face of the non-technology using, illiterate, subservient Latino stereotype.

Check it out:

According to Feetintwoworlds.org, “the initiative was created by day laborers, household workers, the University of Southern California, Drupal software Programmers and the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA). The program provides a virtual space for low-income people, particularly immigrant workers, to share their personal stories or those of others they encounter in their community.”

The idea is that digital storytelling makes the invisible visible. And if not, as one Mobile Voices storyteller puts it:

“If they don’t want to see us at least we can tell them: “Yes, we are invisible. But we are the hands that work.”

Little can be more cool than that.