I Am Here (2017)

I AM HERE is the story of Yesenia Martinez, an immigrant teen raised in the US whose family is undocumented. Yesenia keeps a low profile, expressing her vision of the world through private poetry. But when she reads her poems aloud for the first time, she begins to make friends who open up a world of art she had never imagined. As she reaches further into the world, her mother, worried for her safety and the family's security, keeps pulling her back. And with a rising wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in the city, Yesenia has to grapple with the reality of living as an undocumented immigrant, and what that means for her future. Produced by the Youth Cinema Collective in partnership with Youth Rise Texas, I AM HERE is the culmination of months of research, exploration, and bridge-building between two powerful teen programs for social change. It is an honest and emotional look into the real lived experiences of immigrant youth torn between the future they want for themselves and the future society will allow them to have.