Cristina Jiménez Moreta's leadership in immigrant youth advocacy

Profile of a Non-Profit Executive Leader Leadership is an integral part of society and a highly-sought and highly valued commodity (Northouse, 2019). Given its role and value in societal growth and development, leadership has obtained the attention of many researchers across the globe. Throughout the history of mankind, different leaders have made different contributions to societies worldwide. Leaders exist within the non-profit and public sectors as they influence the growth of their organizations and society. Leadership in the non-profit sector is slightly different from the public sector because the nature of the non-profit industry involves providing non-commercial services. Non-profit leaders focus on providing services or engaging in activities that are centered on community development. An example of a non-profit executive who has shaped modern society is Cristina Jiménez Moreta.
Cristina Jiménez Moreta is a 33-year-old social justice organizer and the co-founder and executive director of United We Dream (Lee, 2017). The organization is the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country. Moreta is a formerly undocumented immigrant who has played a critical role in shaping the public view of immigration. Given her work in shaping immigration policies and public view on immigration, Moreta has received several awards and considered one of the extraordinary geniuses of modern society.
Cristina Jiménez Moreta has been selected to profile because of her role in shaping how Americans think about immigration. Her contributions to immigration, especially on issues relating to undocumented immigrants, implying she is a suitable non-profit sector leader to profile and examine. The profile will help understand leadership traits, styles, and challenges with respect to leadership processes and practices in the non-profit sector. Therefore, Moreta will provide valuable insights regarding leadership in the non-profit sector. Key Accomplishments in Immigration One of the key accomplishments of Cristina Jiménez Moreta is the establishment of United We Dream. According to Wallach (2019), Moreta is the co-founder and executive director of this organization, which is the largest youth-led immigrant community across the country. The organization consists of more than 400,000 members, 5 statewide branches, and more than 100 local groups located in 28 states (Wallach, 2019). Through the organization, Cristina Jiménez Moreta works to ensure fair access to education, healthcare and other critical issues affecting undocumented immigrants in the United States. The establishment of this organization is a key accomplishment for Moreta as she uses it as a tool to help humanize undocumented immigrants. Moreta has played a critical role in efforts to humanize undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. She does this by putting their stories at the forefront of public discourse on immigration. Since its establishment, United We Dream has played a critical role in efforts to humanize undocumented immigrants and enhance their overall wellbeing in the U.S.
The second major accomplishment of Cristina Jiménez Moreta is changing Americans’ thoughts and views on immigration. Through highlighting the stories of undocumented immigrants in public discourse on immigration, Moreta has shaped perceptions regarding Americans’ thoughts about immigration. By shaping how Americans think about immigration, Moreta has also influenced immigration laws in the United States. She organized a national campaign on immigration during President Obama’s tenure. The campaign was launched in the aftermath of the failure of the Dream Act. During this period, President Obama’s Administration was deporting more immigrants than any other previous administration. President Obama continued to deport more immigrants including those who came to the United States as children and received less scrutiny from the press and policymakers regarding his attitude toward immigrants. This trend provoked Moreta to launch a national campaign on immigration and put pressure on President Obama’s Administration to enact suitable immigration policies.
The pressure from Cristina Jiménez Moreta and United We Dream put pressure on the U.S. Congress and President Obama to take action. As a result, President Obama enacted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy into law. This legislation provided relief to some undocumented immigrants to were brought to the country as children by allowing them to apply for protection from deportation. As part of the national campaign that eventually helped to change immigration policies in the United States, Cristina Jiménez Moreta shared her personal experiences as well as the experiences of other undocumented immigrants. She talked about how she came to the United States from Ecuador illegally, her personal experiences, and some of the major issues faced by undocumented immigrants in the country. This helped to shape public attitudes and conversations regarding immigration and culminated in the enactment of DACA law to protect some undocumented immigrants from immigration.
Cristina Jiménez Moreta’s major contribution in shaping how Americans think about immigration is addressing the framework and narrative of illegality. She argued that the concept of the illegality of undocumented immigrants is seemingly racist. Such conceptions provide a premise with which all immigrants are viewed and treated as less human. Moreover, the view of the illegality of undocumented immigrants provides a framework with which these people are criminalized. Therefore, this proposition provides justification for any action undertaken by the government regardless of whether it involves kidnapping children, denial of access, and family separation (Wallach, 2019). Therefore, a proper immigration system in the United States needs to promote justice and fair treatment of immigrants. These arguments have helped change public views regarding immigration in the United States. Influence on Leadership Style In her work as a social justice organizer, Cristina Jiménez Moreta has adopted a transformational leadership style and approach. Northouse (2019) states that the transformational leadership style is one of the most common leadership approaches in modern society. This leadership approach has gained more attention in recent years because it incorporates affective and charismatic components of leadership. A transformational leadership style is an approach that focuses on changing and transforming people. As a result, the approach focuses on values, emotions, ethics, long-term goals, and standards. Through this approach, the leader focuses on satisfying the needs of followers and ensuring they are treated as humans. In Moreta’s case, the transformational leadership style is the premise with which she continues to promote the humane treatment of undocumented immigrants in the United States.
One of the major factors that influenced her use of transformational leadership style in establishing United We Dream, changing immigration policies and changing public conversations on immigration is her personal experience. As an undocumented immigrant who was brought to the United States as a child aged 13 years, Moreta experienced tremendous challenges that face many undocumented immigrants in the country. Similar to other undocumented immigrants, she has experienced the challenges and difficulties of living as an immigrant in the United States. Her personal experiences motivated her to adopt a suitable leadership style and approach that would help promote humanization and fair treatment of undocumented immigrants. Therefore, Moreta’s personal experiences as an undocumented immigrant have played a major role in shaping her leadership style and approach as a social justice organizer in the United States.
The second major influence on Moreta’s leadership style is the injustices faced by many immigrants throughout the United States. As previously indicated, the view of documented and undocumented immigrants as illegal residents has contributed to their inhumane treatment and injustices from the society and the government. The conception of illegality in immigration has provided a framework through which the American government adopts illegal actions against undocumented immigrants. For example, President Obama’s deportation of undocumented immigrants was characterized by family separation and kidnapping of children by immigration officers. During this process, immigration and law enforcement officers ignored the impact of their actions on family members and perpetuated injustice. These injustices were seemingly founded on the concept of illegality in immigration, which has, in turn, provided a premise for exclusion and discrimination of immigrants. These factors played a key role in shaping Moreta’s transformational leadership style and approach.
The other factor that influenced Moreta’s leadership style and approach is the desire to make a lasting impact on society. Moreta believes that society needs more leaders who make meaningful contributions toward community development and wellbeing of its people. This desire not only played a key role in her efforts to establish United We Dream, but also influenced her approach to leadership. Through this desire, Moreta adopted a transformational leadership approach and responsibility to empower young people in the community to not only find their voices but be their own advocates (Lee, 2017). Moreta’s desire to make meaningful contributions to society influenced her career as a social justice organizer. She believes that the realization of social justice requires changing and transforming the lives of people in light of the challenges or issues they encounter on a daily basis. Consequently, she adopted a transformational leadership approach to help transform people’s lives as a means of achieving her desire to make meaningful contributions to society. Immigration Leadership Challenges Even though Moreta has successfully launched United We Dream and played a key role in immigration policies and public conversations, she has experienced tremendous leadership challenges. One of the major leadership challenges she has experienced is resistance from the public. The process of shaping public perceptions and conversations on immigration in the United States was a relatively complex process for Moreta and United We Dream. Since these perceptions were largely influenced by existing immigration policies, Moreta experienced difficulties in influencing policy changes and public attitudes on immigration. At first, Moreta experienced resistance from the public and key policymakers in the immigration sector. Her desire and push for changes were characterized by difficulties in navigating competing interests, which was the premise for resistance (MacArthur Foundation, 2017).
Secondly, Moreta experienced challenges of creating buy-ins among her followers regarding her vision and dream on immigration and treatment of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Since Moreta’s dream and vision entailed generating changes in the society, being a source of inspiration to many undocumented immigrants and gaining followership was a major issue. According to Arcement (2019), one of the major challenges leaders face is being a source of inspiration and gaining followership. This process is usually a daunting challenge because of the difficulties in convincing someone to follow and believe in the leader. In addition to following, leaders must inspire their followers to be willing to help in achievement of the desired goals and objectives. While many undocumented immigrants have experienced injustices and inhumane treatment in the United States, believing in Moreta and demonstrating willingness to help change their plight was not an easy task. Moreta had to navigate these competing interests to inspire undocumented immigrants and gain followership.
Third, Moreta experienced challenges in mobilizing followers across the country to put pressure on President Obama and the U.S. Congress to act by changing immigration policies. The success of her national campaign and eventual changes in immigration policies was tied to her ability to mobilize a group of people throughout the country. For Moreta, this was a major challenge that required developing mobilization and people management skills. She utilized her experience as the co-founder of New York State Youth Leadership Council to mobilize different people from different states across the country. However, maintaining connections with this people and motivating to work toward achieving the desired goal was relatively complex. For undocumented immigrants, joining the organization or movement was relatively difficult because of their plight and increased deportation. Therefore, Moreta faced challenges in mobilizing these people to rise above their predicament and work toward changing immigration policies in the country.
The other challenge Moreta faced entailed using appropriate tactics that would help United We Dream to accomplish its goals. Immigration has remained a complex and divisive issue in the United States. Efforts to address this complex issue have experienced tremendous challenges including difficulties in creating consensus among policymakers. Since United We Dream focused on addressing the complex issue of immigration with respect to the plight of undocumented immigrants, finding the right organizational approach and tactic was a complex process. At first, the organization focused on providing an alternative vision and policy framework for comprehensive immigration reform. However, this approach could have contributed to stalled efforts in the legislature and hindered the ability of United We Dream to accomplish its goals (MacArthur Foundation, 2017). This in turn generated demands and burdens on Cristina Jiménez Moreta to identify another organizational approach to address the issue.
References Arcement, B. (2019, March 26). The 6 Challenges Leaders Face. The Business Journals. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/human-resources/2019/03/the-6-challenges-leaders-face.html Lee, E.Y.S. (2017, October 11). Meet Cristina, a Former Undocumented Immigrant who Just Received a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Award. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://thinkprogress.org/cristina-jimenez-moreta-6c06c7f46520/ MacArthur Foundation. (2017, October 11). Cristina Jiménez Moreta. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.macfound.org/fellows/989/ Northouse, P.G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc. Wallach, E. (2019, February 19). An Interview with Cristina Jiménez Moreta, Co-founder of United We Dream. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://thepolitic.org/an-interview-with-cristina-jimenez-moreta-co-founder-of-united-we-dream/