The Define American Organization posted a wonderfully hilarious video titled Mean Tweets: Undocumented & Unafraid Edition, were five young undocumented immigrants from San Francisco, read and respond several racist Tweets from some of the country’s most colorful characters (including fan favorite Ann Coulter), all while REM’s insufferable hit song Everybody Hurts played in the background. The Latino sense of humor was not hurt by the Tweets, their reactions to the vulgar displays of racism ranged from slightly shocked to laughter.
“There are no illegal immigrants. They are illegal aliens. Emphasis on illegal! Criminals. Get them out of here.” Said one of the Tweets, however its reader didn’t took it personal and gracefully responded “I don’t like the word alien because I feel that green is not my color, I like being brown.”
Other mean tweets read “Learned more Spanish in an hour at my hotel pool than I did in 2 years at school. #arizona #borderjumpers” or “Afraid to go back to the third world s**thole you crawled out of?” All of which were responded in a humorous way.
Define American was founded by Jose Antonio Vargas, who took a stand against politicians and media agencies that use “illegal” to describe his fellow people. Vargas believes the word dehumanizes immigrants and that through humor he can help people better understand the immigrant experience and empathize with them.
“Define American is always striving to highlight stories of immigrants and explore issues of identity in America, which is why we created this piece ahead of our Define American Film Festival”
Jose Antonio Vargas for MTV.
This video is part of an initiative called #WordsMatter which was inspired by the Celebrities Read Mean Tweets segment on Jimmy Kimmel’s show.