Prerna Lal

Name: Prerna Lal Location: San Francisco, CA

A little about me

Hailing from Fiji and now living in the Bay Area, Prerna Lal is a Co-Founder and Online Coordinator of DreamActivist, a vibrant activist immigrant youth community online that has mobilized thousands into action. Her work and opinion has been featured in publications like the New York Times, US News, USA TODAY, SF Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, The Advocate and other alternative and ethnic media outlets. Having scored multiple victories using new media, Prerna also works part-time as an Immigrant Rights and Race in America blogger for Change.org and serves as a Board Member of Immigration Equality.

I would describe myself as a

blogger

Why I deserve a Netroots Nation Scholarship

Helping me attend Netroots Nations means helping three social movements for change: immigration reform, LGBT equality and non-violence. Since graduating from college three years ago, I have given considerable time to building organic and diverse communities for change without any institutional support or funding. I have successfully created online spaces like DreamActivist and worked on smaller projects that serve to give a voice to marginalized social groups.

I manage these blogs

DreamActivist

The blogs I use most are

Change.org
Twitter

What first inspired me to get involved

I've been an activist since my high school years when I was involved with organizing anti-war and actions against budget cutbacks for education but I started blogging as a consequence of the broken immigration system that drew a line between my family and me, separating us into categories of legal and illegal. It started as a story, joined with many other voices and became part of the powerful narrative that is the underbelly of our movement.

How I've gotten others involved

I catapulted a failed legislative bill (the DREAM Act) into a national social movement of undocumented youth using new media tools by building DreamActivist and then creating more spaces for undocumented youth to get involved, share their stories, take action online, scoring victory after victory for immigrant rights.

I also blog for Immigrant Rights and Race in America at Change.org where I have created many actions, most of which have also resulted in victories such as getting USATODAY to drop using the phrase "illegal students," stopping the deportations of several immigrants and asylum seekers, getting humanitarian parole for Haitian children.

The blog post I am most proud of

http://j.mp/dfLVEl

My Twitter manifesto on online activism

It has the potential to create communities for change.