NOTE FROM EDITOR: Every Fourth of July, Carnegie Corporation of New York celebrates a group of remarkable Americans — all naturalized citizens — who have enriched and strengthened our nation and our democracy through their contributions and actions. This year, the Corporation honored 34 individuals from 32 countries and a wide range of backgrounds, including local leaders who work in education, the arts, law enforcement, public service, health care, and small business ownership, as well as community-based advocates for education equity, climate change, food security, and programs for the homeless. Source: https://www.carnegie.org/awards/great-immigrants/2022-great-immigrants/
Fabienne Doucet
Educational Equity Advocate and Professor, New York University (Spain)
As a Black woman and as an immigrant, Fabienne Doucet embodies some of the mixed identities that she studies in her interdisciplinary research exploring how immigrant children and U.S.-born children of color navigate the educational system in the United States. Doucet, who was born in Spain and raised in Haiti until her family moved to the United States when she was 10, researches how certain taken-for-granted beliefs, practices, and values in American education put linguistically, culturally, and socioeconomically diverse children and families at a disadvantage.
Doucet is executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools — the first Black woman to head a research center at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She is also associate professor of early childhood education and urban education at NYU Steinhardt. A winner of several awards and fellowships, she is an affiliated faculty member of the Institute of Human Development and Social Change and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at NYU. Additionally, Doucet serves as a program officer for the William T. Grant Foundation.
“First and foremost, I’m a mentor,” Doucet told the Washington Square News. “In particular, I support the careers of people of color, women, people on the margins, people whose identities are underrepresented in the academy. That’s my passion, that’s my love.”
@bailabomba; Website: https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/people/fabienne-doucet
Jesus Garza
Mayor, Arcola, Illinois (Mexico)
Jesus Garza did not speak any English when he moved to the United States from Mexico at age 23. He started earning $4.25 an hour packing brooms in boxes in Arcola, an Illinois city known as the “Broomcorn Capital of the World.” (According to Merriam-Webster, broomcorn is “any of several tall cultivated sorghums having stiff-branched panicles used in brooms and brushes.”)
Garza eventually left that job and started working as a mechanic. He then started his own business, growing it into one of central Illinois’s biggest repair shops. But his success did not end there. Last year, Garza became the first Latino mayor of Arcola, a city of about 3,000 that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. As he headed up the 50th annual Broomcorn Festival parade on September 11, 2021, Garza recalled how he got his start.
“From the day I got here, my dad’s friends, on the American side, they wanted to talk to me every day even though I didn’t speak any English,” he said. “They invited me to be part of the community, to work on their cars. To go from that to everyone cheering me today is just very special. I love this town.”
The town loves him back. The citizens of “Amazing Arcola” (as the town has been dubbed) praise Garza’s warm personality, strong work ethic, and commitment to making the city work for everyone.
Herman Cornejo
Principal, American Ballet Theatre, and UN Messenger of Peace (Argentina)
Named principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre (ABT) in 2003, Herman Cornejo has performed as a guest artist with companies from around the world, including La Scala Ballet, the National Ballet of Japan, the Kremlin Ballet, New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Ballet Hispánico, and Danza Contemporánea de Cuba. His repertoire embraces more than 90 leading roles in classical and contemporary ballet. The New Yorker has called him “the most technically accomplished male ballet dancer in the United States.” His long list of awards includes the Prix Benois de la Danse for Outstanding Male Dancer, the Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer, and the Platinum Konex Award for Best Male Dancer.
A native of Argentina, Cornejo was drawn to ballet after watching his older sister, a former dancer for ABT and Boston Ballet. He is also a choreographer. As a resident fellow at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts for 2021–2022, Cornejo will create a new work that reimagines the great Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky — who spent a significant amount of time in Buenos Aires — using Argentine folkloric malambo rhythms.
“Dance is the perfect art form to show the culture of a country and its values,” Cornejo told the Observer, “and it has the capacity to send powerful messages and represent the past, present, and future.” He is the founder and director of Herman Cornejo The State of the Arts, a new organization that “seeks to creatively explore the intersection of dance, theater, visual arts, music, and technology, offering seamless experiences online and offline, onstage and offstage.” Cornejo was appointed a Messenger of Peace by UNESCO in 2005.
Facebook: Herman.cornejo; Instagram: @hermancornejo; Website: https://www.hermancornejothestateofthearts.org/
Lina Hidalgo
Judge and Chief Executive, Harris County, Texas (Colombia)
Lina Hidalgo never thought about running for office until the angry and often ugly divisiveness of the 2016 presidential election made her change her mind. “I decided,” she said, “that actually what I wanted to do was change government from within, that that was more effective. So many of us were galvanized.”
In 2018, at age 27, she beat an 11-year incumbent to become the first woman and the first Latina elected as Harris County’s County judge, who serves as the presiding officer on the Commissioners Court, the county’s main governing body. The Commissioners Court oversees the $5 billion budget of the nation’s third largest county, which encompasses the city of Houston and a number of neighboring communities. Hidalgo sought the role with the specific goal of ensuring that county funds are spent in alignment with the community’s values and priorities.
“When I sit at the dais, I think I bring my perspective not just as a woman, not just as a young person, but also as someone with this lived experience of [being] an immigrant, of having different perspectives from different places,” said Hidalgo, who was born in Colombia and also lived in Peru and Mexico before moving to the United States when she was 15.
Hidalgo, who has a joint law and public policy degree from Harvard and NYU, previously worked as a medical interpreter, volunteered for the Texas Civil Rights Project, and advocated internationally for press freedom. In her current position, she has worked to make voting easier and meetings more open and inclusive. Moreover, Hidalgo has steered Harris County through multiple natural disasters while championing proactive solutions like flood mitigation and smart development standards to reduce future risks.
@LinaHidalgoTX