Before Melanie Yunga joined Connecticut Students for a Dream (C4D), “I was a really shy person,” she said. “I didn’t have the sense of community.” Over the course of her time at C4D as a Wilbur Cross High School student, Yunga found her voice advocating for herself, her family, and her friends as immigrants facing the intensifying threat of ICE detention. On Thursday, now in college, she introduced keynote speaker Attorney General William Tong to an audience of 150 people gathered at Anthony’s Ocean View to celebrate her and her peers’ work — and then helped her friends apply glitter under the color-changing dance floor spotlight. 17-year-old Emely and 16-year-old Nancy aglow at the gala. That was the scene at the Morris Cove restaurant as C4D held a “Sweet Sixteen” gala, drawing over 150 students and supporters. They celebrated 16 years of C4D, a student-led organization devoted to training undocumented youth across Connecticut in community organizing. They had seen Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seize their classmates, and they protested until those classmates walked free. They traveled to Hartford to tell legislators that they deserved to go to school without fear of ICE, that their families deserved to be able to afford medical appointments. They served as family translators, planned out worst-case-scenarios with their parents, and lived in fear of unmarked vans. And on Thursday night, they had an opportunity to dress up and dance. The annual C4D gala is “a really joyful event,” said Yunga. The gathering was a reminder, she said, that “even though in our community there’s a lot of hard times, we can still feel the light. We can have faith and come together.” Yunga, who graduated from Wilbur Cross in May and is now a freshman at Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU), is a member-leader of C4D, mentoring fellow students. She recalled many months in 2025 of protesting and advocating after ICE detained her fellow C4D member and Wilbur Cross schoolmate, Esdrás. Yunga said that coming together with her peers to fight — successfully— for their classmate’s freedom gave her comfort during a time of intense worry. She knew that “our families would be protected” by the students and allies of her community, she said. “We would not be fighting alone.” Yunga introduces AG Tong beside C4D Executive Director Tabitha Sookdeo. The immigrant teenagers and college students who filled Anthony’s Ocean View on Thursday night are “some of the most powerful people you will see in your life,” promised Tabitha Sookdeo, C4D’s executive director. According to Sookdeo, the gala raised $50,000 for C4D. Several of C4D’s leaders came up through the program themselves when they were students. Emely dances with C4D New Haven Organizer Yenimar Cortes. “I basically grew up in C4D,” reflected Yenimar Cortes, C4D’s New Haven organizer. Cortes, a New Haven Public Schools graduate who organized with C4D as a student at ECSU, said that the organization “taught me what it means to organize and have love for your community.” “In this room, we are all struggling,” said Cortes. “A lot of us, we live in a state of despair.” C4D helps students turn that despair into “hope and resilience and power,” Cortes said. “Together, it just makes you feel better, makes people feel like you’re not alone.” C4D co-founder Camila Bortoletto recalled the origins of the organization as a handful of students who “sat around a coffee shop table” with “no idea what we were doing,” only the desire to feel less alone. Now the board chair, Bortoletto has watched C4D grow into an organization on the front lines of defending immigrant youth and their families. Over time, C4D’s teen and young adult members have successfully advocated for multiple legislative victories expanding the rights of undocumented students and families, including access to in-state college tuition and aid and expanded healthcare coverage for youth. After President Donald Trump took office for a second term, C4D emerged as a local leader in efforts to identify and respond to intensifying ICE activity. Bortoletto described Sookdeo and her team “moving mountains to make sure our members are safe, going home no matter where they are.” C4D initiated the Red Folder Project, helping undocumented community members assemble legal documents. The organization launched the American Immigrant Legal Clinic, training a network of pro bono lawyers to address a dearth of immigration attorneys in the state. C4D members reeled after ICE detained multiple peers, teens and college students seized at work or at the airport — and fought back through protests and campaigns until many of those young people could come home. C4D Special Projects Manager Andrea Sánchez dances with her dad, Andres. “They helped me to have a voice so I can help other people have a voice,” said Nancy, a 16-year-old C4D member. Andrea Sánchez, a special projects manager at C4D who has spearheaded the Red Folder Project and the American Immigrant Legal Clinic, said that the last year and a half under Trump’s second term has further highlighted the courage of undocumented students. Sánchez recalled C4D members’ determination to attend a recent protest in Danbury, even as the adults around them acknowledged that ICE might show up. The rally highlighted “the bravery that they have” in the face of life-altering risks. Ten years ago, Sánchez joined C4D when she herself was a student. As the daughter in a “mixed-status family,” the organization “changed the trajectory of my life,” she said. “I found that community.” These days, “the work is really, really heavy and depressing,” said Sánchez. “You see people that look like your dad being victimized and targeted.” Which makes it all the more important, she said, to find moments of relief and joy, like Thursday’s party. “Sometimes celebration is resistance,” echoed immigration lawyer Tina Colón Williams, “because it’s not expected of you.” “Dance parties, laughing, saying nice things to each other” — all are ways to defy the fear and dehumanization that anti-immigrant policies are designed to inflict, said Colón Williams. Sookdeo received citations honoring her work from Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, Attorney General Tong, and Gov. Ned Lamont. Sookdeo gets a standing ovation. Tong told the story of his parents, who were formerly undocumented immigrants, as he detailed the state’s legal victories against Trump’s anti-immigrant policies. Sisters Camila and Carolina Bortoletto, who co-founded C4D in 2010, marveled at the organization’s growth since then. Climate organizer Adrian Huq explores the make-your-own jewelry and swag station. Yenimar Cortes: Turning “despair” into “hope and resilience and power.” The post C4D Celebrates 16 Years appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less