ILIR Members Get ‘Bebo’

By April Drew

THE Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) draws on traditional methods such as media, posters, word of mouth and its website to reach out to people about its fight for immigration reform, but a young Irish American girl has come up with a unique way of communicating with the younger members of the Irish community in the U.S. It’s called Bebo.

Bernadette Gibbons, 19, of Queens, who describes herself as a “product of immigration,” is the daughter of George and Mary Gibbons who emigrated from Ireland when they were in their twenties.

She told the Irish Voice that she became involved with ILIR because she valued her freedom of being able to go back and forth to Ireland with her family, so she decided she also wanted to see Irish couples with families to also have an opportunity to return to their homeland with their children.

“My heart goes out to those who have young kids and can’t bring them home to meet their family. As it stands, without immigration reform, they have one of two choices- move back to Ireland or stay here but can’t do both,” she said.

Gibbons, a journalism student, dancing teacher and part time waitress, was first introduced to Bebo when her Irish cousins send her an invitation to join. She set up her own personal account and about a month ago she decided to give ILIR its own Bebo site and 30 days later the site, at time of print, had been viewed by 939 people and has 156 members. It is growing everyday.

“My aim is to get in touch with new young Irish who were very involved with ILIR mainly at the beginning but sort of lost hope, and today it’s all about the internet so I thought it was better than a flyer or a poster,” she said.

Bebo, founded in January 2005, is a social networking website, designed to allow friends to correspond in a variety of ways. It has developed into an online community where users can post pictures, write blogs and send messages to one another, and is similar in format to MySpace. It is primarily used by Irish citizens at home and abroad for keeping in touch.

“There are people from all over the U.S. now members of the ILIR Bebo site,” said Gibbons, who goes on to give say that she was in contact with an Irish guy in San Francisco and because of the site he discovered that their was a rally being held in his area, which he later attended.

Gibbons never imagined in her wildest dreams that there would be so much interest in the webpage.

“It’s funny and great, a lot of people in Ireland are even logging on. People are befriending us from all over, not just undocumented, but people who are curious about the fight for immigration reform,” she commented.

In the profile section of the site, Gibbons writes about the ILIR and it’s members. “Underneath the t-shirts that you all have seen and the articles you have read, are seas of undocumented Irish that inhabit this great country,” it reads.

Gibbons goes on to encourage fellow Irish men and women to get involved in the fight for immigration reform by saying, “Your job now is to get yourself involved. We are always looking for new members because every extra hand helps. There are meetings held weekly in both the Bronx as well as Queens. Let’s stick together as did our ancestors before us and together we will legalize the Irish.”

Gibbons also created a poll to have a little fun with the members but also to remind people about the upcoming Lobby day on March 7. The poll is named “Are you going to Washington,” and she has received an overwhelming 85% “Yes” answer.

The site also allows people to upload photos of ILIR events and leave messages about the organization, ask questions and post up upcoming dates nationwide, “basically anything to do with ILIR is on that site,” she said.

“People have even been leaving me messages in Gaelic,” laughs Gibbons, admitting that she has no idea what they say.

To log onto the ILIR Bebo site go to http://-ILIR-2007-.bebo.com. It will be instantly recognizable by the green wallpaper and map of Ireland and more noticeably the green card express bus logo, chosen specifically to “draw peoples attention and get them curious,” explains Gibbons.