Emily Corona is a high school junior at San Dimas High. Despite being only 17, Corona started a successful community project called Manos Unidas this past year, which has the purpose of supporting and caring for Latino immigrant communities that are on the brink of being separated by deportation. From June 2025 to the present, Manos Unidas has grown from an idea started by a Southern California schoolgirl to a growing organization that has helped and brought numerous people together.
In the summer of 2025, the Trump administration ordered the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to send agents throughout the country to take in any illegal immigrants living in the US, primarily Hispanic people, to take them in for questioning and possibly deport them. However, it was revealed that not only ICE had been targeting illegal immigrants, but legal immigrants and some immigrants who are US citizens as well. They have used such horrible actions on them, such as teargassing, taking them out of their cars and arresting them, sending them to immigration facilities with horrible conditions, even if they are legal or not. When Corona heard about what was happening in her community, she was enraged.
However, Corona, coming from a Mexican background, realized she needed to step up and do something about it, something to help her people around her during the difficult time. Then she had the idea of making hygiene and care baskets to distribute to Hispanic communities in the surrounding areas, such as East Los Angeles and Pomona. So, with the idea in mind, she created a social media page, reached out to local businesses and organizations, and founded Manos Unidas, which means ‘united hands’ in Spanish.
Instagram gave her a platform to promote her organization to everyone. She was able to inform people about the drop-off locations of the local businesses, such as Mi Cafecito Coffee and Glendora First Christian Church. Corona also made sure to post items for donations, such as an item list, in both English and Spanish to help more people connect with Manos Unidas.
After a month of starting Manos Unidas, Corona decided to organize a community gathering in July 2025 at the Alley Gallery next to Mi Cafecito Coffee in Pomona to assemble hygiene and care baskets with donated items from the businesses she had partnered with. As a result, the gathering was a success, with many people coming to create the baskets that would be distributed to Hispanic communities in LA and nearby towns. Unfortunately, Corona couldn’t make it due to a planned trip and was unable to reschedule. Still, her grandmother was there, watching as everyone was brought together for one cause, making the first community gathering of Manos Unidas a success.
Leading up to the 2025-2025 school year, Manos Unidas continued to grow, with a back-to-school donation drive partnering up with organizations such as the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project and Newcomers Access Center, and Corona made a speaking appearance at the Interfaith Glendora Community Vigil hosted by LA Voice. As the organization continued to grow, Corona realized she needed to expand Manos Unidas’s leadership. Hence, she recruited fellow saints and students from other high schools to serve as leaders of Manos Unidas, who are just as passionate about the cause as she is. They are Daniel Monge, Issac Andocilla, Maile Carranza, McKayla Arteaga, and Valeria Avila from Saint Lucy in Glendora.
Now that Manos Unidas had become a team of leaders and not just led by one person, they all got together and planned more drives, teaming up with more local businesses and organizations to bring more comfort to their communities. Soon, the leaders announced another community gathering at the same location on April 4, 2026. They made sure to tell their classmates, teacher, parents, and friends to donate and come to the gathering to make more care baskets to distribute. Furthermore, just like the last gathering, it was a success, with more students from San Dimas and other schools coming to help out and lots of donations to put in care baskets. Overall, people were there to be united by one cause: to bring comfort to immigrant communities.
One of the Manos Unidas leaders, Carranza, described her experience working in the organization as “amazing to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and to be able to know that we’re making such an impact, and getting a lot of people involved,” revealing that Manos Unidas had and continues to allow Carranza, Corona, and the other leaders to make change in this challenging world.
After several months of running Manos Unidas, Corona accomplished so much through two community gatherings, successful drives, and the building of a wonderful team of leaders. Corona still wants to continue growing her organization, with plans to “branch out more in our area, get more people involved, and team up with more organizations to expand Manos Unidas fully,” demonstrating her drive to make an even greater impact in her community.
