Meet The Anacaona-OHIA Dream Team!

In 2021, the Anacaona LLC and Ohio Immigrant Alliance (OHIA) team has grown. Each person below has made a huge different in the work of our clients and our communities. Please take a minute to get to know the members of the “Dream Team” at Anacaona and Ohio Immigrant Alliance!

Maryam Sy

Maryam Sy is an organizer with the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, and a freelance interpreter and translator for hospitals, lawyers, and individuals. Raised in France and Senegal, and now living in Ohio, Maryam speaks English, French, Wolof, and Puular/Fulani. She works as a medical interpreter and document translator for the USCRI in Cleveland OH, and also did various translation and ran projects for Ideas42, the Catholic Charities Dioceses Of Cleveland and more.

A committed community activist in both the U.S. and abroad, Sy led successful fundraisers to help a baby in Senegal receive surgery and pay the bond for a Mauritanian asylum seeker in U.S. immigration jail, among other efforts. In 2020 alone she helped raise over $10,000 to secure basic human rights for people in need of help. She graduated in 2013 from Cuyahoga Community College with a Healthcare Administration diploma.

In 2021, Maryam interviewed over 200 people who were deported from the United States or left to avoid detention and deportation, many of whom were born in Mauritania and are not able to live there safely. This #ReuniteUS project was featured in an article in the Columbus Dispatch. Maryam is also active in the campaign to secure Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure for Mauritanians in the United States. 

Claudia Longo

Born in Uruguay, Claudia Longo has lived in the United States since 2002. She is Director of Community Outreach for the Cleveland Market at La Mega Nota, Ohio’s Spanish language print and digital publication.

Claudia also reports and translates for The Land, a new independent news consortium in Greater Cleveland, and works as a Special Project Prevention Specialist Administrator at Catholic Charities, creating COVID-19 vaccination outreach campaigns among the Latino population of Cuyahoga County. She consults for Anacaona LLC, managing social media communications for Essential Ohio. Claudia is a board member of the new National Association of Hispanic Journalists – Cleveland Chapter (GCAHJ) as well as Babel Box, an inclusive theater company. 

In 2020, Claudia was named one of the “100+ Latinos Cleveland MUST KNOW” for Hispanic Heritage Month.  

Melissa Stek

Melissa is a writer and editor for Anacaona LLC. With a Bachelor of Social Work degree from Calvin University and a Master of Social Work degree from University of Michigan, Melissa has used her diverse experiences as a social worker, teacher, faith organizer, legislative staffer, and policy advocate to holistically inform her writing work in immigration policy advocacy.

Isabel Coyle

Isabel is a researcher for Anacaona and the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. She is a third-year student at Emory University and is majoring in economics and history on a pre-law track. She became interested in immigration reform after joining a student organization at Emory called Behind the Glass: Immigration Reflections, where she visited immigrants held in detention in rural Georgia.

Emma Gerber

Emma was an intern for the Ohio Immigration Alliance this summer. This fall, she is attending Washington University in St. Louis as a first-year student, studying International Relations and Creative Writing. Her passion for immigration reform began during her senior year of high school, while studying immigration in a world literature course. Through her immigration work, Emma hopes to honor her long line of immigrant ancestors from Thailand, Germany, China, and France. 

Lynn Tramonte

After twenty years working for national immigration organizations, Lynn Tramonte launched a communications consulting practice, Anacaona LLC, in 2018. Anacaona tells stories that compel people to see and feel our shared humanity through advocacy communications, developmental editing, and coaching in writing and media relations. 

Lynn also directs the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, a group of immigrants and allies working together to make Ohio a better place for immigrants. Anacaona and the Ohio Immigrant Alliance recently published “Far From Their Eyes: Ohio Migration Anthology,” which you can read about and order here. Currently, OHIA is leading #ReuniteUS, a campaign to bring deported people home. 

Lynn and her work have been profiled in Cleveland Scene, La Mega Nota, and Columbus Free Press, among other outlets. She is a 2018 Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund.