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Posted: 2017-10-03T09:00:16Z | Updated: 2017-10-03T09:00:16Z

As President Donald Trump pushes anti-immigrant policies including a bill favoring immigrant applicants who speak English one small project in Detroit, Michigan, is providing a platform for bilingual, bicultural Americans to tell their own stories, in their own languages.

Storytelling project Relato: Detroit organizes monthly events where local community members perform five-minute true stories in a mashup of languages from Spanglish (or Spanish and English) to Korish (or Korean and English).

Organizers told participants there is no need to provide extra context to their stories to suit an English-speaking audience or as the groups press release put it: There is no code-switching , no translation required.

Event founder Jeni De La O, who identifies as Afro-Latinx and grew up speaking Spanish with her parents, got the idea after performing for over a year in the Detroit storytelling community, including with renowned group The Moth . She said that she and other bicultural storytellers were spending too much time on stage setting up the context so that English speakers would understand.

I spent three [of the five minutes allotted] translating or explaining to a predominantly English speaking or non-Latino audience why my abuelita lives in my house, De La O told HuffPost. It takes away from telling the actual story... and provides an incomplete story of what life in our city is for bilingual, bicultural people.

At least 126 languages are spoken in Detroit homes , and more than 1 in 10 people in the metro area speak a language other than English. In the U.S. at large which has no official language there are at least 350 different languages spoken .

During the presidential campaign, Trump criticized opponent Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish at events, saying at a 2015 debate: This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish. In the United States, there have long been incidents of people of color being attacked for speaking a foreign language in public, with some being told to go back to [their] country. Some experts have attributed a recent rise in reports of such incidents to Trumps anti-immigrant rhetoric emboldening peoples hate and bias.

In a time where there seems to be an overwhelming narrative of division, its up to every one of us to do our part to create a more inclusive community, De La O told HuffPost. What has made America a strong place has always been a diversity of people, ideas and beliefs. This event aims to be a little part of that.