Immigration

Lily on KGOAT radio

Daughter of Jim Walsh and AFSC's Gabriela Flora, Lily makes her radio debut on KGOAT radio following her parents discussion of immigration issues.

Gabriela Flora of AFSC Colorado and her spouse, Jim Walsh, a labor history professor at the University of Colorado-Denver, discuss immigration on KGOAT radio, Idaho Springs, Colorado.

http://www.kygt.org/audio/Jerry/2011/Jim_Walsh_Gabriela_Flora4-2-11.mp3

Sara Crippen

Sara Crippen is a volunteer with AFSC Iowa’s Immigrants Voice Program and a senior at Central College in Pella, Iowa.

By Sara Crippen

Angela is from Usulután, the large capital of the province Usulután in El Salvador. She and her son fled the capital in 2000 because violence instigated by an international gang named Mara Salvatrucha was escalating within the city. The gang is involved in anything from human trafficking to merciless revenge killings to murderous robbery, and has been disintegrating the city’s standard of safety for a number of years.

gabriela flora in no human being tshirt

Gabriela Flora

By Gabriela Flora, Regional Project Voice Organizer, AFSC Colorado

This spring, AFSC was invited to show some of our digital stories from “Borders Lifted, Voices Raised” and provide background information on immigration issues to parents at a bilingual middle school in Boulder. The bilingual school has confronted racist threats to students recently.  The invitation to AFSC was part of a parent and administrative effort to raise consciousness about immigration issues.

Jennifer Piper at DJPC 2011

Jennifer Piper speaks with friends from the Denver Justice and Peace Center.

By Jennifer Piper, Interfaith Organizing Director, AFSC Colorado Immigrant Rights Program

Denver Justice and Peace Center invited me to present and facilitate a workshop discussing how US foreign and domestic policies encourage immigration but punish immigrants with more drastic and inhumane enforcement. Fifty people attended the workshop and brainstormed together the root causes which compel people to leave their birth country. We examined the US government’s impact on trade policies, wars and discrimination abroad.

Jordan Garcia gives a presentation

Jordan Garcia facilitates a discussion on immigration.

By Jordan Garcia, Immigrant Ally Organizing Director, AFSC Colorado Immigrant Rights Program

In late January, Jennifer Piper of AFSC and I presented a Solidarity and Allyship Workshop for 40 people at the Unitarian Universalist (UU) “Social Change in a Multicultural World” gathering. The gathering hosted UU members from the Rocky Mountain and Desert Region.  We started out discussing a graphic depicting the “Web of Oppression” and the “Four I's of Oppression” (Ideological, Institutional, Interpersonal, and Internalized).