Immigrants Under Siege:
Resisting with Seeds of Community Action
by Josefina Castillo
Author’s Foreword: While Congress debates immigration reform and hostile groups such as the Minutemen harass immigrants, AFSC-Austin recognizes that immigrants are already here and need to know their rights in order to integrate more fully into this society.
AFSC-Austin has supported Inmigrantes Latinos en Accion (ILA) for over five years. This partnership has offered me an opportunity to learn and be cognizant of the needs of immigrants through our support of ILA’s program, Project Monarch.
AFSC-Austin has also been part of Colectivo Flatlander, a group of four facilitators, including myself, who have organized four annual workshops for immigrants at the Stonehaven Ranch in San Marcos, Texas. These workshops provide a space of meeting and discussion around issues that directly affect the immigrant community.
Both Project Monarch and the Stonehaven workshops create a space in which immigrants themselves plan and learn what is best for them and their communities. It has been an honor for me to participate in these two projects and I hope that the interview with Maria Luisa and the article on Stonehaven will offer a closer look at how small groups of immigrants deliberate and plan their future needs.
Interview With Maria Luisa Bautista:
Planting the Seeds of Community Action
JC: What is the goal of Project Monarch?
MLB: The immigrant community needs to know the basic tools of how the system in the U.S. works, so Project Monarch (PM) provides information about available resources to immigrants in the Austin area. Immigrants attend weekly workshops, in this case ten sessions, where they learn not only about existing services, but also about their civil rights and responsibilities so that they can exercise them and be able to incorporate themselves into the daily life of a country that is totally different from theirs. ILA considers that it is important as well to be aware of the reasons why people migrate to this country, so PM also addresses the root causes of migration, which are primarily economic hardships that hit mostly impoverished communities in Mexico and other Latin American countries. PM is targeted to the immigrant community of any Spanish-speaking country, regardless of their religion, ethnicity or nationality. It is an interactive program so that participants are able to share their experiences and by means of their personal skills, continue spreading what they learned in the workshops to their communities. PM consists of three phases. The first one focuses on the different services available in the Austin area, and on the rights and responsibilities of immigrants. The second phase will target leadership skills and the third phase will focus directly on hands-on practice.
JC: How do you feel now that the first phase is over?
MLB: I think that it was a good start, since we registered a considerable number of people and this group was very participative and dynamic. Seven people received their graduation certificate signed and handed out by Austin City Council Member Raul Alvarez; and we have kept good communication with the ones that graduated. I also recognize that the migrant community is still hesitant to attend these types of workshops, but I think that the people who did come are like a seed that was planted and will expand to other members of the community.
JC: What are the benefits that this project brings to the immigrant community in this time of increased hostility and xenophobia, which are exemplary in the passage of the REAL ID Act, Proposition 200 in Arizona, and the emergence of the Minutemen?
MLB: There are significant benefits that we share with the participants—such as personal and similar life experiences among immigrants—and in this way we help others in defending their rights. One of the participants in fact has already put into practice what he learned. Using a booklet that we created which contains information on various service providers, he referred his contacts that needed legal services to various reputable legal service providers. In this way everybody benefits from each other in a personal and collective way. I say collective, because we also inform them what is happening within the immigrant advocacy community so that out of their own initiative they can approve or disapprove initiatives or legislation that affect us as immigrants, such as the REAL ID Act or the hot topic of the moment, the Minutemen. These were issues that were totally unknown to them before attending the workshops.
JC: Will there be a follow-up to PM and if so, how will it go?
MLB: The results that came out of PM after the graduation show that there is interest in continuing with the second and third phases. One of the goals of the third phase is that, as part of the training, the participants will be in charge of organizing the second full series of PM with its three stages.
JC: In what ways can our readers support ILA and specifically Project Monarch?
MLB: Some people have asked us how they can support ILA. There are several ways to do this either by volunteering at our office, which we share with AFSC, or providing office supplies. All members of ILA are immigrant volunteers and do not receive a salary. We have been able to sustain ourselves through donations we have received throughout the six years that we have been organizing.
You can contact ILA at (512) 474-2399 or by email.
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