Immigration speaking event

Katie D.

November 6, 2011 - 1:23 PM

Part of my CRES internship this term is to hold informational presentations and education events surrounding immigration issues. Soon I hope to meet with some existing groups on campus, and to get more involved with other organizations working in the immigrant rights community. But my best luck so far has been in speaking with religious groups to offer my perspective gained from experience working on the border and in Honduras.

This morning I spoke with a small group at First Congregational Church. This is an extremely active and justice-focused church in the south university neighborhood, and is leading the attempt to work with different religious communities and Christian denominations to tackle immigration issues. So I was happy to be invited to speak after church.

I honestly love doing presentations like this. Over the years of working with No More Deaths I have had the chance to speak with church groups three or four times, plus speaking with the Eugene League of Women Voters. Since I have written and presented about my experiences, I have a comfortable sense of which stories to tell and which order to tell them: I have a set of pictures to show as I illustrate immigration or border enforcement policy based on the people I've met and the things I've seen. Now I'm adding my Honduran experiences, and adding the perspective of the "home front" or sending communities in Central America. So essentially I'm adding a fuller understanding to my existing presentation.

I realized two things today.

First, that speaking in this setting is more relaxing and affirming than most other justice-related activities I can imagine. I love doing presentations, meeting people, and constructing new and better ways of sharing my perspectives. One of the folks who came to my presentation today thanked me for coming, and then told me he thought it was important for me to take this message to policy makers. He told me I should "go to Salem next. And then tell this exact thing to Obama."

I realized I would love the chance. I do this well-why shouldn't I look for a new forum? And upon further reflection, a room full of policy makers wouldn't be terribly more intimidating than a room full of nice middle-aged church folk. When I don't know something, I admit I don't know. I'm just sharing what I've witnessed.

My second realization stems from that last sentence. I realized today just how completely I've been influenced by my work with Sister Helen Prejean. I aspire to her easy style of addressing people, and her passion without preaching. I don't feel a need to arm myself with statistics, but rather with stories. And I feel such compassion for my audience, and such hope that we can talk through a situation together. I don't have a final vision, and I don't pretend to. I don't have an answer to the immigration question. But I have these stories, and a profound hope that our country might do better to protect the rights and dignity of folks within our borders, and for humanity at large.

So I showed my pictures and told my stories: deportations and migrant trails, Honduran families separated by financial need, migrants mutilated by the trains, and the consistent welcome I have received while doing this work. I felt that today's presentation went well and opened new doors for me and for this educational effort. I hope so.

And I hope I've taken further steps toward speaking as Sister Helen does: honestly and with great love, bringing about change.