Lane County Leaders Assembly a Success!

Katie D.

January 24, 2012 - 9:05 PM

I've just gotten home from the Lane County Leaders Assembly, and I feel so inspired and enthusiastic about this work! Four hundred and fifty members of churches, schools, the UO, LCC, community organizations, Labor, and public servants showed up to support the rights of Latino immigrants in our community. We heard the stories of people's struggles, and collectively called for specific changes in funding and legal code which would better support these vulnerable members of our community.

It was a beautiful event.

Two stories were of particular note. The first, Teresa, has lived in Eugene for more than fifteen years, and has worked for all those years as a nanny and a housecleaner, and now employs five other women in cleaning houses. She lost her driver's license three years ago when the law changed and there is now no option for licenses if you do not have a social security number. She spoke to this as an emotional trauma as she has had to abandon the causes she used to support (delivering food boxes to the hungry, driving River Road Elementary school children to dental appointments, and serving as a committee member in her church) as well as the logistical and legal problems this has caused her.

Then Carmen spoke in support of Centro Latino Americano, which is the largest service center for Latinos in Lane County. Centro was largely de-funded this year, which will mean cutting the number of Latinos served from 2,000 per year to only 600. Most of these families will not have a viable alternative source for services, English classes, and other linguistically and culturally appropriate resources in our county. Carmen spoke about losing her children to the Department of Human Services, including losing her infant daughter to DHS three days after giving birth, when they were both still in the hospital. Centro helped her stabilize her living situation and then address her legal rights to parenting, and now her family is together again.

I spoke at the end of the event, together with Pastor Melanie Oommen from First Congregational United Church of Christ. We offered next steps, and asked the audience to take action, offer educated opinions, and to vote with a mind to the stories they had heard this evening.

My part was simple: I told everyone that I didn't know how to "fix immigration," but only how to recognize small pieces of injustice. I told them "the small fixes we can offer with our votes or our lobbying calls seem insignificant in the face of the complexity of immigration, but they would mean the world to the speakers we have heard tonight."

I also told the audience that I felt called. I meant this sincerely, and in the religious sense which was present in many of the speakers' stories and the context of that church as the event space. I feel a calling to this issue. I asked that we work as neighbors in answer to tonight's call.

I feel an enormous sense of hope, sitting back at home and reading the emails from folks who attended. We were present, we were powerful. We shared the stories so often unheard. I don't know what will happen this upcoming electoral session. I don't know if we've succeeded with a grand vision of change. But I feel different. I have that sense that I am part of a community which cares for its neighbors.

And that is the best possible outcome: that we care for the suffering of the Other in our midst. That we come together to take action against injustice. That is what we did tonight.

Y ahora seguimos adelante: now we most continue on.