Week 10

This internship has made me question a lot of things about what kind of work I want to do in the future. I learned a lot about working in the public policy and became aware of the challenges that exist in that type of work. I became aware of the divisive internal politics of the community organizing world and learned that you can even meet with resistance from people who are supposed to be your allies. I also learned that when you achieve something politically, you often receive such a strong backlash afterwards that it is questionable how much your efforts actually help people. In addition, I found out that it is hard to stay motivated and passionate about your work when you meet with almost constant resistance. Furthermore, I found it less enjoyable to work in an office on a political campaign than experiences I have had working with immigrants in person. However, I have also seen a great need for the work that political activists do in my work with immigrants in Postville in other places. This kind of work is undoubtedly very valuable and very necessary. I am just not sure that it is where my passion lies and where my talents can be best used.

Week 9

In working at the Immigrant Freedom Network this summer, I have seen what challenges small non-profits must face. It is hard to find enough funding for staff, so people end up being paid very little for the time they put in. At this point, MIFN only has 2 staff members and they do not work full-time, which makes it hard to get things done, especially when your opponents have a lot more resources and man-power. It is also sometimes difficult to get things done, because there is not a set procedure for everything and there are no repercussions if you do not follow your own rules. This can make it hard to get things done efficiently. It also seems to me that a lot of what community organizers and non-profits do is call upon their connections to get support for whatever they are doing, and this is hard to do when you are a small organization. It is also hard to get people to listen to you until you make a name for yourself and this is hard to do without the support of others. So that can become a vicious cycle. Big organizations, like Lutheran Social Services, do not seem to have these same challenges. This makes me wonder if one can work for social justice more effectively by working with a small organization that is trying to do something different and new, or by working within a big organization that already has power in the public sphere and has specific services that they consistently work to provide.

Week 8

This week I called a lot of non-profit organizations to talk to them about the Reform Immigration for America campaign and see if they would be willing and able to endorse it. Most of the organizations told me that either they did not know if they could get involved in a political campaign or they had an strict policy that they do not get involved in political campaigns of any kind. When I told my supervisor about this, he told me that non-profits are able to spend a certain amount of money on lobbying each year, so he was surprised that I got that kind of response. That made me wonder what motives non-profits would have to stay away from political action. Not all non-profits work in providing social services, but it seems strange that those who do would have that kind of policy, because the existing laws affect the people that they serve. I think that it only makes sense to combine service with advocacy. This advocacy needs to happen on the local level and on the national political level. I think I need to consider whether I want to be able to involve this kind of political advocacy in my work as I consider my post-college plans or if I would be satisfied working in a non-political, service providing organization.

Week 7

This week was very interesting because I got some unique insight into the world of non-profits and community activists. I attended a meeting with a couple of Immigrant Freedom Network’s partner organizations. They were discussing what they were working on and what ways they could support each other in their efforts. One group talked about plans they had to do a march for immigrant rights and the others gave constructive feedback about this. I was asked to talk a little bit about our project to talk to churches, faith-groups and non-profits about Reform Immigration for America to try to get support for the campaign. I showed them the letter that we were sending out to people. Everyone there was very supportive including a woman who is the head of an interfaith coalition on immigration in the Twin Cities. However, during the meeting they talked about other organizations and coalitions working on immigration issues in a negative way, saying that they had the wrong motives and were not worth working with.

However couple days later, I received a rather angry e-mail basically asking who we thought we were trying to work with faith groups because that was her territory. I was very surprised by this because her response had been so positive only a couple days before. It was especially surprising because I had originally talked to several pastors before drafting the letter to figure out what direction to go with it, and she was one of pastors that I talked to about it. I talked to my supervisor about the situation and instead of sticking with our original letter and plan, he asked me to rewrite our letter so that it had no religious language in it. This surprised me as well, because it was his idea to try to organize different groups of people to get support for the campaign. This whole situation gave me some insight into the internal politics of the non-profit world. People seem to have their own plans and ideas that they are very invested in, and are almost possessive of in a way that keeps them from working with others. They get caught up in small differences that bar them from collaborating and potentially having a bigger impact on politics and the community.

Week 6

This week I learned more about the political landscape surrounding immigration in. I found out that in Minnesota Rep. Ellison is really the only representative that can be counted on to support immigration reform like that put forward by Reform Immigration for America. Others are indifferent and still others, like Rep. Bachmann will always oppose this kind of reform. I learned that that on the national level we need a certain number of representatives committed to putting reform through congress, and we need a lot more politicians committed to this for things to change. We were talking about this at a staff meeting and Mariano, my supervisor, seemed to have a kind of negative attitude about the odds that a bill will be able to get through congress. He also said that if something passes this year, there will be such a strong backlash from opponents of the bill that it will be almost impossible to pass any substantial pro-immigrant law for the next twenty years. This made me question whether it is worth it to work so hard campaigning for something like this when chances are slim that anything will change and it will stop progress in the future. I think that being an activist or lobbyist are jobs where you work really hard and get very little return for your efforts. It seems like it would be very easy to get discouraged and become ineffective because you are burnt-out. However, I think any job working for social justice would be the same way. I think I need to consider the toll work like this could take on me and ways I could cope with the pressure and still be effective as I consider my future career plans.

Week 5

At a staff meeting this week, we talked about why we are working at the Freedom Network and it was interesting to hear more about the other interns who are working there this summer. There are two college students, one of whom came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was young, and the other whose parents are immigrants who shared their experiences. One of them talked about the experience of being bilingual and how that has been both a blessing and a curse. He said that it is a blessing because he is able to communicate with many different people and is able to help his parents by translating for them. However, it has also been a curse because he has had to do things far beyond his years, like helping his father with taxes at age 9 and translating for his parents while he was having an operation. One of them also said that, as a second generation American, he feels an obligation to fight for immigrant rights because so many people he knows are affected by it, but that it feels more like a duty than a passion. He said he is still searching for where his passion lies in regards to immigration. This conversation gave me a glimpse into the experiences of immigrant children growing up in the U.S. They are obligated to bridge the gap between native-born and immigrant people in the U.S. and this can be a very negative experience for them.

Week 4

This week I did some more research about the Reform Immigration for America campaign because I was finding it a little difficult to explain what it is about to the people I was calling. I read through their complete principles to try to make more sense of it. This helped me to see more of the big picture. I organized their ideas into these categories: Work, Economy, Services, Families, Security, and Citizenship. Their main idea about work is that workplace raids need to stop and work conditions and wages must be better for everyone. They think that if there is economic opportunity for immigrants and low-income Americans, everyone will benefit. They want more government support and funding for English and Civics classes. They also want to stop the separation of families that results from raids and the following legal backlogs. They also want security to focus on actual safety threats rather than using so much resources for immigrants who have no intention of harming other people or their property. They want to set up a registration program that will allow people to go through a legal process that requires them to pay a fine, pay taxes, and study English and allows them to become permanent residents and eventually citizens.

This helped me a lot to be able to explain the campaign to other people, although it is still more of a set of ideals rather than a list of directives. Their idea of a process for people to gain citizenship is specific, but some of their other ideas are a bit vague. This makes it a little difficult to "sell" the campaign to other people, especially since I do not understand all of the political ins and outs of the campaign. It is interesting that the campaign is calling for comprehensive reform and deals with so many issues. It makes sense to assert that you cannot really fix things and help people unless you change everything. However, I wonder if the campaign is so ambitious, so that when they meet with resistance and have to compromise and scale back, they can still get something substantial through congress.

Week 3

This week I started calling churches to ask them if I could send them the endorsement form that I have been working on for the Reform Immigration for America campaign.  This has been somewhat challenging and I have felt like I imagine a telemarketer must feel on a daily basis.  It has challenged me to be able to convey my ideas clearly and make a connection with people in a very brief period that will catch their attention.  This skill of “selling” ideas is something that I have not had experience with in the past, but I think it could be a helpful skill to have in many different fields.  It is obviously very applicable in the political arena and in organizations like MIFN where lobbying politicians is part of their job.  I have somewhat considered the possibility of going into immigration law in the future, and I think knowing how to talk about immigration issues and being able to communicate ideas effectively and get people to agree with you, would be very helpful in that field.  I have also already encountered some negative responses, which is probably a good experience as well.  I felt somewhat discouraged and taken aback at first, but I think learning how to overcome that and stick with the idea that you support even when people disagree with you is vital to bringing about any kind of change in our society.  It will be interested to learn more about people’s perception of immigration as I am calling them to talk to them about the Reform Immigration for America campaign.

 

 

Week 2

This week I drafted an endorsement form to send to churches. This was interesting for me because I had to write about immigration in religious language. I had to make a case for why immigration policy falls within the realm of religion and is something that churches and clergy should care about. I used resources from people and organizations that have already tried to do this, such as a proposal at the last Minneapolis ELCA Synod Assembly and the language used in sermon's and available on several organizations' websites. It made a lot of sense to me to that immigration is a religious matter and besides my convictions, there are many texts, Christian and otherwise, that support that. That makes me hopeful that if I decide to go to seminary, I will still be able to be involved in the movement for immigrant rights. The first letter I wrote used ecumenical language, drawing from the Bible and Qu'ran and other texts. However, after further consideration, I decided to write another letter that only uses Christian language. I talked to a couple people who thought it might alienate conservative clergy if I use ecumenical language. This seems true in my experience, so I wrote another one. The church is big part of shaping and perpetuating people's view of the world. I think I need to figure out what views I will be expected to perpetuate and whether that will compromise my beliefs before I pursue a career in the church.

Week 1

This week I found out a little about what the faith community is doing about the issue of immigration in America. The Minneapolis synod of the ELCA recently approved a statement on immigration calling for the cessation of immigration raids and for reform of immigration policy appealing to biblical ideas about both strangers and neighbors. I was asked to draft an endorsement form for the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom network that could be given to churches because of my experience with the church. They want to ask churches to endorse the Reform Immigration for America campaign, which is working to put immigration reform through congress in the fall.

I talked to several people involved in the church, including Lutheran pastors, Catholic nuns, and a UCC pastor. This gave me some insight into what is necessary to combine church and state in a productive way without threatening the limits that churches impose on themselves not to get involved in the political. It seems to differ depending on denomination. Some denominations have structures that are very democratic and therefore something like an endorsement would have to go through church councils and would take months. However, I am not sure if that is true of all denominations. I may end up getting endorsements from clergy rather than churches. However, there are clergy who are working in ways that are very political, for example having a church service on the anniversary of the Postville Immigration raid to call for immigration policy change. There seems to be a fine line between what churches can or cannot do in the political realm. There is definite hesitation on the part of the church to get involved. However, it seems that if politics affect issues of social justice, the church must become involved if it is going to fulfill its mission. The church is uniquely placed with both human and financial resources which it can use in many ways. It is interesting to think about the ways in which the church can either strengthen or challenge the hold that patriarchy and kyriarchy have on society. This is something that I need to think about as I consider what I want to do in the future. I have considered going into pastoral ministry and this power of the church is something that I must wrestle with as I make decisions for my future.