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.