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.