Forward thinkers

Be a change agent!
Gustavo Torres urges his neighbors to get involved in the immigration debate

Gustavo Torres is an immigrants’ rights advocate and organizer who has served as executive director of CASA of Maryland since 1994. We asked him for his observations on how the outlook for immigrants in our community has improved and what remains to be done. Photo: Elmer Romero

by Gustavo Torres
Executive Director CASA of Maryland

January 1, 2008
We live within a global economy, with the capacity to communicate to thousands, yet we are isolated more than ever from our neighbors. We blog online and post on “You tube,” yet we don’t know the name of the person sitting next to us on the Metro. We are aware of our surroundings via internet but not through our conversations.

Our generation wants to change things with a click of a mouse.
The problem is that one click is not enough. Change, or lack of change, will determine the first 50 years of our century, and we are leaving too many problems to our children to resolve in their future. We have endless unfinished business. The lack of an effective immigration reform is one of them.

The United States is not new to the phenomenon of immigration. We should never forget that on Thanksgiving Day we celebrate the coming together of the immigrant English pilgrims and the Native Americans from whom they learned how to cultivate the land (and subsequently decimated). History will not look kindly on us for forgetting this and greeting today’s newcomers with hatred and fear. Twenty years from now some of us, including some in the progressive community, may not take pride in what we did or didn’t do today.

Remember when O’Malley, Fitzpatrick, DiMaggio, Giuliani, Novak, Krakovski, Epstein, or Elrich seemed exotic and bizarre? We all have a background. Did the door close after those families entered? How do you think they felt when they heard, a kind soul say, “Welcome“ followed by “Benvenuto, si prega di compilare questo modulo la sua” or “Willkommen, füllen Sie bitte dieses Formular aus seinem.” That was the right thing to say.

Takoma Park and Montgomery County have strong traditions of supporting and embracing immigrants. But there are many more things that can be done. We can go further. On a personal level, you can share your skills by teaching English, inviting your neighbor to participate in your babysitting coop, sharing mulch over the fence. And, when your neighbor’s community is attacked, you can write a letter to the editor, protest against hateful activities, organize a support group in your congregation.

During raids that have taken place in Maryland since last January, a father was separated from his five-year-old son who was in the hospital suffering from later-stage leukemia, children were left at school while their mothers were held by immigration officials, four members of a family were picked up and held in separate detention facilities, then later deported, leaving one young boy desperately trying to find his brothers and parents. Their crimes? Sewing clothes, landscaping, construction work. If this isn’t the Maryland you want to live in, you need to get involved.

Have you done something lately to balance the equation? Don’t limit yourself to “theoretically” supporting immigrants. Live up to the tradition of American history, which, in its proudest moments, is full of stories of people standing for what they knew to be right, often changing the law in the process. Takoma Park’s laws come very close to the heart of this tradition. But we live in a metropolis, and we have to spread this welcoming attitude throughout our metropolis. We have to teach Frederick and Prince William Counties a history lesson in the nobility of America.

In the 1980s, faith leaders risked arrest to provide shelter to those fleeing despotic governments of Central America. Those heroes of the sanctuary movement can look in satisfaction at saving human lives, and the seeds of their work are reflected in the faces of the newest generation of Latino young leaders. My organization, CASA de Maryland, is the result primarily of Takoma Park church leaders and residents who put their idealism to work.

Today we face a similar crisis of conscience. In 2008, you can take four concrete actions to show you love your neighbor:

1. Write a letter to the editor when immigrants are attacked

2. Call on Congress to pass immigration reform and let candidates for office know that it is your priority

3. Tell the White House Administration, current and incoming, that we need a moratorium on the raids that are dividing families.

4. Let everyone you know, including those with whom you worship, that you are standing shoulder to shoulder with immigrants and want them to also

We are living in a community today that looks very different than it did twenty years ago and undoubtedly it will look very different twenty years hence. I am proud to work in Takoma Park and live in Silver Spring because I recognize our local leaders are committed to maintaining the ethnic and racial and economic diversity that makes our communities so interesting. Embracing newcomers is our local tradition. At CASA, we invite you join us in sending that message to the broadest audience possible.

Gustavo Torres, who is originally from Colombia, was the founding president of the Maryland Latino Coalition for Justice and has served on the board of the National Capital Immigrant Coalition and the Prince George’s County Executive Transition Committee. He was also Board President of the National Day Labor Organizing Network.

Visit:
CASA of Maryland
casademaryland.org

National Capital Immigration Coalition
www.ncic-metro.org