A panel of five speakers from various local organizations and universities shared their research and experiences Thursday evening in an effort to bring the topic of immigrants’ rights and the impact globalization has had on Los Angeles and Latin America to UCLA.
The conference, “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally,” was hosted by Conciencia Libre, a social justice group on campus that focuses on student activism in underprivileged communities and linking global issues with local issues.
The panel focused on transnational issues and the effect it has on immigrants in the Los Angeles community and on the economic ties many immigrant families share with their home countries.
“The reason we’re focusing on transnationalism is because globalization has changed a lot of Latin American countries, and not necessarily for the better. People are getting poorer, poverty has increased,” said Rosemarie Molina, a member of Conciencia Libre and conference coordinator for the event.
“We want to focus on ways that we can help in Los Angeles. Even though something happens across the border, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect us here and doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it,” she said.
Molina came up with the idea after a class she took about Central America with Armando Mejia, a political science professor from Occidental College. From there, she and her organization were able to put together a panel of speakers from non-profit organizations in Los Angeles, which included Mejia.
“The issues (the professors) were talking about were really interesting and I connected it right away with Conciencia Libre,” she said.
The organizers invited representatives from several local organizations in order to provide a network for students and present opportunities to volunteer.
“Obviously Los Angeles has a huge population of immigrants and I think that we as students have a responsibility to not only learn academically but to help the world around us, especially because it’s so close,” said Irene Gilchriese, a first-year Spanish community and culture student who attended the conference.
“I think that students should get involved in social action because we have so many resources around us,” she said.
Mejia began the conference by presenting facts about immigration and the history of immigrants,
He stressed the strong link of immigrants who send money to their family in their home country. If those families stopped sending money, the economy of the countries would be adversely affected, he said.
Mejia concluded his presentation with photos of immigrants’ rights marches and information about what local grassroots organizations have done in recent years to promote immigrants’ and women’s rights. The photos showed that a large number of citizens have been mobilized in marches.
“When you think about the future, immigrants are here to stay; they’re an integral part of our economy, our society and our culture and the challenge is going to be for the second generation, maybe thinking, “˜What’s our future going to look like?'” Mejia said.
Salvador Sanabria, executive director of El Rescate, an organization that offers legal services to immigrants who cannot afford it, spoke about issues in Salvadoran immigration as well as U.S. legislation regarding immigrants.
One such law, LAPD Special Order 40, forbids officers from inquiring about the immigration status of someone who’s been detained.
Community Outreach Coordinator of the L.A. Conservancy, Karina Muñiz, a group that preserves local historic sites, discussed the lack of recognition Latin American artists receive for their public works.
Muñiz also represented the Institute of Social Change Across Borders, an organization that holds conferences and workshops to network with other social justice organizations.
Patricia Rizo, a representative from the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California spoke about her experiences with the children and immigrants in the education programs the institute hosts.
It originated from the need for recent immigrants and day laborers to learn English. The organization is one that Conciencia Libre works closely with on their project, Proyecto de Jornaleros.
Students who participate in the project provide English classes to workers in Los Angeles Labor Center to help them avoid exploitation.
Though members said they felt that their links to the community were strong, they still needed to reflect upon the larger issues at stake. Conciencia libre operates according to Paulo Freire’s philosophy of praxis, the combination of reflection and action.
Last year, Frank Rodriguez, an active member of the organization, decided to revive the reflection half of the group, which had become dormant while the action aspect thrived.
“Reflection is trying to understand the communities we’re going to work with. We are privileged UCLA students so we want to understand who we’re going to work with,” he said.
The reflection has been very eye-opening and greatly helped to facilitate discussion in weekly meetings.
“Our main goal, the No. 1 thing is we just want students to learn. To learn about an issue they haven’t heard about before, our name means free consciousness. So that’s what we’re giving to people, free consciousness,” Molina said.
“Even if you don’t volunteer, even if you don’t decided to sign up for one of the (organizations), as long as you learned about an issue, maybe it will make you think differently,” she said.
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