Women Lead the Way in Immigration Movement
Observers who say the current immigration movement is leaderless need look no further than the cadre of women leaders, who fuel the movement and have done so for decades
By Pueng Vongs, New America Media
SAN FRANCISCO -
May 10, 2006 - The movement for comprehensive immigration
reform has sent oceans of people to the streets nationwide, and
women have emerged as leaders of this upsurge.
“Many immigration advocacy groups across the nation are led by
women,” says Lillian Galedo, executive director with Filipinos
for Affirmative Action in Oakland, part of the National Network
for Immigration and Refugee Rights.
“When I think about who’s on the conference calls, the majority
are women. I think it’s because of their ability to stay focused
and hang tough over a long period of time. They’ve been a part
of the movement for a long time.”
Now, the women are stepping into the forefront.
Emma Lozano, executive director of Centro Sin Fronteras in
Chicago, has been working for immigrant rights since 1983. For
nine months she asked Spanish-language radio deejays to speak
out against tough anti-immigrant bills. The result was a Chicago
protest on July 1, 2005 that gathered 50,000. That followed
later with the first major protest in early March in Chicago,
which drew 300,000 and put the movement on the map. On May Day
she helped turn out 400,000 people in Chicago.
Lozano, whose father was a migrant farmworker, recently helped
to write the nation’s first county resolution upholding
immigrants’ rights.
“When the Sensenbrenner bill came people were afraid to speak
out against it and they feared a backlash, but I said we can’t
be afraid of that,” Lozano says.
Lozano has also tailored programs specifically for women, who
are migrating today globally at a rate faster than men.
The number of female immigrants, legal and illegal, worldwide
rose from 46 percent in 1960 to 49 percent in 2000, according to
a United Nations report. In Europe, Latin American and North
America, women make up more than half of the immigrant
population. The Pew Hispanic Center says of the 12 million
undocumented immigrants in the United States, 4 million of them
are women.
That also means that a greater number of them are being caught
in immigration crackdowns.
Lozano launched La Familia Latina Unida as a result of the
rising number of families torn apart because of toughened
immigration laws. “After 9/11 more families came to us seeking
help. “ She says mothers were being arrested, single moms, and
“a 2-year old was even deported. “
As a result of the surge in women immigrants entering the
country as domestic workers and caregivers, Angelica Salas,
executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights
of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) created a program to protect their
rights. The coalition had also created a ground-breaking program
for male day laborers.
“(The women) have unique issues. Many get paid very little, they
have to deal with sexual harassment, they are raising families
simultaneously,” says Salas.
Salas’ mother was a garment worker and her father, a farmworker.
Salas originally came to the United States from Durango, Mexico
undocumented.
“I know what coming from a rural background and poverty is like,
and also the opportunities in the U.S. It is a dual experience
of opportunity and discrimination,” says Salas. Her group was
instrumental in bringing out more than one million people to
immigration reform rallies in Los Angeles the past few months.
“Our main focus is to help immigrants speak to their stories,
struggles, dreams and hopes,” Salas says. CHIRLA has a committee
of household workers and nannies who travel with her to address
policymakers in Sacramento and Washington D.C. “They educate our
elected officials and advocate for themselves on things like
fair wages, respect in the workplace and the need for laws to be
changed.”
Aarti Shahani co-founder of Families for Freedom in New York,
also recently traveled to Washington with 300 families affected
by deportations.
She began her work following the 1996 immigration reform and
founded her organization for the numerous women who were turned
into single mothers because their partners were deported or
detained by the U.S. government. She works with an array of
multi-ethnic groups from the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America
and South Asia.
Shahani was born in Morocco of Indian descent. Shahani’s uncle
was deported from the United States in 1999. Her father, a green
card holder, is currently facing deportation charges.
The current reform movement has been dominated by the call for
legalization, she says, and there has not been enough emphasis
on protecting the rights of legal immigrants.
“In the past decade we have witnessed the government deeply
expand deportation and detention systems,” she explains. Grounds
on which legal residents can be deported include being convicted
of crimes, overstaying visas or violating visa conditions.
“Yes, we should legalize as many as possible, but we should not
diminish the value of legal status in the process,” she says.
“Deportation is the hidden piece even in the most progressive
proposals right now. “
Moderate measures like the McCain-Kennedy bill would grant some
form of legalization but in the process lessen the value of it,
she says.
It is through the work of these women leaders that the movement
is thriving.
“Women have put life into this movement,” says Lozano. “We are
the nurturers, we take care of the children, we work in the home
and the factories. Sometimes men are afraid to come out and
stand up because they are targets.”
“We’ve been doing this work for a long time,” says Salas.
“What’s interesting is now we’ve seen men emerge who want to
take center stage.”
Photo by Kevin Chan of New America Media
