Cultivate a Welcoming Community, against ICE Raids and Discrimination!

A wide range of actions and community organizations exist in order to maintain a welcoming community in the face of ICE raids and an imperial federal government. These actions range from saying hello to people on the street, to organizing community bbqs to get to know your neighbors, to attending and creating community events, to writing your congressmen, to speaking Spanish, English or Tagolag, etc, to communicate with the people in your community etc., etc.!!! The MigraWatch Justice Network of the Monterey Bay area, Viernes Cultural, and La Peña are a few of the events and organizations that promote a welcoming, strong, anti-discriminatory, public space for those of us who value and manifest the diversity of our community.

If you are interested in taking direct action against the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the USA) raids and for a welcoming community that chastises the actions of ICE, please join the Migrawatch Justice Network (Migrawatch). The entire network meets monthly, while each regional network determines their own meeting schedule. Every single person who believes in el otro mundo can contribute to this group. Our goals are very big and will only be successful with the work of many awesome conscious people. Check out http://www.migrawatch.org for more information.

In Watsonville, community members have organized free events, such as Viernes Cultural and La Peña, to manifest the beautiful virtues of our diverse community. In these events we honor the cultures and traditions of our immigrant and multi-cultural history. In doing so, we say this is our culture, a culture that honors the contributions of immigrants to our communities, and we are proud of it. Although not an expressed slogan of either event, in being proud of our immigrant history we cultivate the seeds of a culture that says, we will not permit ICE to terrorize and stop this culture from existing.

On the first Friday of every month in the Watsonville Plaza you can find Viernes Cultural. Viernes Cultural converts the Watsonville Plaza into what a plaza has traditionally been used for, a meeting place for community members, and brings ballet folkorico, poetry, live theater and other art from the community to our plaza.

In addition, the Watsonville Brown Berets have initiated La Peña in our community. So far the Peñas, have consisted of movie screenings, charlas (or educational forums and discussions), and the youth of watsonville sharing their music and poems. Each Peña has had a topic or theme so that we learn something about the cultures of Anahuac (or Americas). The themes have included immigration, la noche de tlatloco (the massacres in Mexico City in 1968), and the historical and current relevance of la Peña.

These are just a few of the events and organizations that maintain a welcoming community for all people. Please do not underestimate the power of a smile and a warm greeting or conversation with your neighbor because these simple gestures are truly revolutionary in the American culture that teaches you that you should work only for yourself, and ignore the larger scope of your community.

Please, see the discrimination in our communities and in our media and/or if you already perceive the existing discrimination, voice your opinion with your friends and family, cultivate the diversity of our communities by honoring each other, and use your voice and body to maintain el pueblo and protest social injustice!