Hello Everyone,

Gauri, Kailey, Tim, and I arrived back in Walla Walla last night after a two-day trip down to Woodburn, OR to meet with Francisco Lopez and have our first appointments at the Mexican consulate and two Oaxacan leaders. We arrived Thursday afternoon and saw the PCUN office for the first time. It was a spacious building that was once an old Methodist church and had probably functioned as a house as well at some point in its rich history. Francisco told us many times in the course of a few days that he keeps telling the union to sell the building and get new offices: “They won’t do it!” he says; it has “too much sentimental value.”

After talking briefly with Francisco in the office about the basic operations of PCUN, CAUSA, and their sister organizations, he gave us the grand tour of Woodburn. We saw fields and restaurants, the Oregon Law Center, the town square, PCUN’s radio station, and the new and still under-construction farm labor housing the union had such a strong hand in building. After the tour, we returned to PCUN’s conference room and hashed out more project details, as well as went over who we were meeting with the next day and our objectives for each meeting. We came up with a to-do list of both short and long-term goals, and the most detailed timeline for our project yet. Naturally, the most exciting part of a very compelling meeting was when we discussed our trip to Oaxaca, scheduled for January 2010. Francisco talked about how “then we would see and really feel” the reasons for this project of empowering Oaxacans on both sides of the border: simply so that they can create better lives for their people.

The next morning we drove up to Portland to meet with Ursula Rojas at the Mexican Consulate, who heads the Institute for Mexicans Abroad (IME) in Oregon. She told us the institute exists to foster a close and beneficial relationship with Mexican communities abroad and to allow the diaspora to influence public policy back in Mexico. Since IME is part of the Mexican government, it was fascinating and informative to here the government’s take on Mexican immigration to El Norte. She also talked to us about the government’s 3×1 Development Program, where Hometown Associations (HTAs) put up 25% of the cost for a project that could range from infrastructure construction to planting trees or starting businesses, and different levels of the government provide the other 75% of funding. We learned that there are seven known Oaxacan HTAs in Oregon, which was very exciting news. Approximately 11% of the counted 350,000 migrants in Oregon are Oaxacan, and the Portland Consulate is 5th in the nation in the number of registered Oaxacans.

Also present at the consulate meeting was an enthusiastic Oaxacan immigrant named Donaciano Garcia who founded Generacion Barranca 2006. Barranca is Garcia’s hometown, and the organization, though not exactly an HTA by an academic definition, is very similar (I have a feeling it will become apparent quickly that there is no exact model for Oaxacan HTAS, which may actually be beneficial to the project. It just means the different groups will have that much more to offer each other). Comprised of friends and family members, GB2006 sustained itself through $50 a month dues and fundraisers like car washes and “adopt-a-child” style programs at Garcia’s church. The organization believes that the children of Barranca are the future; hope so that one day, “none of us will have to work in the fields anymore.” They are investing as much as possible in the children’s education, and have delivered five new computers to the school, as well as 70 bicycles so that students don’t have to walk so long to get to school, or to Oaxaca City to do their homework, and also planted 120 fruit trees. Some future goals are so modest as to be humbling: Garcia wants to get to two water fountains so that the children don’t have to risk getting sick from drinking out of the same bucket with one cup anymore. Others are ambitious and accomplish the exact same thing: “It is my dream to see a university there one day,” he says, beaming. Garcia’s passion for his work was evident and contagious. When we told him we were visiting Oaxaca in January he graciously invited us to come visit Barranca. “Together, we will walk,” he said, showing us a picture of the winding dirt road leading to the village with children running ahead of the camera, “and you will see.”

For the last meeting of the day the WDA team and Francisco drove back to Woodburn to meet Carmen Ramirez for lunch at Luis’s (Obama stopped there for lunch on the campaign trail; we had to try it). Carmen is an Oaxacan immigrant who organizes for PCUN, as well as volunteers her services as an indigenous translator for both the consulate and the Oregon Law Center. One of her largest projects right now is fighting sexual harassment in the fields and workplace through educational campaigns aimed at both men and women. She told us, with Francisco and Kailey doing excellent translation work, of the discrimination that the indigenous Oaxacans face in the larger Mexican community in both the U.S. and Mexico. Furthermore, the language barrier often prevents migrants from knowing their rights, or that they have any rights at all anywhere along their northward journey (most Oaxacans migrate slowly northward in step movements, working and saving money as they go for the eventual border crossing). She told us the story of a single father and friend whose young boy lost an arm to a reckless rancher’s son in a pickup in Guerrero, Mexico. They were refused health care several times for being poor and indigenous. The father couldn’t go to court because he doesn’t speak Spanish, and the pesos the rancher gave him aren’t even enough to buy a prosthetic limb. “It breaks my heart,” she says, “and there are many like this. It makes me feel and this is why I help my community . . . I am a mother, and this is no tragedy any parent should have to suffer.” She also explained to us many facets of Oaxacan culture and how the indigenous community inherently runs up against the established system, the one-time colonizer. “And it’s even worse when they don’t speak the language,” she tells us, “so hard to survive.” Finally, she explained the frustration she feels with the Mexican government and the current migrant condition: “They say Mexico is fine, we won’t be affected by the crisis . . . This is wrong. We indigenous people, we are being hurt the worst. They can lay us off without a reason, without any compensation, and we are in the street with nowhere to go, unable to apply for benefits, unable to feed our families.”

When we questioned all three of the kind people that spoke to us about the role WDA and CAUSA could play in assisting Oaxacan organizations, all three spoke of the need for greater collaboration between Oaxacan groups and involved institutions. Carmen pointed out that most migrants want to help, to try to make things better, but they aren’t specialists and don’t know where to start. “You will see,” Francisco told us, “they all want the same thing. They just need a little push.”

Today, Tim explained why he felt the trip was so important and why WDA is on the right track:

I think this trip was especially valuable because, in a relatively short amount of time, we were able to see the complex diversity of perspectives and priorities of the various community partners we will be working with to form a network. These differences illuminate how one of the main challenges of our project may be identifying and emphasizing the common agendas that can serve as a foundation for collaboration. The fact that hometown association goals and projects may be somewhat fragmented in their current state of autonomy also points to need for bringing the various parties together for constructive dialog and cooperative planning, as this project is designed to do.

Gauri also talked about the personal benefits of the short trip for her:

This trip really helped ground the project for me. Everything from revising and finishing the concept paper to meeting people who had worked in the fields really helped get me excited for the project. The fact that Garcia’s organization had plenty of members and human support, but struggled putting together material and developing a logo, while we have an abundance of material but were struggling with membership until recently, made me realize that we have a lot to learn and a lot to offer too.

Before this trip, I think many of us in WDA were struggling with the feeling that this project didn’t have as much of a human aspect or wouldn’t have as much of a direct impact. After spending only two days actually looking at places where migrants live and talking migrants and those who work with them, that feeling is no longer a problem. The talks we had with Ursula, Garcia, and Carmen were inspiring, intentional or not. We’re very excited that the project is finally taking off and had such a good start.

Peace,

John

Immigrant communities face a variety of problems, including a lack of social, economic, and political security that has only been exacerbated by the recent economic downturn. They face problems such as discrimination, atrocious working conditions, legal issues, and difficulty finding housing and jobs, and they have few or no means of redressing these problems. Furthermore, these challenges extend back to the communities of origin, where people suffer from economic stagnation, lack of educational opportunities, poor health care, and a shortage of the technology necessary to move upward in the world.

This year, WDA decided to embark on a project that would work to address these problems, based on the guidance of the communities themselves. Through discourse with Francisco Lopez, the head of the immigrant rights group CAUSA, we discovered that while there are many extant organizations that serve the needs of immigrants, they are often working in isolation or only in conjunction with a few other local groups. The groups we talked to wanted to discover and establish connections between the current hometown associations (HTAs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the governments themselves, and a variety of other charitable, educational, and legal institutions that are highly involved in immigrant affairs. Such connections are eminently important because they allow groups to work together while increasing their capacity to serve; empowering them politically, socially, and economically; and allowing them to concentrate not only on development in countries of origin but also on integration into US communities.

WDA and CAUSA developed a project that will address this need for connection in the community of Pacific Northwest HTAs, NGOs, and other organizations working with immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico. The project has two main components. First, WDA will map all the Oaxacan organizations in Washington and Oregon, both based on their areas of origin and on the services provided and projects undertaken. This will occur both in travel and meetings throughout the Pacific Northwest and in a research trip to visit sending communities in Oaxaca to gather information on the impacts of HTA and NGO projects in January 2010. We will also gather input on the role WDA and CAUSA can play in assisting these organizations, how cooperation between involved organizations would manifest itself, and how they would like to see a cooperative network structured. This research will be followed by the organization of a summit of leaders of HTAs, NGOs, and Oaxacan communities, along with representatives from both governments and other organizations. In this summit, the creation of a federation of these groups will be formalized by the creation of bilateral agreements between Oaxacan leaders and the associations in the Pacific Northwest, linking them all together.

We chose this project for several reasons. Hometown associations are a relatively untapped resource for integration, and most studies concentrate more on their development work in Mexico. Harnessing this potential could allow HTAs to increase their capacity to assist their communities in a variety of ways, such as helping them access legal aid, aiding with translation in Spanish and the large variety of indigenous languages spoken by many immigrants, providing youth and adult education, linking them to health care, and helping migrants stand up for their rights against discrimination in the neighborhood, workplace, and legal system. We specifically chose to work with Oaxacan HTAs and NGOs because they are already well-established, although not well-connected, and thus the creation of a network of these organizations would work well as a template for further networking in different areas of the US and Mexico.

To find out more about the Transnational Community Development Initiative, we strongly encourage you to read the concept paper, which describes the project’s background, timeline, and impact in greater detail. We also encourage you to visit the websites of our partners in this project: CAUSA, Oregon’s Immigrant Rights Coalition; and PCUN, the union of Northwest treeplanters and farmworkers.

WDA members have completed all the different elements of the first edition of the research report for the Sadhana Clean Water Project. It can be found in pdf form here.

In many ways, this benchmark signals a close on our work on the Sadhana project, at least for the time being. The Sadhana project was an ambitious and ultimately successful undertaking, and I would like to congratulate and thank everyone who supported the project. We could not have completed any part of the project, including this report, without the significant hard work and dedication contributed by everyone who has been a part of the WDA team over the past several years. We owe you all our deepest thanks, and it has truly been a pleasure to work with each and every one of you.

- Tim Shadix

This is a very exciting benchmark, especially as we begin our next project, the Transnational Community Development Initiative.

As you can see, whitmandirectaction.org has a new layout, though much of the wonderful content you love has remained the same. There are some new updates on the about us and projects pages, mostly related to our nascent Transnational Community Development Initiative, which now has its very own page! Since this is a new layout, it is quite possible that there may still be some bugs to work out, so please don’t hesitate to contact us about any problems you may find.

I’m also pleased to report that we’ve been working hard on setting up our new project, and that our fundraising auctions on October 24th and 25th went very well. Many thanks to everyone who donated items and services, and to all those who bought something at the auction!

- Kailey

Hi everyone,

This is just a little update for those who couldn’t make it to the meeting yesterday. We discussed our project ideas a little further, but, obviously, came to no conclusions.

The Ashraya proposal is still on the table. We’re thinking if we pursue it, we will probably take an adult literacy/education program approach or a YDI-style approach, either targeting youth or adults within the slum, or both in the slum and in the city of Pune. See the Google Doc on our conversation with Daniel (our contact with Ashraya) for more details. If attempt to integrate city-dwellers into our program, we anticipate caste-conflict issues. This is something we thought we might look at more closely this week.

We talked a bit about the Northern Uganda Microfinance Initiative, and John said he will be learning more about safety hazards and possible looking for a new location this week.

Tim introduced a few new ideas, and plans to make them a little more concrete by the end of this week. They involve immigration issues and may incorporate a domestic research component and abroad implementation.

We spoke about grants and thought we should get the ball rolling on that since there are some grants available that don’t require us to have nailed down a project. I plan to contact the Grants and Fellowships office before I leave and get some helpful materials.

Finally, we had some thoughts on activism. The following questions were brought up:

• Does WDA want to provide basic needs (like food, water, shelter), or are we open to secondary needs like literacy?
• Is literacy/education a secondary need?
• What systemic factors contibute to an environment in which basic needs (like food, water, shelter) are not being met?
• Is meaningful activism about attacking the largest problems, or is it about using your resources in the most appropriate way possible?

At the end of the meeting we though each member should think about these questions, think about, based on his/her idea of meaningful activism, which project is most enticing. We hoped we could regroup this Friday for further discussion and perhaps some more direction for the summer.

Hope you’re all enjoying the last day of finals!
Melissa