Blog
On October 5, thousands of immigrant justice groups and advocates across the country took to the streets at more than 150 sites in 40 states to demand Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) was proud to help coordinate the efforts for the National Day of Action for Immigrant Dignity and Respect in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The New Jersey and Pennsylvania rallies contributed to the powerful national movement demanding immediate action to reform our broken immigration laws. With tens of thousands of participants from around the country, the National Day of Action for Immigrant Dignity and Respect showed lawmakers that comprehensive immigration reform is overwhelmingly supported by the U.S. public.
The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) is delighted to announce that Ana María Archila will be joining CPD as Co-Executive Director on October 15, 2013. Ana María comes to CPD from our sister organization, Make the Road New York (MRNY) where she has served as Co-Executive Director since its formation in 2007. Before that, Ana María was the Executive Director of the Latin American Integration Center (LAIC), which merged with Make the Road by Walking to create Make the Road New York.
Ana María emigrated to the U.S. from Colombia at the age of 17 and has become a leading advocate for civil rights, health care access, education equity, and immigrant rights in New York State, and nationally. She was awarded a Coro fellowship in 2004, the year after she became Executive Director of LAIC. Under her leadership, LAIC tripled in size and strengthened adult literacy, youth development and health access services to immigrants in Queens and Staten Island. Ana Maria helped LAIC to successfully increase immigrant political participation and power-building through voter mobilization, popular education and community organizing.
Ana María is driven by a deep, passionate commitment to build the strength and resiliency of our nation’s immigrant and working-class communities. In 2007, when LAIC merged with Make the Road by Walking to become Make the Road New York, Ana María became Co-Executive Director with co-founders Andrew Friedman and Oona Chatterjee. Under their leadership, MRNY grew to be the largest membership-led immigrant organization in New York State with over 12,000 members. Under the leadership of Ana Maria, Javier Valdes and Deborah Axt, MRNY has continued to grow – opening new offices in Staten Island and now approaching 14,000 members.
During Ana María's 13 years at MRNY, she has focused on shaping MRNY’s electoral vision, its organizing model, its expansion into Long Island and its LGBTQ organizing work. Ana María also co-directs the Make the Road Action Fund.
“Ana María brings a powerfully loving soul, a quick and intense intelligence and a profound commitment to justice and opportunity to the Center for Popular Democracy and to its allies. While we will miss her sorely at MRNY, we are thrilled that she will be helping to lead CPD’s efforts to significantly strengthen and support rooted, democratic organizations nationwide, and to use that strength to aggressively pursue racial and economic justice,” said Javier H. Valdés, Chair of CPD’s Board of Directors.
The national movement to ensure that workers can take time off when they are sick won another victory this week, as the City Council of Jersey City passed an earned sick time ordinance. When the ordinance is signed by the mayor, Jersey City – New Jersey’s second-largest municipality – will become the sixth US city to have enacted an earned sick days law, joining San Francisco, Washington DC, Seattle, Portland, and New York City.
The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) provided legal support to the coalition that drove the legislative campaign in Jersey City, which was led by SEIU 32BJ, the Working Families Party, and members of the NJ Time to Care Coalition. CPD helped draft the ordinance and negotiate its final wording.
Around 30,000 workers in Jersey City currently cannot take time off from work when they are sick. This threatens their well-being and puts others at risk: when people show up to work sick because they can’t afford to take the day off, they spread illness to their co-workers, customers, and fellow commuters. And, when parents have to send their sick children to school, other children get sick, too.
The Jersey City ordinance will guarantee workers at firms with more than 10 employees the right to take up to five days of paid time off per year. Workers at smaller firms will have the right to take unpaid time off without fear of losing their jobs.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop expressed his support for the ordinance at a press conference on September 9. “We view it as a basic human dignity type of issue. It’s a women’s issue, it’s a family issue, it’s a worker issue. Hopefully, it’s replicated throughout the state in the near future.”
The next target for earned sick days legislation is Newark, the state’s largest city. A super-majority of the City Council has expressed support for legislation there, which will be introduced in the coming weeks.
This month the AFL-CIO made a major shift in its orientation by opening its 2013 Convention doors to a wide range of worker, immigrant and community-based organizations. Working closely with partners in ongoing campaigns and projects, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) organized two panel sessions at the convention: “Organizing Workers and Immigration Reform” and “Power Partnerships: Labor/Community Campaigns That Build Worker Power.”
CPD’s first session brought together labor leaders and national immigrant rights groups to strategize about organizing immigrant workers. The session explored the extraordinary potential that immigration reform poses for growing the labor movement and building greater progressive worker power. Speakers described the current efforts under way to plan for the legalization of millions of immigrants, focusing on national coordination of efforts to ensure services are provided to those who need them, and that workers are organized and empowered through strategic grassroots collaborations.
The “Power Partnerships” session explored successful collaborations between labor and community groups to build community based worker power. Speakers shared stories from three campaigns: Multi-city carwash organizing, municipal Paid Sick Days campaigns and the AFT’s transformational partnerships with community.
The AFL-CIO has been a strong partner and driving force pushing for federal immigration reform and is now seeking ways to partner with “Alt-labor” organizations. A host of CPD partner organizations were invited, including: the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Workers Defense Project, the Vermont Workers Center, Make the Road New York, the LA, NY and Chicago carwash campaigns, and Family Values at Work, among many others.
The convention left us energized and excited to continue the work of further deepening the many important relationships between the AFL-CIO, union locals and internationals, and our community based partners.
This fall, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) will launch an exciting new program to address one of the greatest challenges facing base-building, community organizations: revenue generation and financial stability that enables the scaling up of our work.
Since 2008, social justice organizations have experienced widespread financial instability as heavy reliance on institutional support has been confronted by a national economic crisis and a consequent reduction in foundation giving. At the same time, social justice organizations have failed to increase individual donor capacity although nationwide individual giving has actually risen by 2.7%.
In the face of these challenges, CPD’s Sustainability Initiative promotes broader based models of organizational funding by focusing in particular on small donor and membership dues revenue generation. CPD will work with national and state-based partner organizations to research and test canvass and small donor generation programs. We will help design and implement a range of new member and small donor recruitment programs with our partners. After evaluating the efficacy of different approaches, the initiative will work to document the most successful practices. The findings of our research will be synthesized and published.
The long-term aim of the Sustainability Initiative is to develop a set of resource materials and to offer technical assistance, so that base-building organizations across the field are able to develop and implement successful membership and small donor fundraising programs.
On September 12, 104 women were arrested for blocking an intersection outside the Capitol Building as part of a demonstration to demand that Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform. Organized by the We Belong Together initiative, the protest highlighted the special burden faced by women who struggle to maintain their livelihood and hold their families together in the face of our unjust immigration policies.
Women and children make up 75% of the undocumented population, but the legislative proposals for reform have not done enough to protect their civil and human rights, or to address their particular needs. Twenty-eight of the women arrested during the protest were undocumented, and in joining the action risked not only criminal charges and incarceration but also subsequent deportation.
Also among the protesters were representatives from many of Center for Popular Democracy's (CPD’s) partners and allies, including CASA de Maryland, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Workers’ Defense Project, CHIRLA, NOW, The Black Institute, the NAACP, and many others. CPD’s own Staff Attorney Emily Tucker was also arrested during the action.
As the women formed a circular human chain outside the Capitol Building chanting “Si se puede” and singing “We Shall Not Be Moved,” a group of 70 children made their way inside to deliver heart-shaped cookies and 6,000 petitions from children and women to the offices of Congress members, demanding legislative action.
Using the medium of art to focus attention on the need for national immigration reform, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and a coalition of labor, community and faith organizations launched What Citizenship Means to Me, a one-day art exhibit featuring the work and personal stories of New Jersey immigrants.
The exhibit offered a highly personalized history of civic participation, immigration and citizenship in America through photographs, on-the-spot art projects and a set of video accounts of citizens describing what being American meant to them.
"This art project puts a face on the 11 million undocumented immigrants who are an indispensable part of our communities. We need Congress to act now [for immigration reform],” said Kevin Brown, director of 32BJ SEIU in New Jersey.
On the heels of House Republicans missing the Aug. 1 deadline to produce an immigration reform bill, immigration activists, labor union organizers, and faith leaders began “40 Days of Action,” a movement of civil disobedience that embody the frustrations of communities across the nation.
During the first action of the summer, protestors held hands in front of the U.S. Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., declaring, "Undocumented, unafraid.” Other actions have included posting signs in the House bathrooms that read, “Employees must pass immigration reform upon returning to work” and meeting with Republican Congressmembers to engage in a dialogue about the necessity of immigration reform.
For a full list of actions, visit Alliance for Citizenship’s August Recess Events Schedule.
Congratulations to our partners at Make the Road New York for their victory in the fight for green space. As a direct result of MRNY’s campaign against the privatization of public space, the US Tennis Association (USTA) committed $10 million to improving Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, which has long been an overcrowded and poorly maintained public space. The investment will be committed to park maintenance and programming with direct input by nearby residents.
While the USTA will expand their presence at the community park, the New York Times reports that the organization also agreed to “create an annual job fair for Queens residents and try to help local businesses benefit from the [US Open Tournament]. It will also help develop programs, like a community festival during the Open and low-cost tennis coaching for area families.”
We commend Make the Road New York for expanding access to green space for working class and low income-New Yorkers. Well done!
Earlier this month, the Center for Popular Democracy helped organize Pennsylvania immigrants and allies to participate in an Un-welcome to PA Rally for Speaker John Boehner’s visit in protest of his refusal to bring a pathway to citizenship to a vote in the House. CPD bussed participants to Harrisburg’s City Island where Speaker Boehner attended a private fundraiser for Rep. Scott Perry’s reelection.
The rally brought together nearly 100 protesters who are frustrated with the House Republican leadership for refusing to bring S.744, which passed in the Senate through a bipartisan effort, to a vote. Demonstrators gathered from around the state, chanting, “¿Qué queremos? ¡Reforma! ¿Cuándo la queremos? ¡Ahora!” – “What do we want? Reform! When do we want it? Now!” and “Move Boehner, get out of the way. You’re not welcome in PA.”
CPD partnered with Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, SEIU Healthcare PA, SEIU 32BJ, Fight for Philly, Keystone Progress, Organizing for Action, and Casa de la Cultura Adams County to protest Boehner’s obstruction of immigration reform.
In addition to helping organize immigration rallies during the August recess, CPD is meeting with moderate Republicans to discuss the need for comprehensive immigration reform and, recently, Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Charlie Dent stood up in support of a vote on comprehensive immigration reform after several conversations with advocates and organizers.
To show your support for immigration reform, tweet #timeisnow for #cir @popdemoc!
