Blog
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.
Center for Popular Democracy and fellow members of Communities United for Police Reform are celebrating this morning following the New York City Council’s historic vote to enact bold measures to address stop and frisk and other discriminatory NYPD strategies. The passage of the Community Safety Act, vetoed by Mayor Bloomberg earlier this summer, is a victory for City residents and advocates who have fought for years to bring an end to practices that have unjustly targeted their communities. The laws that have been put into place today stand as models for efforts to combat discriminatory policing that are underway or emerging in states and cities nationwide.
One of the first steps CPD took upon our founding in 2012 was to join CPR, a coalition of base-building, legal and policy organizations committed to challenging discriminatory NYPD policies targeting New Yorkers of color, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, homeless residents and youth. In the year since, CPD has worked closely with CPR, providing legal, policy and communications support for its work. The campaign has succeeded in making “stop and frisk” perhaps the most widely discussed policy issue of the year, triggering debates both within City Hall and in households and workplaces across the five boroughs and beyond. And in a groundbreaking effort, the coalition secured passage of two measures—Intro 1080, the End NYPD Discriminatory Profiling Bill, and Intro 1079, the NYPD Oversight Act—in the New York City Council in June. The two bills, part of a package called the Community Safety Act developed by CPR member groups and their allies in the Council, expand and strengthen the City’s prohibition of police profiling and establish an Inspector General with the power to oversee the Department’s policies and operations. Soon after the bills’ passage, however, Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the measures and began deploying the full set of resources at his disposal to erode support.
The Council’s vote to override last night to override Mayor Bloomberg’s veto signaled definitively that New York is moving toward a smarter, more effective and more just approach to policing. Following soon after Judge Shira A. Scheindlin’s recent opinion in Floyd v. City of New York, which declared the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” practices to be unconstitutional and ordered the Department to institute significant reforms, the override vote reflects an important historical moment that community organizers and policy advocates have been working towards for many years. It signals that tactics that confuse policing with prejudice will not be tolerated. In voting for police accountability, the City Council has challenged the NYPD to live up to its reputation as the most sophisticated police force in the nation by finding a way to guarantee safety for all New Yorkers without sacrificing civil rights.
CPD is thrilled to celebrate this victory alongside our many partners in CPR and Council Members Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander, key sponsors of the legislation. We look forward to continuing the fight for just policing in New York and beyond.
Last week, after months of advocacy, the Center for Popular Democracy and local partners in the fight for language access in New York celebrated Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano’s announcement that he will sign an executive order requiring County government to provide interpretation and translation services for the more than 130,000 Nassau residents with limited English proficiency (LEP). With this move, Nassau joins a growing number of state and local governments that have adopted policies expanding language access services for their LEP populations. The executive order will bring the county into compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act—which prohibits discrimination based on language.
Language barriers make it difficult for immigrants and other LEP New Yorkers to take advantage of a wide range of services and benefits that are important for the basic health of their families as well as the broader community. Without interpretation and translation services, it can be difficult or impossible for LEP individuals to obtain a driver’s license, obtain child support, seek the assistance of local police or participate in political life.
In advocating for this policy, CPD was part of a strong coalition of local organizations including the Empire Justice Center, the Long Island Civic Engagement Table, Long Island Jobs with Justice, Long Island Advocates Coalition, Make the Road New York, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, New York Civil Liberties Union, and New York Communities for Change. The coalition’s hope is that this is the beginning of a movement not only in New York, but in states and municipalities across the country, to improve language access services as a way to welcome, support and integrate LEP individuals and communities.
The Center for Popular Democracy is partnering with the Long Island Civic Engagement Table (LICET), New York Communities for Change (NYCC), and Make the Road Long Island (MRNY- LI) to offer a leadership training series to community leaders to build the power of the movement for lasting progressive change on Long Island. The training series takes participants through the nuts and bolts of politics and change on the island, strengthens skills in the fundamentals of organizing, develops leaders’ media competency, and shares strategies for civic engagement campaigns.
CPD has developed the curriculum for the Building Community Power series based on the best practices our organizers have collected from decades of work in working class and immigrant communities. Our most recent workshop, held Aug. 10, brought community members from across the island together to explore the fundamentals of grassroots organizing—from one-on-one relational meetings to recruitment and leadership building. Offered simultaneously in both Spanish and English, the training series provides a thoughtful and dynamic environment that engages community leaders on issues most important to the Island’s working families.
If you are on Long Island and interested in a training for your organization on one of our topics: Voter Registration, Recruitment and Leadership Building, One on Ones, Understanding Long Island, Direct Actions, Meeting Mechanics and Facilitation, Public Speaking, Media Training, GOTV, and Strategic Campaigns, contact Stephanie Yazgi at syazgi@populardemocracy.org and join us for the next installment in the series entitled “Media Skills & Getting Out The Vote” on Sept. 21 in Brentwood.
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.
Last week, the City of Newark, NJ became the latest jurisdiction in the country to refuse to hand over individuals arrested for minor offenses, to federal immigration officials. The groundbreaking policy change was instituted by Newark Police Director Samuel DeMaio and means the Newark Police Department will no longer honor the federal Immigration Custom and Enforcement agency’s (ICE) requests for individuals held for minor offenses. Newark joins a growing number of jurisdictions, including New York City, Connecticut, Chicago, Los Angeles, Massachusetts, and New Orleans, that have chosen to significantly limit collaboration between their local law enforcement and ICE.
Newark’s directive is the broadest and most inclusive of the local detainer policies to date, offering protection from ICE detention to all immigrants. Also, the new policy does not discriminate on the basis of past criminal convictions. We hope the Newark policy will serve as a model for the rest of New Jersey, and for cities around the country who do not want local resources being spent on draconian enforcement of unjust federal immigration laws.
The Center for Popular Democracy celebrates this victory with a coalition of civil rights and faith leaders, including New Jersey Communities United, American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights Program, Newark Archdiocese Department of Social Concerns, St. James Church, SEIU 32BJ, St. Lucy 's Church, St. Anne's Church, Church of the Transfiguration, and New Labor. We worked closely with our partners to develop campaign strategy and policy to keep immigrant families united.
CPD has been promoting “detainer discretion” policies across the nation, including the recent successful passage of the Connecticut TRUST Act which was the first statewide law to prohibit local law enforcement detaining immigrants at the request of ICE. In addition to protecting thousands of families from being torn apart by needless detentions and deportations, the goal of the detainer discretion effort is to use grassroots organizing and policy reform to create pressure and urgency for national change with respect to immigration policy.
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!
On August 5, the Center for Popular Democracy and Make the Road NY (MRNY) released findings from a several months-long initiative monitoring the provision of language services for Limited English Proficient (LEP) New Yorkers. The results are stark: there are glaring gaps in language services in New York State, showing the significant failure of government agencies to provide language services needed to access critical state benefits.
In 2011, Governor Cuomo signed Executive Order 26, which requires state agencies with direct public contact to translate vital documents into the top six languages spoken by LEP individuals in New York State, provide interpretation services for all New Yorkers in their primary languages, develop a language access plan and designate a language access coordinator. Although communities and advocates applauded Governor Cuomo for taking this important step, the findings of the report, Language Access in New York State: A Snapshot from a Community Perspective, show that in the majority of cases New Yorkers across all regions are still unable to access language services agencies that administer state benefits and programs.
In Central New York, for example, Spanish speakers who requested written language assistance received it only 45% of the time, and in Buffalo that rate dropped to a meager 11%. The report documents similar problems with oral language assistance, with only 45% of research participants receiving oral assistance in their interactions with state agencies. One of the main reasons for the low compliance rate, the report finds, is that according to the state, the Executive Order does not extend to county-run agencies, even if those agencies administer state benefits. For the Governor’s order to have any real impact on the lives of LEP individuals, the state will have to address the problems with existing services, and especially the gaps in services at the county level.
CPD and MRNY worked in partnership with several local organizations to carry out the research for the report, including the Center for the Elimination of Minority Health Disparities (CEMHD) at the University of Albany SUNY, Multicultural Association of Medical Interpreters (MAMI) in Central New York and the International Institute of Buffalo.
