Welcome back. You belong here.

Language and communication is such an important issue with regards to Immigration (and I don’t mean learning Spanish). I mean, how do you present it so that both citizens and non-citizens can put fear or anger aside and have a conversation.

Yesterday, Jenn Piper from the Americans Friends Service Committee, an Immigration Reform Advocacy group, came to EL Foster Elementary, a 50% Latino school where our children attend and we volunteer. We set-up an immigration info table and sat together at the table, met parents and staff and pointed to the ticket table a lot (we were between the ticket and college fund tables).

Our sign said “Knowing Your Neighbor”/”Conociendo a Nuestros Vecinos”. Jenn used great language to communicate with people:

“learn about other cultures”
“adults coming together to educate one other”
“a conversation on immigration”
“we’re talking ABOUT Immigration, we’re not FROM Immigration”
“we advocate Immigrant reform”
“our system is broken”
“my brother also struggles with undocumented workers, we talk about it”
“do you think a follow up seminar would be a good thing in the Fall”

We met over 20 staff and key leaders, 10-12 parents that spoke to us and had about 200+ parents see our table. An amazing start. Jenn taught me a lot regarding language and communication in dealing with this difficult issue.

Have a great day.

Into the future,

davidT