Immigrant Rights Part 2: Fuerza

   One in eight students in Philly have been raised with English being their second language. Services for these children are being decreased because of budget cuts. This is affecting many families in the city, both legal and illegal. The budget cuts are just one of the many barriers for immigrants in Philadelphia. In Pennsylvania new laws were introduced including the SB9, HB 439, and the E-Verify Bills. These bills will affect many families of the state. They will deny protection to workers, lead people into poverty, and leave many businesses to close down.

            I have already begun to start my project for change, which is to educate myself and to bring awareness to my topic. Last Wednesday, May 16, I joined a group called Fuerza. This group is part of a larger organization called Juntos, which is a community of Latino immigrants in Philadelphia who strive to earn human rights in the fields of labor, education, and immigration. The group I joined consists of several other teenagers who have come to educate themselves about the topic of immigration rights and fight for their rights.

            I first heard of Fuerza through my cousin who was in the group. I asked her about the group and I made a decision to go to the weekly meetings. At the meeting we had a speaker from CNS (Campaign for Nonviolent Schools). We talked about the decrease in the amount of counselors in high schools and the budget cuts and how it affect the community of immigrants. Another thing we discussed was the high drop out rates among Latinos.        

One thing that we do in Fuerza is we go out into the world to help fight for immigrant rights. Last May 7^th the group went, along with hundreds of many other people from the state of Pennsylvania, to Harrisburg, to help state representatives make their decision in saying “no” to the proposed anti-immigration laws for Pennsylvania. We wanted to prevent the state from following the path of Arizona and it’s SB1070 bill, which led to its loss of $140 million dollars. The protest was featured in the program “Bandera” on the Telemundo Philadelphia channel. In the report the director of Juntos, Erika Almirón, was asked about the motive behind the manifestation. She said “ Today, Juntos decided to come to Harrisburg and we stayed all day, since the morning talking with legislators”. I was also able to ask Selena Zacateclo (an attendee of the protest and new friend) what had happened. Selena responded, “Well it was really powerful. We demanded our rights, spoke out and fought for what we wanted...We asked them [the legislators] not to pass the anti-immigration laws because we don’t want to be separated from our families, that we found the laws unjust and they were basically against human rights.”

            Hearing about the things Fuerza did and will continue to do has sparked up my interest in the organization. We will continue to fight against the anti-immigration laws until they are completely gone from the list of proposed laws. For this reason I am sharing a legal petition against these laws. Only we can help the legislators and representatives decide on which side they are on. This leaves me wondering how much time do we have left before the decision is needed and will our representatives make the right choice?


My Bibliography may be found here.