| By Fabiola Santiago |
Last week the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society launched We Too Belong: A Resource Guide of Inclusive Practices in Immigration and Incarceration Law and Policy at a half-day event that brought together the contributors to share their stories, their work, and engage in meaningful dialogue.
Immigration is often thought of as a Latinx issue, and incarceration thought of as a Black/African-American issue. However, the event centered on the intersectionality of these issues and highlighted that the immigration and criminal (in)justice systems are highly racialized. For those of us who have been impacted and involved in one movement or another, this is nothing too new — we’ve experienced the entanglement.
Experiencing the entanglement of immigration and incarceration is one thing, but this event generated the necessary uncomfortable conversations about how the systems have us working in silos, pointing fingers at one another, and fighting for resources. These approaches perpetuate oppression, fuel violence, hate, and pin us against each other. Working together makes us stronger, and is a key part of the process for liberation. I believe that these conversations need to be had among groups and organizations working on social justice and public health issues.
Particularly, I want to share a few nuggets of wisdom that panelists at the event announced and that I think anyone working for a more just and equitable society could reflect on:
- Build transformational relationships instead of just transactional ones. We need to show up as much as possible for our partners; our work is not over after we’ve completed a project.
- Elevate lived experiences, highlight non-traditional and inspiring stories, and create unified narratives. This is quite a task to accomplish especially while also recognizing that communities are not homogenous, even within the immigrant community, for example.
- Expand the level of human concern in the policy work we do. This means making sure we use inclusive language and check ourselves.
- Work towards what we want, not just towards what we don’t want or what we’re fighting against. Let’s use our energies effectively!
The overarching message I took was that while we work to dismantle oppressive systems, we must remember that at the core of it all are individual humans. Yes, poverty and racism are hurting and killing us, but we should equally acknowledge that we are also strong, resilient, and powerful.
The communities most impacted by policies are the ones with the solutions, we are not saving anyone—this was very clear based on the faces, stories, and histories panelists shared. Our task in public health (or whatever sector we work in) is to elevate that strength. By elevating community strength, we elevate our collective strength.
After each presenter shared their work and their story, the event attendees repeated these beautiful phrases, that reminded us how intertwined our work together is. I invite us all to contemplate these words as we continue our work together: Thank you. Thank you for your story. Thank you for your work. My freedom is bound to yours.
