SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) and IMMIGRATION

• White people organizing white people
• Base-building: how to get more people involved, outreach, to peopleimpacted by/care about issue
• Wanted to engage white people who are already in motion, have analysis butnot sure where to go
• Leadership development: how build people’s political analysis, skill-buildingcapacity and confidence
  o With white people, challenge to make space and step back withsocialization of “having all the answers”
• Campaignso Work on something together and win, transform the world
• Building political community that takes action together
• Timeline:

o Where do we come from as white people?
o Short conversations about what we each know about our family’s

immigration history, what were aids, blocks, benefits?
o We all put post-its on 1700-2000, themes of poverty, indentured

servitude, access to land (Homestead Act), Federal Housing Act and low interest first time home buyers – consolidation of wealth, intergenerational trauma, alcoholism, community, quotas, creation of race and whiteness as dividing class bonds and shared interests/power, assimilation, who seen as more intelligent, erased histories, class mobility, belonging/not belonging

o Contextualizes appropriation of other cultures, hunger for lost culture o What are the parts that get invisibilized? Don’t get talked about?
o Mythologies of wealth, where it comes from in families

• White people have a stake in immigration – write two or three reasons why? o Militarization – people caged out and in, don’t want to live with

militarized borders
o Invisibilizing economic effects on other countries
o Personal family effects, historical memory
o How forgetting and invisibilizing work together
o Traumatizing and breaking families
o Don’t want to value money over people
o Undocumented labor depressed wages in certain historically working

class jobs/industries sectors – valuing everyone’s work leads to

greater value
o We need health care workers, wages and standards are so low
o Out standard of living dependent on constant flow of immigration
o More people paying into Social Security system
o Demographics of elected officials changing, more progressive policies o Our family belongs here, we believe all families belong here
o Relationships forced apart because of immigration policies

o “family values”, American values – appeal to right, shattering families o Christian values, love neighbor as thyself
o Stolen land, stolen bodies, stolen souls – histories of white supremacy o Controlling and policing bodies – carry over into white communities o People in your life

o National wins around climate requires involvement with/mobilization undocumented Latino communities, who are in favor of more radical climate change policies, many clearer analysis, climate refugees

• Think of someone – which of these statements would resonate with them?
• Practice conversations – build like a muscle

o Is there a way to humanize this, someone they know/care about? o Way to connect to family history? Great website “Entry Denied” o Listening is a big part of organizing
o What do they care about?

o Ask questions
o The goal is not to win, but to engage a conversation around this issue o Curiosity
o Trust that next step can arise
o How do we work on our own defenses, return to a question
o Don’t have to figure out how to do it right in one conversation –

ongoing
o Have a different interaction, change environment

• Ella Baker: “each one, teach one”
  o Three people you could have a conversation with, who are already inmotion about racial justice
• Fedoras for Fairness tumblr, “women wear many hats”