Organizers say San Juan Equal Voice event saw launch of national movement
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SAN JUAN, January 21 - Coordinators of the Equal Voice for America’s Families campaign believe the 400 Rio Grande Valley residents who attended a town hall meeting on Saturday may have just sparked a national movement.
“With the weather being so bitterly cold, we were not sure we were going to hit our 300 target figure. We ended up with about 400 people and no spare chairs,” said a delighted Armando Garza, South Texas regional coordinator for the Equal Voice campaign.
“I also saw folks that have never been involved in civic participation before get excited. This campaign is about movement building and I think we started building a national movement here in San Juan, Texas.”
The $5 million Equal Voice campaign is being funded by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and facilitated by the 200 non-profit groups the Foundation supports.
Among the Valley grassroots groups participating are La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), ARISE, AVANCE, the Azteca Community Loan Fund, the Brownsville Community Health Center, the Community Action Council of South Texas, Colonias Unidas, Proyecto Azteca, Proyecto Digna, Proyecto Libertad, SCAN (Serving Children and Adolescents in Need), the South West Workers Union, Su Casa de Esperanza, and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.
The Equal Voice campaign starts off with the premise that no American family should live in poverty. Through the development of a national platform of issues of concern to families, Equal Voice wants to spark a national dialogue, preferably including the 2008 presidential candidates, about the policies and attitudes that negatively impact families.
The campaign wants to ensure that the working poor are part of that national discussion, build a movement of families to sustain long-term change, and increase civic engagement among families.
Saturday’s town hall meeting, held inside a big tent on LUPE’s grounds in San Juan, was the first of 40 to be held across the country this year. Two similar events are planned for Brownsville and Rio Grande City later, with a special gathering for the region’s youth at South Texas College’s campuses in McAllen, Weslaco, and Rio Grande City.
Once the 40 town hall meetings have been held, the campaign moves to the national stage, by bringing together approximately 10,000 families in a multi-city convention of families on Sept. 6 in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Birmingham, AL. The platform approved at the national town hall meetings will then be presented to the presidential candidates in October.
Luz Vega-Marquis, president and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, was present to see the launch of Equal Voice campaign in San Juan. She said the enthusiasm of the participants and the organizational skills of the grassroots groups that hosted the San Juan event have set the bar high for the town hall meetings to follow.
“I’m thrilled. I’m very touched by the level of participation, by the preparation, by the groups in the Valley,” Vega-Marquis said. “The training of leaders and bringing families out and the families realize the importance of their voices being heard. I am elated.”
Saturday’s town hall meeting was conducted entirely in Spanish. Participants were asked to list the issues that matter to their families. Gathered around tables, they were then encouraged to discuss those issues with those they were sitting next to. At the end of the discussions, priority lists were drawn up.
Garza said it was empowering just to watch the dialogue emerge.
“Participation is the way to affect change and I saw a group people who had frustration on their faces. They wanted to verbalize those frustrations, write them down on paper, and then share them with the person next to them, who they may or may not have known. It was, hey, we can do this together. I think it was this shared experience that was so empowering,” Garza said.
Lorena Rodriguez, a young mother from San Juan, listed immigration reform as a top priority. Rodriguez and her family live in a colonia with no electricity. Her three-year-old son Daniel has a heart condition and the family cannot afford health insurance.
“Living in house with no electricity makes it hard. I want the politicians to know that we have arms, we have legs; we can work like anybody else. But they do not take us into consideration. Give us the right to be here legally and we can change our situation,” Rodriguez said.
Alamo resident Elsa Rangel said education and immigration reform were key concerns. Her daughter Adaida is a student at South Texas College hoping to become a registered nurse. “We do not qualify for financial aid and we cannot afford the textbooks my daughter needs,” Rangel said.
