query: immigrant organizing

[colist-admin at comm-org.utoledo.edu]

[ed:  thanks to Bob and Mary for the informative responses to Manuel's
immigrant organizing query.]

From: "Cooper, Bob" <Bob.Cooper at mcda.org>

The Minneapolis Foundation recently launched a statewide awareness
campaign on immigrants to Minnesota. The campaign is titled, "Minnesota,
Nice or Not?" It challenges individuals and systems to examine our
perceptions of our changing environment.

Part of this campaign includes an informative booklet, "Immigration in
Minnesota," which profiles four immigrant and refugee groups from
Somalia, Russia, Mexico, and Laos. Also included in this booklet are
some general and culturally-specific resources to get further
information.

"Immigration in Minnesota" can be accessed through The Minneapolis
Foundation's web site (http://www.mplsfoundation.org) or by calling
(612) 672-3869 to get free copies of the booklet.

The Minneapolis Foundation has also begun an initiative in the Phillips
neighborhood (Minneapolis' poorest and most diverse neighborhood) that,
among other things, will explore ways to involve new immigrants and
refugees in the neighborhood's citizen participation processes.  The
project manager for this initiative is Debra Rogers.  She can be reached
at (612) 672-3822 or by e-mail at drogers at mplsfoundation.org.

Robert Cooper
Minneapolis Community Development Agency
NRP/Citizen Participation Department
155-5th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN   55401
voice:  (612) 673-5239
fax:     (612) 673-5259
web:   http://www.mcda.org

************************************

From: Mary Dailey <nwbccc at igc.org>

Think of immigrant organizing in the same terms as other community
organizing - In neighborhoods where large percentages of the population
are new immigrants neighborhood organizations have always faced these
challenges and sought to bring new immigrants into the organization
through the same  vehicles that they bring longer term residents into
the organization.  

In the Northwest Bronx - the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy
Coalition brings new immigrants into the organization through tenant
organizing, neighborhood quality of life organizing, congregation
committees, and school/parent committees. 

For example in the last year: Korean immigrants became involved through
tenant associations and then stayed involved in order to improve
neighborhood sanitation & park conditions.  A strong Korean church was
one way that we gained access to this population.  A Korean speaking
organizer helped bring Korean immigrants into tenant organizations.   
Albanian immigrants became involved in a campaign to stop the
construction of a water filtration plant and to promote watershed
protection.  We hired a first generation Americian Albanian who grew up
in the neighborhood as a short-term college intern.  She helped
translate documents and introduced our organizer to Albanian
institutions. 

Dominican immigrants have always been involved in our tenant organizing
but bringing Dominican members into core positions has been more
challenging - mostly because core planning and strategy meetings have
been tended to be held in English with limited Spanish translation
rather than truly bilingual.  We finally overcame this problem through
our school organizing - where our Education Committee has worked on a
major issues - winning changes to the City's capital budget for new
school construction & where Spanish speaking members have been able to
run meetings and make key decisions on strategy in Spanish.  The
meetings have stayed bilingual enough - not to lose English speaking
parent leaders.  

Bangladeshi residents joined the organization intially when we offered
support to a group of Bangladeshi merchants that were being targeted for
harassment and petty crime because of their ethnic background.  We
explained our organizing model and walked them through meetings with the
DA and NYPD.  That link quickly led to bringing parents together to
secure bilingual curriculum at an area school and to Bangladeshi
tenants  asking for help organizing for better housing conditions. 

This all involves:

1) a lot of translation - trying to run tryuly bilingual or tri-lingual
meetings

2) hiring mulit-lingual staff and building relationships with other
groups or individuals that can provide (sometimes for a fee) translation
services - as well as experimenting with limited partnerships or
alliances with ethnic specific clubs/groups 

3) many difficult conversations with long-term members about race &
class - organizers will have to balance a wild mix of remarks from
long-term neighborhood residents as those people talk about how the
organization needs the participation of X,Y, or Z ethnic group but still
clings to negative sterotypes about those same ethnic groups

4) most obviously - a commitment on the part of senior organizers and
core membership to building an organization that does its best to fully
involve the many populations that live in an area - At the NWBCCC we
connect diversity directly to the organization's relevance, survival and
power. 

Feel free to call the NWBCCC at (718) 584-0515 ask for Wanda or Michelle
- from Mary Dailey, NWBCCC at IGC.org