HRC Volunteers Join in Citizenship Workshops

Michael Cole - HRC Back Story

This past weekend, Human Rights Campaign volunteers participated in Ya Es Hora events — the largest and most comprehensive effort to incorporate
Latinos as full participants in the American political process.  Its
multi-layered integrated campaign provides a comprehensive approach
that links naturalization to voter participation and Census enumeration
under a single message: “it’s time.”

Ya Es Hora is led by four national organizations and dozens
of regional and local organizations including: Univision, the largest
Spanish-language media network in the U.S.; Mi Familia Vota Education
Fund; National Council of La Raza; National Association of Latino
Elected Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund; and the Service Employees
International Union.  Together, the Ya Es Hora partners have
a goal to move over 1 million Latino eligible legal permanent residents
(LPRs) on the path to U.S. citizenship during 2009 and 2010.  Since
2007, this campaign has helped process U.S. citizenship applications
for more than 1.4 million Latinos.

HRC volunteers in South Florida, Los Angeles and Phoenix assisted
Latino/a legal permanent residents – individuals and families – in
completing their applications to become US citizens.  Some of their
reflections on the day are below.  We’ll also be organizing volunteers
for upcoming sessions in Washington, DC, Denver and other cities and
you can contact Hyacinth Alvaran for more information.

From Cynthia Lewis of Phoenix who helped organize a group of 30 volunteers:

"The experience of helping the attendees prepare their paperwork for
citizenship was a humbling experience for the volunteers. Not only
because of the extent of the information required (how many of us can
remember every single trip we have taken out of the country since we
have lived in the US) but also the  questions we had to ask of
seemingly ethical individuals of good moral character was a little
uncomfortable for us. I heard many a volunteer (myself included)
preface a particularly invasive question with an apology at having to
ask a question of this nature. However, the attendees were more than
grateful for our time and patience as they dug into the far recesses of
their memories for this information, shuffled through countless
documents of their own for dates, addresses, addendums, affidavits,
etc. I heard countless “thank-you”, “Gracias,” and saw more heartfelt
hugs, vigorous handshakes, and Cheshire cat smiles than I can count. 
These folks sat for hours to get to a volunteer, sat through the
application process, and then sat with the lawyers to make sure the
forms were in order and all the while they remained grateful, proud and
dignified.

The volunteers worked hard the entire day – and come lunch time,
members of the church provided burritos the size of a forearm! The
homemade flour tortillas, rice, beans, chicken, beef, and spicy salsa
were fabulous!! Picking one up and eating it provided everyone with a
few laughs!!"

From Paul Palmer who presented a history and civics lesson at the citizenship workshop in Hollywood, Florida:

"To set the stage, the workshop organizer brought American flag lapel
pins, red white and blue helium balloons, and a large cake which said
“Happy Birthday USA.”   She introduced us, and after talking a bit
about HRC and the specific immigration issues that we’re working on
right now (i.e. the Uniting American Families Act and eliminating the
HIV ban) we asked each person in the room to give their name, their
country of origin, and why they believed it was important to become a
US citizen.

Of the 40 or so people in the class, one was Jamaican, one was from
Peru, and a majority were from Colombia, which I thought was
interesting.   And besides the importance of voting, a few said they
had encountered discrimination in the workplace and wanted to be
covered by U.S. discrimination law.

I opened the class by talking about its mix of people as America’s
greatest strength, and told the class that America needs them to come
here and work with us to make this a better country.

We stressed that even before 1776 America was a mix many different
groups of people, even though the colonies were part of the British
empire — Swedes and Germans in the Delaware Valley, Dutch in New York
and Delaware, French in Louisiana, and Native Americans everywhere.  
So hearing different languages on the street is a truly American thing,
despite what some people say today.

After talking about the Constitution, separation of powers,
federalist, etc. to emphasize one more time the importance of the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we wrote on the board
the president’s oath of office, where he promises to “preserve, protect
and defend the Constitution of the United States”….not the people, not
the buildings, ships or planes, but the Constitution, which is the
single most important thing to America.

This really seemed to make an impact on people, especially coming
from areas where their leaders try to change the Constitution
frequently. To sum it up, we quoted George Washington:  “The genius of
America is not that it is perfect; it’s that it strives for
perfection.” Quite a few people came up afterward and thanked us, and
told us that the material we covered allowed them to look at America in
a whole new light."

From Andrew Melissinos who helped organize volunteers for the Los Angeles event:

"Working at the Ya Es Hora event was such a humbling experience to be
able to help people who so earnestly want to be a citizen of the
country.  Our volunteers handled taking ID photos, distributed
materials for the citizenship test and directed participants to where
they needed to go and what they needed to do.

It was a very proud feeling to wear the HRC logo and be part of one of the largest groups of organized volunteers at the event.

We had so many folks walk up and tell us they are glad to see us
(HRC) participate at the event which was a wonderful feeling.  We’re
very much looking forward to the next one."

Please join us in September for the next one in Arizona.