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Written by Debbie Gish, a social worker. member of Church of the Sojourners in San Francisco, and friend of Alterna. On Wednesday several of us attended a posada at the Sonoma North County Detention Center (CA). Las Posadas are a Mexican Advent tradition where family, friends and neighbors reenact the pilgrimage of Mary and Joseph as they [...]
Even before I was born, the gods of consumerism were setting traps to ensnare me in their grips. Once my parents announced that they were expecting me, their firstborn, the culturally scripted expectation was that the young couple would be showered with more gifts than expected. As their newborn baby, I would “need” clothing for [...]
“You are important…..to CCA”. As we approach the entrance to the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, the first signs we see are brightly lettered installations declaring how important we are to the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). There is a chilling irony in this cheery welcome. In a for-profit prison that holds 2,000 immigrant [...]
By Emily Guzman, U.S. citizen & wife of Pedro Guzman who was detained at SDC from November 2009 until May 2011. This is a reflection on the November 2010 vigil where eight individuals, including Emily’s mother and three members of Alterna were charged with criminal trespass for an act of civil disobedience. FOR MORE INFO [...]
In March 2011, House Bill 87, Georgia’s cruel anti-immigrant law was passed by the House and Senate. As the third annual Holy Week Pilgrimage for Immigrants began, the media’s attention was on Georgia and many immigrants, allies, and persons of faith were praying Governor Deal would veto this scapegoating piece of legislation. As is tradition, [...]
Glenn Fogle, the Guzmans’ immigration attorney, explains it this way: After almost 19 months after being arrested by an ICE “Fugitive Operations Unit” at his home in North Carolina in front of his wife and then 2 year old son, on a removal order he did not even know about, Pedro Guzman has been granted [...]
This speech was given as part of the Catholic Charities’ Good Friday Pilgrimage. This pilgrimage is an urban stations of the cross and Anton’s speech was the 13th Station, “Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross.” (Special thanks to Jorge Lawton for the phenomenal interpretation.)
Produced by WABE News (Atlanta Public Radio)
100 immigrants, afraid to do pilgrimage in Dalton, conducted a Holy Week Vigil for Immigrants. Here, America Gruner offers her reflections. Dalton is a small city but 80% of the carpet of the world is manufactured locally and mainly by the hands of Latino immigrants, and where the headquarters of 3 major carpet corporations are [...]
500 pilgrims… 8 miles… Footwashing service with 12 immigrants’ feet washed by 12 U.S. citizens… Three of the immigrants whose feet were washed were wearing monitoring anklets due to deportation proceedings. This sight is still difficult for me to comprehend. To see the hands of the privileged, submitting in imitation of the call to mutual [...]