Crossing Boundaries, Connecting Communities: Alliance Building For Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice.

Crossing BoUnDAriEs, ConnECting CommUnitiEs
Al l i ance Bui l di ng f or i mmi gr ant s ri ght s and raci al J us t i ce

Al l i anc e Bui l di ng f or i mmi gr ant s ri ght s and rac i al J us t i c e
i
Crossing BoUnDAriEs, ConnECting CommUnitiEs:
Crossing Boundaries, Connecting Communities: Alliance Building for Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice was
published by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and funded by the Hill Snowdon Foundation,
Open Society Institute and Pubic Interest Projects.
Project Director Gerald Lenoir, Black Alliance for Just Immigration
Interviewers Rev. Deborah Lee and Chad Jones
Report Writer Rev. Deborah Lee
Editor Gerald Lenoir
Proofreader Karen Dalton
Design and Layout Tactile Pictures, Petaluma, California
Printer: ScanArt, Emeryville, California
Project Committee Naomi Abraham, Public Interest Projects
Ann Bastien, New World Foundation
Julia Beatty, Twenty-frst Century Foundation
Larisa Casillas, Common Counsel Foundation
Melanie Cervantes, Akonadi Foundation
Shona Chakravartty, Hill-Snowdon Foundation
Charles Fields, The California Endowment
Daranee Petsod, Grantmakers Confcerned for Immigrants and Refugees
Maria Teresa Rojas, Open Society Institute
Marisol Ramos, New World Foundation
Eric K. Ward, Center for New Community
Thanks to all of the organizations that participated in the interviews for this report. Thanks also to
Lori Villarosa of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity and to Manuel Pastor and the staff of
the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California for their
input. Photographs were provided courtesy of the organizations interviewed. Photographs from the
Beloved Community Center were taken by Lewis Brandon III; Broderick Webb provided photos for
the Power of a Million Minds Collaborative.
For more information about this report, contact:
Black alliance for Just immigration
1212 Broadway, Suite 812, Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 663-2254
AlliAnCE BUilDing for immigrAnt rights AnD rACiAl JUstiCE
ii
tABlE of ContEnts
Executive Summary 1
Introduction and Key Findings 3
Beloved Community Center 7
Black Alliance for Just Immigration 10
CASA de Maryland 13
Center for Intercultural Organizing 16
Families for Freedom 19
Garden State Alliance for a New Economy 22
Highlander Research and Education Center 26
Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance 29
Midwest Immigrant Health Project 32
Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance 35
National Domestic Workers Alliance 39
People Organized to Win Employment Rights 42
Power of a Million Minds Collaborative 45
South by Southwest Experiment 48
Sunfower Community Action 51
Voces de la Frontera 54
Recommendations to Funders 57
Appendix I: Organizations Interviewed and Contacts 60
Appendix II: Organizational Resources for Cross-Racial Alliance Building 62
Appendix III: Interview Questions 67
1
CROSSING BOUNDARIES, CONNECTING COMMUNITIES:
Oer the past seeral years, there has been a growing
recognition among both immigrant rights actiists and
leaders and Arican American leaders o ciil rights,
racial justice and aith-based organizations, that cross-
racial,cross-ethnic alliance building is key to winning
social reorms to beneFt all people o color in the
United States. As a result, there hae been a plethora
o initiaties taken to build these alliances and to edu-
cate actiists and grassroots communities.
Cro..ivg ovvaarie., Covvectivg Covvvvitie.: .ttiavce vita
ivg for vvigravt Rigbt. ava Raciat ]v.tice is a snapshot o
sixteen o the organizations that renect this growing
trend. \hile they are aried in size, scope, age, geo-
graphic location, program, organizational models, and
racial,ethnic composition, what they hae in common
is a conscious program o cross-racial,cross-ethnic,
cross-nationality alliance building. lrom their an-
tage point, the immigrant rights moement is part o
a larger racial and economic justice moement that
is ragmented and in need o analysis and action to
cohere. Cross-racial alliance building also emerges
as a key strategy in promoting and strengthening the
integration o immigrant newcomers into receiing
communities.
Using a uniorm set o questions ,See Appendix III,,
lengthy telephone interiews were conducted with
representaties o the selected groups. 1he groups
represent a diersity that renects the national trends
and methodologies. 1hese organizations also work
in a ariety o settings, including organizing in high
schools and neighborhoods, in aith-based institutions
and secular community organizations, and at work-
places and within an industry.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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rigbt. if it i. vot at.o covvectea to a broaaer vorevevt for
raciat ava ecovovic ;v.tice for erer,ove.
-Mvica ervavae, igbtavaer avcatiov 1eav vevber
Young demonstrators march at an immigrant
rights rally in San Rafael, California.
2
Crossing Boundaries presents case studies of the alliance-
building work of the organizations and extracts their
methodologies and lessons learned. The fve main re-
curring themes that emerged from the interviews are:
Establishing a cross-racial alliance-building frame-
work as central to the organization and to the
understanding of staff is key.
Language is one of the major barriers and chal-
lenges to alliance building.
Political education is important to establishing a
shared racial and economic justice analysis.
It is important to take time to develop personal
relationships and trust between staff and members
and all levels of an organization as well as with
allies.
Alliance building and educational work should be
tied to concrete campaigns.
Out of the interviews, nine recommendations to
funders were articulated (not in order of priority):
Support solidarity and relationship building activities.
Support the efforts of African American groups
to build alliances with immigrant groups.
Become catalysts for cross-racial dialogue.
Invest in the development of cross-racial analysis
and education.
Invest in experimentation and new approaches.
Provide resources for leadership development and
the engagement of young people.
Help build the capacity of organizations to pro-
vide translation and interpretation.
Support the use of culture and art as relationship
building tools.
Provide general support for movement building
spaces and convenings.
Crossing Boundaries is a rich compendium of experi-
ences and lessons from a segment of frontline groups
on the ground organizing, educating and building. It
is designed to be a resource for funders interested in
providing resources for cross-racial alliance-building
work as well as for organizations in the feld that are
grappling with ways to approach this crucial move-
ment-building work. We hope that this report pro-
vides information and insights that are useful and timely
for both audiences.
ExECUtivE sUmmAry
3
Throughout the country, often in geographic areas
where you would least expect it, immigrant rights
groups and programs on the ground are reaching
across the barriers of race, ethnicity and nationality
to build alliances with native-born African Americans,
Latinos, Asians, Pacifc Islanders, Native Americans,
Arabs and Caucasians and within diverse immigrant
communities.
Likewise, African American-led social justice groups
are reaching out to people of color and immigrant
communities across the racial divide. While the strug-
gle for fair and just immigration reform is the major
focus, increasingly these groups are expanding their
agenda to take on issues of mutual interest to them
and their alliance-building partnersjobs, health
care, police accountability and housing, to name a
few. Alliance building is consciously used to counter
immigration as a wedge issue that pits African Ameri-
can and immigrant communities against each other
for jobs and resources, as well as to foster immigrant
integration into the larger socioeconomic and political
landscapes.
Crossing Boundaries, Connecting Communities: Alliance Building
for Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice is not meant to be a
comprehensive or exhaustive study of all the efforts tak-
ing place around the country, but rather it is an attempt to
capture the variety of ways that cross-racial alliance build-
ing is happening on the ground in urban and rural areas
across the countrythe Midwest, East and West Coasts,
and the South and Southwest. Although many more were
initially identifed, ultimately sixteen groups participated in
interview that provided the basis for this report.
The criteria for selecting groups to be interviewed
were:
1. a group had to be using cross racial/cross-ethnic
alliance building
1
as a deliberate and articulated
strategy to build power at the community level;

2. the groups as a whole had to represent a broad
geographic spread;
3. they also had to represent the racial, national and
ethnic diversity of the movement with special
attention to groups led by African Americans and
black immigrants; 4) there was a bias toward newly
emerging or lesser-known groups, although a few
long-standing groups were interviewed (Some
more widely recognized organizations that also
have strong lessons are included in Appendix II) ;
4. youth-led and women-led organizations and pro-
grams had to be represented; and
5. a variety of methodologies and approaches had to
be represented.
1 throughout this report, the term cross-racial alliance building
is used as a shorthand for a much more complicated and diverse
practice of building connections across racial, ethnic cultural and
national boundaries.
introDUCtion AnD KEy finDings
Race and racism are key defining f eatures of U.S. society.
Therefore, the struggle for justice must employ effective strategies
to build alliances across communities that are affected by racism.
Gerald Lenoir, Executive Director, Black Alliance for Just Immigration
4
The report focuses on partnerships between im-
migrant/newcomer and native-born communities,
primarily communities of color. The immigrant
communities are often embedded in longstanding
communities, many of which have been here for gen-
erations or before the United States was a country.
Some of the alliance-building efforts are also between
newcomers and native-born peoples within the same
racial group (for example between African immigrants
and African Americans or between Latino immigrants
and Chicano/native-born Latinos).
Based upon these criteria, representatives of these
groups were interviewed:
Beloved Community Center (BCC)
Greensboro, NC
Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)
Oakland, CA
CASA de Maryland (CASA)
Takoma Park, MD
Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO)
Portland, OR
Families for Freedom (FFF)
New York, NY
Garden State Alliance for a New Economy (GANE)
Newark, NJ
Highlander Research & Education Center (Highlander)
New Market, TN
Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA)
Los Angeles, CA
Midwest Immigrant Health Project
(MIHP), Emporia, KS
Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA)
Jackson, MS

National Domestic Workers Alliance
(NDWA), New York, NY
People Organized to Win Employment Rights
(POWER), San Francisco, CA
Power of a Million Minds Collaborative
(PMMC), New Orleans, LA
South by Southwest Experiment
(SxSW), Jackson, MS, Albuquerque, NM and San
Antonio, TX
Sunfower Community Action (SCA)
Wichita, KS
Voces de la Frontera (Voces)
Racine, WI
In response to a series of questions posed by the in-
terviewers (see Appendix III), representatives related
their organizations history and their efforts to build
cross-racial alliances. The focus was on distilling the
groups alliance building methodologies, factors for
success, educational and training activities organized
and curricula used, lessons learned, and future plans.
From the lessons learned by the organizations, fve
consistent themes emerged:
Establishing a cross-racial alliance-building
famework as central to the organization and to
the understanding of staf is key.
The presence of a foundational framework for cross-
racial alliance building was a key factor of success
(BAJI, CASA, CIO). This understanding and com-
mitment to the fundamental importance of work-
ing cross racially must be fostered among staff and
members. Several organizations fostered a sense of
common and shared identity that cut across racial
lines, for example, a new cross-racial identity as work-
ers (GANE, MIHP), residents of a neighborhood
5
(KIWA), or families that are facing deportations (FFF).
It was also noted that this framework cannot just
focus on the commonalities but must honestly ad-
dress the differences as well. If we pretend that there
are not differences, people know they are being fed a
lie. (POWER) A framework for cross-racial alliance
building demands precise language to talk about how
economic exploitation, racism, migration and displace-
ment, impact different groups of people in different
ways.
Language is one of the major barriers and chal-
lenges to alliance building.
Although groups stressed that bridging the language
gap is very diffcult, they also recognized that trans-
lation and interpretation are important factors for
success in alliance building. It requires a corps of
multilingual staff or volunteers, and a strong com-
mitment of time and resources to make this a priority
and a political commitment (KIWA, FFF, NDWA,
MIHP, Highlander). In one group, translation became
a source of confict that spawned deeper discussion
about what it means to be a multiracial organization
(POWER). Interpretation and translation are not only
technical but also cultural. Providing these services
refects a principle of full participation of all members
(KIWA).
Political education is important to establishing a
shared racial and economic justice analysis.
Many groups have adapted existing curricula or devel-
oped their own pedagogical and popular education re-
sources to address their specifc audiences (Highlander,
CASA, CIO, BAJI, NWDA). Some organizations have
developed yearlong political education courses and
stressed the importance of discourse and relationship
building over time as very valuable (Highlander, CIO,
POWER). Other groups devote just a weekend a year
to political education training or do political educa-
tion in the day-to-day workings of a campaign (BAJI,
NDWA, Voces). Many want to be able to provide
more hours of ongoing political education. They also
spoke of a desire to systematize curricular materials.
Key topics and themes that helped to foster cross-
racial alliance work, especially between African Ameri-
cans and Latino immigrants include:
Analysis of the shifting U.S. economy (de-industrializa-
tion, labor history, changing nature of jobs, impact of
free trade on immigration and job loss in the United
States);
Changing dynamics in international economies,
particularly in Latin America, and the Caribbean
(the impacts of national debt and free trade poli-
cies on farmers and local economies);
History of the slave trade and colonization;
History of racism against people of color in the
United States and its ongoing legacies;
History of U.S. and international peoples cross-
racial struggles;
Roots of migration internal to the U.S. and inter-
nationally.
It is important to take time to develop personal
relationships and trust between staf and mem-
bers and all levels of an organization as well as
with allies.
All groups spoke of the importance of taking time
to develop relationships and build trust across differ-
ent racial lines, not just in the staff, but also in their
memberships and at all levels of their organizations. It
takes time to really learn about the different realities in
which people are living. It takes to time to share per-
sonal stories and histories and to appreciate cultural
and religious differences.
ALLIANCE BUILDING FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS AND RACIAL JUSTICE
6
One group, the Power o a Million Minds Collabora-
tie, spent an entire year just to deelop relationships.
Others organizations hae used potlucks, cooking
contests, shared music, drama, dance and art to bring
people together. Oer three and a hal years, 300
members o the boards, stas and membership o
the three groups that make up South by Southwest
participated in exchanges in Mississippi, New Mexico
and 1exas to build deep relationships and solidarity
among the groups.
It is noted that much o the success o a number o
these organizations` current work is built on prei-
ous working relationships among sta and key play-
ers working in dierent arenas. ,BCC, BAJI, MIRA,
SxS\, 1hese pre-existing relationships laid a oun-
dation or groups to take on their current work on
immigration.
Alliance building and educational work should
be tied to concrete campaigns.
\hile relationship building outside o campaign work
is important, anchoring the alliance building and
political education work in concrete campaigns is also
critical. It may be aluable or groups to hae their
own campaigns on issues that most directly aect
them and their speciFc constituencies but they must
Fnd opportunities or shared campaigns with alliance
building partners ,GANL, CIO, PO\LR, VOCLS,
SCA,. Lxamples o common campaigns hae been
on immigration reorm, educational equity, police ac-
countability and transportation justice.
Out o these Fndings, the groups interiewed made
the nine recommendations to unders interested in
supporting cross-racial,cross ethnic alliance building.
1he details o the guidance oered by the interiew-
ees are contained in the section, Recommendation to
lunders` that ollows the case studies.
INTRODUCTION AND KEY FINDINGS
Members and supporters of the Center for Intercultural Organizing gather in Portland, Oregon.

BELOVED COMMUNITY CENTER
BACKGROUND
Beloed Community Center ,BCC, is an Arican
American-led aith-based organization ounded in
1991 in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is rooted in
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.`s ision o beloed com-
munity and the scriptural oundation that \e are all
God`s children and should be treated equally.` lound-
ing members o BCC, including its Lxecutie Director
Re. Nelson Johnson, were actiely inoled in the
sit-ins and Ciil Rights Moement in North Carolina
during the 1960s. In the context o today`s racially and
culturally dierse Greensboro, BCC is a space or peo-
ple, community organizations and aith-based groups
to address social and economic justice concerns in the
city and across the state.
BCC`s mission is to build community oer and against
the orces that diide the community against itsel
and to recognize the dignity and worth o all people.
Since its ounding, BCC started a homeless hospitality
house, initiated the Greensboro 1ruth and Commu-
nity Reconciliation Project, and supported worker and
liing wage issues, helping to orm the Southern laith,
Labor, Community Alliance in 2000.
In 2005, BCC played a key role in a successul cam-
paign at Smithille loods, a pork processing plant.
Lmployees there ought against the company`s prac-
tice o paying North Carolina workers substantially
less than its workers in other parts o the country and
using threats o Immigration and Customs Lnorce-
ment ,ICL, raids to intimidate immigrant workers
to keep them rom oting or a union. BCC part-
nered with United lood and Commercial \orkers
and helped to ocus the attention o black clergy on
unionization eorts at the plant.
CROSS-RACIAL
ALLIANCL BUILDING
Out o the Smithille \orkers Campaign and as a
result o the intensiFcation o anti-immigration senti-
ment in North Carolina and across the nation, BCC
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tovgerit, ava tbe vecbavi.v tbat bota. v. togetber. aceboo/ ava
tritter cav`t retace tbat. - .rtetba ]orer., CC Covvvvit, avcatiov Orgavier.
8
initiated its Black and Brown Alliance work. The goal
is foster understanding of the differences and com-
monalities between African Americans and Latino im-
migrants and to build stronger relationships between
the two communities.
In 2008, at a time when Latino immigrant communities
were under attack by ICE and local law enforcement
agencies, BCC, in conjunction with groups across the
state, organized a major Black-Brown Conference to
address the urgent need to unite. Three hundred
faith leaders, labor and community activists, youth and
students attended the conference, whose sponsors in-
cluded Faith Action International, Black Workers for
Justice, Pulpit Forum of Greensboro, AFL-CIO, and
the North Carolina Latino Coalition.
The conference began with African American and La-
tino welcoming ceremonies and an elaborate evening
of sharing of African American and Latino cultural
and spiritual heritages through worship, music, song,
dances and spoken word. Prominent African Ameri-
can and Latino ministers gave messages focused on
immigration, pushing the audience towards fnding
common moral ground and addressing the lines that
have been falsely drawn between peoples.
Conference speakers elaborated on the shared histo-
ries of black and brown communities in North Caroli-
na characterized by violent conquests and oppression
beginning in 1492 and refected in the overthrow of
the Wilmington black and white fusion government
in1898
1
, the brutal 1979 murder of fve labor and
community organizers in Greensboro, and the cur-
rent escalating abuse of Latinos... One speaker spoke
about the similarities between the 1850 Fugitive Slave
Act and 287(g) Agreements
2
provisions that are being
implemented in North Carolina counties. Presenters
1. A progressive, democratically elected local government in
Wilmington was overthrown by white supremacist mobs.

also addressed common issues of concern such as
youth education issues, law enforcement misconduct,
and workplace issues. Following the conference held
in Greensboro, educational roundtables and dialogues
were held in three different regions around the state.
LESSONS LEARNED
It starts with building community and relationships.
BCCs power is in building community in all that they
do and in instilling a sense of a common purpose, i.e.,
the fght for everyones dignity and self-worth. For
BCC this means working locally, building relationships,
having conversations and being present.
We create community one person at a time. That
builds stability and longevity and the mechanism that
holds us together. Facebook and twitter cant replace
that, says Arletha Jowers, BCC Community Educa-
tion Organizer.
BCC creates spaces and processes for community
conversation in their weekly two-hour community
meeting where anyonefarm laborers, Latino im-
migrant workers, African immigrants and local U.S.
citizensis invited to bring concerns and issues. BCC
also has created specifc trainings and sessions in Afri-
can American and Latino churches to promote under-
standing in the community about immigration.
2. the fugitive slave law of 1850 made any federal marshal or
other offcial who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave liable
to a fne of $1,000. the suspected slave could not ask for a jury
trial or testify on his or her own behalf. in addition, any person
aiding a runaway slave by providing food or shelter was subject
to six months imprisonment and a $1,000 fne. the 287(g)
Agreements are contracts between immigration and Customs
Enforcement (iCE) and local and state law enforcement agencies
to enforce federal immigration laws.
BElovED CommUnity CEntEr
9
Spiritual Underpinnings can help to anchor alliance-
building work. BCC`s work is grounded spiritually in
the radical message o Christian scripture and the i-
sion o beloed community, which was articulated by
Dr. King and Cesar Chaez. Black and brown collabo-
ration is seen as more than just joint campaigns but a
commitment to knowing and loing each other, wor-
shipping, praying, holding conersations and engaging
in other creatie practices that nurture our humanity.`
BCC has meetings in black and brown churches and
helps people hear stories o other people and identiy
with them as brothers and sisters.

It is work that transorms and touches peoples lies.
Beloed community is not a what, but a how. It is how
you assist when someone needs help. It`s a way to do
spiritual care,` says \esley Morris, BCC`s Community
Organizer.
lU1URL PLANS
1hrough its Black and Brown Alliance work, BCC will
continue to organize protests and community meetings
with local sheris to address 28,g,. BCC is also in the
process o helping to build a moement o black and
brown students to carry on the spirit o the 1960s sit-in
moement. BCC`s weekly meetings or people to bring
orth community issues has led them into solidarity work
with a Latino street organization, the Almighty Latin
King and Queen Nation, which has called or peace
between gangs on the streets but has been under attack
rom law enorcement.
BCC, in partnership with the larmworker Labor
Organizing Committee, will also continue its engage-
ment in a grassroots campaign to hold RJ Reynolds
American 1obacco Company accountable or the con-
ditions in the tobacco Felds o eastern North Caro-
lina. BCC produced a documentary Flm that docu-
ments the slae-like conditions in the arm camps and
contains workers` testimonies o grieances and sick-
nesses. BCC organized a anload o Arican American
pastors to isit the arm camps and helped them to
see the conditions o the predominantly Latino
immigrant workers as a ciil rights issue.
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vore tbav ;v.t ;oivt cavaigv. bvt
a covvitvevt to /vorivg ava torivg
eacb otber, ror.biivg, ra,ivg, bota
ivg covrer.atiov ava evgagivg iv otber
creatire ractice. tbat vvrtvre ovr
bvvavit,.
-!e.te, Morri., CC Covvvvit, Orgavier
BELOVED COMMUNITY CENTER
10
BLACK ALLIANCE FOR JUST IMMIGRATION
BACKGROUND
1he Black Alliance or Just Immigration ,BAJI,, ound-
ed in 2006, is the only predominately Arican American
organization in the country to hae support or immi-
grant rights in its mission. BAJI organizes dialogue and
promotes cross-racial alliance building between Arican
American and immigrant communities. 1he group
seeks to build a core o Arican Americans who un-
derstand the underlying issues o racism and economic
globalization and are committed to progressie immi-
gration reorm and building alliances with immigrant
communities around a range o issues.
1he roots o BAJI began with eorts to organize coner-
sations between Arican Americans and black immigrants
through a series o Arica Diaspora Dialogues initiated by
the Priority Arica Network. 1hese conersations brought
together Arican Americans and black immigrants rom
Arica, the Caribbean and Latin America to address the
myths, stereotypes and the issues that oten diide them.
1hree years o dialogue which deepened understand-
ing and relationships between immigrant and non-im-
migrant black communities helped to orm a ounda-
tion out o which BAJI emerged, calling or greater
engagement and alliances with the broader immigrant
community. BAJI`s ounders are two black ministers,
one a long-time U.S. ciil rights leader and the other a
South Arican immigrant, and many o its core mem-
bers are seasoned racial justice community actiists
who hae long-standing working relationships.

CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCL BUILDING
Immigration is a racial justice issue,` says Gerald
Lenoir, BAJI director. Understanding how racism and
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Dvrabte attiavce. bare to be bvitt ov trv.t ava eote aov`t trv.t ,ov
vvte.. tbe, /vor ,ov orer a erioa of tive. -Cerata evoir, .] Director
11
BlACK AlliAnCE for JUst immigrAtion
the policies of economic globalization similarly impact
African American and immigrant communities forms
BAJIs key framework for alliance building work. Us-
ing dialogues, presentations, workshops, publications,
technical assistance and trainings, BAJI has developed
ways to discuss this framework in the African American
community sensitively and effectively.
An example of BAJIs methodology are its small
group Conversations about Immigration held in
African American churches which allow people to
speak, vent and express their emotions about immi-
gration. As Latinos are quickly becoming the largest
racial minority in United States, perceptions among
many African Americans of Latino immigrants taking
jobs, taking over their communities, seemingly jump-
ing the line and perpetuating racism towards African
Americans are not uncommon.
We dont try to answer point by point, but try to help
people to see: What is the larger picture? Why are
people migrating?, says Lenoir.
BAJI facilitators introduce the concepts of economic
globalization, which in the 1970s caused many U.S.
corporations to move manufacturing operations and
good jobs to Latin America and Asia, resulting in
greater unemployment and economic displacement in
the African American community. Parallels are drawn
with the policies of economic globalization today that
often force people in the global south to migrate to
the United States.
Our role is to provide a framework or in some cases,
deconstruct the myths they have heard, said Phil
Hutchings, BAJI Senior Organizer. BAJI also stresses
that the attack on immigrants of color has a racial
dimension to it and points out that African Americans
have a moral imperative and a self-interest in fghting
racism in all its forms.
Another example of BAJIs educational method can
be seen in a forum conducted for the Ironbound
Community Corporation (ICC) in an economically de-
pressed African American community in Ironbound,
a neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. Twenty-fve
African American housing project residents attended
the event. The training brought out parallels between
African American experiences of migration, exploita-
tion and racism and the experiences of todays immi-
grants of color.
Rather than talking about immigrant rights imme-
diately, we showed a documentary flm about the
frst Great Black Migration internally in the U.S. after
World War I. This got people started talking about
their own migration stories often due to racism and
economic factors, says Lenoir. Then we talked
about immigration and folks began to see that African
Americans should be concerned with attacks on
immigrants too.
ICC organizers report that African Americans who
attended the forum showed a greater willingness to
work with Latino immigrants in the community and
stressed the importance of translation services for
immigrants at all the meetings. BAJI is working with
organizers to develop African American-immigrant
dialogues and opportunities for building alliances in
the context of concrete initiatives and campaigns.
Our role is to provide a framework or
in some cases, deconstruct the myths
that theyve heard.
Phil Hutchings, BAJI Senior Organizer
12
LLSSONS LLARNLD
Building strong relationships is key to building strong
alliances.BAJI alues building relationships as a oun-
dation to building alliances, creating ways or Arican
Americans and immigrants to hear each others` stories,
in order to build strong relationships on the ground.
1his is oten oer ood, music and culture, as much as it
is at meetings,` says lutchings.
e leadership of black immigrants is important in
alliance building with
African Americans.In
April 2009, BAJI, the
1hird \orld Coali-
tion o the American
lriends Serice Com-
mittee and the
\hich \ay lorward
program o the Cen-
ter or New Com-
munity conened the
inaugural meeting o
the Black Immigra-
tion Network.

BIN is a ehicle or
bringing the Arican Diaspora together around a
common agenda to share strategies and resources and
to collaborate on program and campaigns. By raising
the isibility o black immigrants within the black com-
munity, immigration become more real, breaking down
the notions o immigrants as the other.` BIN is also
a platorm to insure that black immigrants are better
represented on panels and decision-making in the larger
immigrant rights moement.
lU1URL PLANS
Since lebruary, 2010, BAJI and its partners, the Inter-
aith Committee or \orkers Justice o the Last Bay
Alliance or a Sustainable Lconomy ,LBASL, and the
Interaith Communities United o the Last Bay lous-
ing Organizations ,LBlO, hae conened monthly
meetings o a group o 18 Arican American pas-
tors rom Oakland and Berkeley. 1he ministers hae
agreed to work with the groups in educating their own
congregants on immigration issues and in creating
dialogues with Latino
ministers and immi-
grant churchgoers.
And in lebruary 2010,
BAJI began a training
and political education
program or black im-
migrant youth and A-
rican American youth
at Laney College in
Oakland. 1he goal is
to create opportuni-
ties or dialogue and
collectie action on issues
that aect both groups.
BAJI will continue its work with the Ironbound Com-
munity Corporation in Newark and will do similar
work in Los Angeles. 1he organization is also de-
eloping written curricula or its education work in
Arican American aith-based groups and its trainings
or community organizers and students.
linally, BAJI is working with partner organizations
to consolidate the Black Immigration Network as a
iable alliance and to conene a ollow-up national
meeting.
BLACK ALLIANCE FOR JUST IMMIGRATION
13
BACKGROUND
CASA de Maryland is a Latino immigrant organiza-
tion ounded in 1985 to respond to the human needs
o thousands o Central Americans reugees arri-
ing in the \ashington, D.C. area. 1oday, CASA is the
largest Latino and immigrant organization in the state
o Maryland, oering a wide range o serices and
programs to help low-income women, workers and
tenants be sel-suFcient and improe their economic
and social well being.
CASA`s programs include social serices, public health
serices, primary health care, legal serices, education
and adocacy. 1he organization operates three work-
ers` centers and a community education center that
proides ocational training as well as courses and
workshops on Fnancial literacy, citizenship prepara-
tion, literacy and computer skills. CASA also empha-
sizes leadership deelopment, community organizing
and political action with its members.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCL BUILDING
1he relationship with the Arican American commu-
nity is a central part o CASA`s work and priorities.
1owards the end o the 1990s, due to strained rela-
tions between Arican Americans and Latinos, CASA
began reaching out to NAACP chapters in \ashing-
ton, D.C. and Maryland. Since then, CASA sta and
leadership hae worked together with the NAACP on
CASA DE MARYLAND
1ogetber ovr covvvvitie. are vvcb vore orerfvt tbav .earate. vita
ivg attiavce. bvitt ov a .trovg fovvaatiov of tbe bi.tor, of raci.v ava
raciat ore..iov, ava bor tbat covvect. to re.evt aa, tev.iov. i. /e, to
effectire orgaviivg. -Daria 1bvr.tov, C.. .vtiraci.v Orgavier ava avcator
14
common campaigns related to community deelop-
ment, housing, police brutality, racial proFling and
oter registration.
A orging campaign was initiated ater the police killed
a Latino man and correctional oFcers killed an Ari-
can American man. 1he partnership with the NAACP
and a broad grassroots coalition brought together
the Arican American and Latino communities, both
aected by police brutality, in a campaign or police
accountability. 1he positie results o this campaign
and CASA`s partnerships with Arican American
leaders taught CASA members that this alliance was
critical in order to hae
innuence in the counties
where CASA works and
reealed what it means
to win real gains.` It
was equally important to
Arican American lead-
ers that CASA was with
them on issues aecting
their communities.
In 2008, CASA hired a
dedicated sta member
as an antiracism educa-
tor and organizer deoted to deepening and deelop-
ing relationships with Arican American congrega-
tions and leaders. 1he goal is to go beyond the limited
joint eents and press conerences and deelop a
deep rooted understanding o where Arican Ameri-
can leaders are coming rom in order to hae solid
working relationships,` according Daid 1hurston, an
Arican American who was hired in the new position.
CASA`s antiracism work is guided by a local steering
committee o Arican American and immigrant lead-
ers. In the Frst three months o the project, CASA
constructed a database and made Frst contact with 60
Arican American congregations in Prince Georges
County, initiating conersations about immigration
reorm.
CASA began its Crossing Borders Project in Au-
gust 2008 with Fnancial support rom the Maryland
Mediation and Connict Resolution OFce and the
lord loundation. 1his project is primarily aimed at
improing relationships between Latino immigrants
and Arican Americans in Baltimore City and Prince
Georges County. It ocuses on promoting greater cul-
tural awareness to dispel misperceptions and oster-
ing understanding and a sense o common struggle
between the two com-
munities.
1he Crossing Borders
multicultural curriculum
was deeloped by CASA
in collaboration with
the Center or Com-
munity Change and
the lair Immigration
Reorm Moement with
unding rom the Mont-
gomery County De-
partment o lousing
and Community Aairs in order to help eliminate the
roots o tension between the Arican American and
immigrant communities. 1he curriculum structures
discussion about recent demographic shits among
Arican Americans and Latino populations, a historical
timeline o Arican American and immigrant expe-
riences, Fe dimensions o Arican American and
immigrant tensions, the interplay between jobs, race
and immigration, and the process or moing rom
dialogue to action. In 2009, CASA trained 0 Arican
American and immigrant leaders, youth, parents and
sta members using the curriculum.
CASA DE MARYLAND
15
CASA developed a sign-on letter for African Ameri-
can congregations to support for the national March
21, 2010 Washington D.C. Mobilization for Immigra-
tion Reform. The letter framed the mobilizations
theme as Jobs and Immigration: Full Employment
& Full Citizenship, attempting to link two goals and
two communities. This full employment and full citi-
zenship message connects the impact of the exploita-
tion of workers made possible in the current immi-
gration system with the driving down of wages for all
workers. Underlying this message is another message,
i.e., that with just immigration reform, workers would
be free to organize for fair market wages and compe-
tition between workers of different legal status would
be reduced, benefting African American workers.

The goal of CASAs work with African American
congregations and communities is to have deep and
meaningful relationships with African American
leaders in the county and to lay the groundwork for
consistent social justice work that Latino and African
American communities can organize together, ad-
dressing health care, affordable low-income housing,
police brutality and other issues.
LESSONS LEARNED
Immigrant rights organizations must understand
more deeply the perspectives of the African Ameri-
can community. It is important for immigrant orga-
nizations to deepen their own understanding of the
historical roots of African American oppression in
order to understand where the pushback comes from
in African American communities around immigrant
rights.

There may be resentment as immigrants are de-
manding rights and equality where African Americans
still have not achieved full equality, says Thurston.
Immigrant rights organizations must support is-
sues important to the African American community.
Standing side-by-side with African Americans in sup-
port of issues important to their community goes a
long way in demonstrating the power of cross-racial
alliances.
FUTURE PLANS
CASA plans to implement a short Immigration 101
training in African American congregations that address-
es the roots of job competition and racial divisions.
CASAs primary base is in Latino immigrant com-
munities but also includes West African and Afro-
Caribbean immigrants. CASA will also be developing
a program to support the voices of black immigrants
within the organization.
CAsA DE mArylAnD
16
BACKGROUND
1he Center or Intercultural Organizing ,CIO, in
Oregon emerged out o Portland`s immigrant and
reugee community to address incidents o
harassment and discrimination. In the midst o the
anti-Muslim climate o hostility ollowing 9-11, a
prominent Somali community leader, the head o
the Islamic Center o Portland, was arrested at the
airport under alse claims. 1his was the impetus or
CIO`s Frst cross-cultural organizing, action and march
in ront o the ederal building in 2002. Since then,
CIO has intentionally been a multiracial, multicultural
membership organization led by and rooted in immi-
grant and reugee communities.
CIO does not represent any one group, but repre-
sents a cross-cultural spectrum o communities and
aims to build new organizers and new aces or the
moement.` 1oday, the organization`s membership
totals about 500 and includes people rom 6 dierent
countries, including Somalis and Lthiopians, Congo-
lese and Liberians, Mexicans, Koreans, Palestinians
and Aghanis, natie peoples, Arican Americans and
white citizens. As the organization considers speaking
Lnglish a priilege, CIO stries to proide translation
and interpretation or its leadership deelopment pro-
gram and organizing campaigns.
CENTER FOR INTERCULTURAL ORGANIZING
!bev re forvea ovr orgaviatiov, re a./ea rbat i. vi..ivg iv tbe
vorevevt. !bat i. vi..ivg i. attiavce. cro..cvttvratt,. 1bere i. .o
vvcb fragvevtatiov iv tbe .ociat vorevevt. !e cavvot be a .ociat
;v.tice vorevevt ava at tbe .ave tive be fragvevtea. !e veea to
brivg covvvvitie. togetber. -Ka,.e ]ava, CO ovvaer ava ecvtire Director
17
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCE BUILDING
CIOs methodology is based in educating and building
a shared analysis within the community before launch-
ing a campaign. Central to CIOs analysis is an under-
standing of racial justice.
Every single piece of work or campaign is viewed
through a racial justice lens and a multiethnic/multi-
racial analysis, says CIO founder and director, Kayse
Jama. Jama admits that even among immigrants and
refugees this can be a challenge, as refugees from Eu-
rope and refugees from the global south have differ-
ent understandings of racism and colonialism. Class
differences also exist within the refugee community
based on skin color and education.
In 2006, CIO brought together 22 leaders from dif-
ferent immigrant and refugee communities to launch
a strategic citywide campaign to protect the rights
and liberties of the immigrant and refugee commu-
nity, to better include them in civic/public life, and to
provide specifc strategies for improving government
processes and services. The group hired fve organiz-
ers from African, Arab, Asian/Pacifc Islander, Latino
and Slavic backgrounds who conducted community-
based research with 1,000 immigrants and refugees.
The leaders then selected ten issues shared in com-
mon that impacted newcomers across their respective
communities to take to the city offcials of Portland.
The strategic campaign, taken up by immigrants and
refugees from diverse countries of origin, all advocat-
ing collectively using cross-cultural analysis, was an
effective and powerful experience. Portland offcials
had never witnessed the community coming together
saying the same thing.
It scared them and laid a foundation. It communicat-
ed to them that this is a movement, says Jama.
CIOs cross-cultural organizing has had a signifcant
impact in the city of Portland. It has lead to the pas-
sage of a resolution to protect the rights of all immi-
grants, the eventual establishment of a Human Rights
Commission and an Offce of Immigrant & Refugee
Affairs for the City of Portland (2008), permanent city
funds for immigrant and refugee leadership develop-
ment, placement of more immigrants and refugees on
boards/commissions, improvement in services, and
several other initiatives currently underway.
CIO has likewise been successful at the state level. In
2009, CIO partnered with several other organizations
led by people of color to advocate for the inclusion
of specifc racial justice language in Oregons success-
ful health care reform bills. This important victory will
reshape the way Oregon provides healthcare to people
of color, immigrants and refugees.
Also in 2009, in cooperation with the Urban League of
Portland and the Black United Fund of Oregon, CIO
held a series of three dialogues between the African
American and African immigrant communities to ex-
plore how the communities can be allies to one another.
The frst dialogue included ffteen African Americans
and ffteen African immigrants. The second and third
dialogues gathered sixty-seventy people each.
The dialogues addressed the shared histories of op-
pression, divisions and commonalities between com-
munities, and understanding the U.S. system of racial
oppression. Participants spent time in mixed groups
in honest discussion about oppression and internal-
ized oppression. The fnal dialogue included celebrat-
ing cultural gifts and differences as well as and the
teaching and learning of African and hip-hop dances.
CEntEr for intErCUltUrAl orgAnizing
18
LESSONS LEARNED
Training immigrants and refugees as leaders is central to
building alliances across these communities. CIO has a
yearlong program called PILOT (Pan-Immigrant Leader-
ship and Organizing Training) to strengthen immigrant
and refugee leadership. Last fall PILOT graduated a
diverse group of 20 leaders from 16 different countries
from social agencies, mutual aid organizations and other
groups.

PILOT has modifed the BRIDGE curriculum of the
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights to
refect the local racial history and policy. It includes Or-
egons Ku Klux Klan history and the Native American
experience of children forced into federal government
boarding schools as a way to link immigrant and refugee
issues to the African American and Native American
communities. Immigrant leaders are now serving on City
of Portland committees, organizing their communities,
growing social justice organizations, and empowering im-
migrants and refugees throughout the state.
Training non-immigrant allies is also essential to build-
ing strong cross-racial alliances. CIO conducts a paral-
lel popular education course called RISE (Refugee and
Immigrant Solidarity Education) for non-immigrant
U.S.-born allies to teach people how to be good allies in
the struggle for immigrant and refugee rights. The six-
week-long, twelve-session program addresses the global
and political dynamics of immigration as well as the
racial basis of U.S. immigration policy. It equips partici-
pants to be engaged allies advocating for immigrant and
refugee issues.

CIO incorporates allies in its work, creating space for
them to gain exposure to the issues and contribute in
appropriate ways, such as volunteering during cam-
paigns, canvassing and providing logistics support. Over
150 allies have gone through the RISE program.
Building a shared analysis is the foundation for strategic
alliances. CIO considers its work of building strategic
alliances among communities as distinct from coalition
work. Building an inclusive movement across communi-
ties means starting from scratch and bringing people to
the table as equals, according to Jama. It also means going
deeper and allowing the space and time for cross-cultural
analysis building and dialogue.

Once there is a shared analysis about the root causes,
everything else is easy. People will see the intersectional-
ity, says Jama. A strategic alliance focuses on issues
that impact immigrants and refugees across communi-
ties. For example, the Portland City Council resolution
proposed by CIO was inclusive of the issues not just
affecting documented immigrants but also those faced
by undocumented immigrants and Muslim immigrants.
FUTURE PLANS
CIOs next steps include further developing its on-site,
member-run media center, which amplifes strategies
for cross-racial alliance work and the collective voice
and perspectives of the immigrant and refugee com-
munity. A weekly community radio show, Common
Sense and Movement Building already does this and
CIO plans to conduct further media skills training in
the immigrant and refugee community. CIOs orga-
nizing work on the horizon is to address statewide
policy issues across communities and cultures. CIO
also hopes to extend the dialogues begun with African
immigrants and African Americans in order to include
Latino and Asian Pacifc Islander communities.
CEntEr for intErCUltUrAl orgAnizing
19
FAMILIES FOR FREEDOM
BACKGROUND
lreedom or lamilies ,lll, is a network o amilies
acing deportation who proide support, education,
organizing and resources to other amilies at risk o
deportation. lll, ormed in the atermath o the
September 11th attacks, is an adocacy group or
immigrants acing deportation and their amilies. In
time, lll eoled into one o the ew organizations
adocating or immigrants with criminal conictions,
a group at high risk o deportation and one o the
most marginalized groups within the immigrant population.
Since 2001, under the Bush and Obama administra-
tions, deportations hae increased annually, particu-
larly targeting people with criminal conictions. 1he
drastic oerhaul o immigration laws passed under
President Clinton in 1996 signiFcantly expanded
grounds or deportation impacting people with
criminal conictions in some o the harshest ways.
1he ormerly discretionary system was replaced with
mandatory detention and deportation. No distinctions
are made i conictions are minor, i the conictions
occurred 30 years ago, or i time has already been
sered. 1here is also no consideration or amily ties,
parents o U.S.-born children or established ties to
the United States. As lll is by and or people directly
aected by these policies, ending deportations is the
primary goal o the organization`s work.
In New \ork City, immigration and who gets de-
ported is a black issue,` says Janis Roshueel, lll`s
Lxecutie Director, because black olks are dispro-
portionately targeted by the criminal justice system
and an oerwhelming number o New \orkers end
up in deportation proceedings ia interaction with the
criminal justice system.`
lll is made up o 35 actie amilies, 15 member
leaders and a base o 100. It renects the multiracial
!e bare to aroia tbe tra tbat ove grov i. vore ae.errivg tbav
avotber. !e aarocate tbat re att veea ;v.tice ava retief .o re rov`t
be ittea agaiv.t eacb otber. - ]avi. Ro.bveret, ecvtire Director
20
diversity of those at risk of deportation in New York
City. Sixty-fve percent of FFFs members are Eng-
lish-, Spanish- and French-speaking Afro-Caribbeans.
The remaining families include Latinos, West Africans,
Chinese and South Asians. FFF members are both
documented and undocumented immigrants and
eighty percent have criminal convictions. FFF is allies
and partners with the Detention Watch Network and
the Drug Policy Alliance and is a resource to New
Sanctuary Movement congregations in New York City.
In partnership with the Immigrant Defense Project,
FFF developed Deportation 101 in 2005, a valuable
resource guide on the deportation system with strategies
for anti-deportation organizing. Hundreds of organi-
zational representatives, service providers and orga-
nizers have taken the seminar that FFF has conducted
in cities including Boston, Miami, Atlanta, New York
and Washington, D.C.
In 2009, FFF launched a training of trainers so that
members and allies could teach the Deportation 101
curriculum. Trainees met for three hours each week
over the course of ten weeks. The frst class of eight
trainers graduated last fall and are now available to
provide training and to speak at community presenta-
tions, churches and colleges.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCE BUILDING
Deportation is a cross-racial issue from the begin-
ning, says Roshuevel. The biggest challenge is not
racial but the divisions over who is worthy of relief
from deportation.
This division is refected in comments of people who
say, I just came here to work and I am not a criminal.
I deserve relief. And others who say, I did not come
illegally. I have been here for 30 years as a permanent
resident. I have one conviction and served my time. I
deserve relief.
We dont make a distinction, says Roshuevel. We
have to avoid the trap that one group is more deserv-
ing than another. We advocate that we all need justice
and relief so we wont be pitted against each other.
Families come together in monthly Family Meetings,
which are support, networking and resource spaces.
They also meet at weekly deportation resource clinic
collectives where FFF staff and members share their
knowledge about how to navigate the criminal justice
and immigration detention systems with people in
crisis. At the clinic, people who have different levels
of knowledge come together to better understand the
system.
Every person is placed on the criminal justice map
and/or the immigration map. At the clinic, experi-
enced participants walk through and explain what
happens when someone goes through criminal justice
and immigration processes. Participants learn their
rights and become aware of how to navigate the sys-
tem. They are also are encouraged to be involved with
FFFs advocacy campaigns or mobilizations on par-
ticular cases. FFF also sponsors a monthly radio show
called the War on Immigrants Report.
The guiding principles of FFFs work are family unity
and an end to enforcement that targets immigrant
people of color. FFFs discussions among families
build common understanding of how all immigrants
fAmiliEs for frEEDom
We show that were all being crimi-
nalized and we all deserve due process,
discretion in the system, and the consid-
eration of family unity. We all deserve
to be treated justly.
Janis Roshuevel, FFF Executive Director
21
are criminalized in different ways. FFF shows the
criminalization of immigrants at different points,
whether at the border, at their home or workplace, or
when they are racially profled and arrested on the
street.
We show that were all being criminalized and we all
deserve due process, discretion in the system, and the
consideration of family unity. We all deserve to be
treated justly, says Roshuevel. FFF problematizes the
criminal justice system and critiques the structural rac-
ism embedded in the criminal justice, immigration and
deportation systems.
In addition to its direct work with families, some of
FFFs biggest educational work is to transform per-
spectives within the mainstream immigrant rights
community that often excludes issues of immigrants
with criminal convictions. FFF brings the stories of its
families and a critical perspective focused on the im-
portance of due process, family unity, judicial discre-
tion and end to hyper-enforcement in any reform of
federal immigration laws.
We have to point out that reform is not just about
legalization. You can still have a green card and get
deported, says Roshuevel.
LESSONS LEARNED
Te people afected should lead the movement for
change. FFFs work is driven by the people directly
affected by the issues, who have keen knowledge and
political analysis because of their interaction with
immigration and law enforcement systems. Its effec-
tive educational materials and accessible resources
come out of members direct, lived experience and
knowledge. Trainings are very practical and immedi-
ately helpful. Based on FFF families experiences, they
helped draft the Child Citizen Protection Act (HR
182) introduced by New York Representative Jos Ser-
rano (D-NY) to give immigration judges the authority
and discretion to prevent the removal of a parent of a
U.S. citizen child if it is not in the childs best interest.
FUTURE PLANS
FFF is working to build up its base and to get more
members to be leaders and activists. It has also started
to work with 40 black immigrant pastors in Brooklyn
called Churches United to Save and Heal (C.U.S.H.),
which focuses on stopping the criminalization of
immigrants and support for just and inclusive immi-
gration reform for all immigrants. FFF would like to
formalize its political education curriculum and is also
working on developing Deportation 102 for advanced
practitioners.
fAmiliEs for frEEDom
22
GARDEN STATE ALLIANCE FOR A NEW ECONOMY
BACKGROUND
1he Garden State Alliance or a New Lconomy
,GANL,, a chapter o the national Partnership or
\orking lamilies ,P\l,, is an alliance between labor
unions and institutions based in Arican American
and immigrant communities. 1he our-year-old alli-
ance has created a strong and united oice or good
jobs, liing wages and equitable economic deelop-
ment in northern New Jersey.
GANL`s ounding members are: ACORN, the Labor-
ers Union, the New Jersey Lnironmental ledera-
tion, New Labor ,an immigrant organizing group that
runs worker centers,, Reerend Maristela lreiberg o
Grace Community Lutheran Church ,a hub o im-
migrant organizing in Newark,, Serice Lmployees
International Union, the 1eamsters, United lood and
Commercial \orkers, and UNI1L-lLRL. GANL`s
work brought in new partners based in the Arican
American community.
One o the dynamics GANL is transorming in
New Jersey is the tension between Arican American
and immigrant communities, which are both strug-
gling at the bottom o today`s economy. 1he 1990s
saw an innux o immigrants, predominantly rom
Latin America, entering the regional economy at a
time when manuacturing and union jobs or Arican
Americans had disappeared, leaing many with ew
work options. As Newark aces high unemployment
particularly among Arican Americans, immigrants
dominate low-wage serice sector jobs. As one New-
ark natie expressed it, Arican Americans looking
or work hae been shut out by unions, undercut by
immigrant labor as well as work relie programs using
prison labor or >1 an hour.`
vitaivg cro..raciat attiavce. i. av ovgoivg roce... .ttiavce. are
rer, bara ror/ bvt it`. rortb it. !itb .trovg attiavce., it`. ea.ier
to reacb ovr goat.. -!a,ve Ricbara.ov, Pre.iaevt, aborer. ocat ::
23
Labor unions have been successful in organizing
recent immigrant workers but recognize that broader
public support for any campaign requires building
stronger alliances with African American and work-
ing class white communities who feel threatened by
the demographic change. GANEs focus has been to
build a foundation of shared trust and deep alliances
among African-American communities, immigrant
communities and labor unions as it organizes in new
ways to create high quality blue-collar jobs for African
American and immigrant working families.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCE BUILDING
In August 2008, GANE launched an advocacy cam-
paign with a new multiracial union focused on the
residential construction industry for policies that
would beneft both existing immigrant workers and
unemployed or underemployed African American
workers. In northern New Jersey, the residential
construction labor force is comprised of ninety-eight
percent Latino immigrant workers, many of whom
are day laborers working at minimum wage with no
benefts and under precarious safety conditions.
We wanted to do something different, says Wayne
Richardson, GANE staff member at the time, and
now president of the new union, Local 55 of the
Laborers International Union of North America. We
had to repair and mend fences and bridges with the
union and community because of mistrust. We had to
get real community partners.
GANE began by bringing in Christian, Muslim and
other clergy as well as environmental justice groups to
build support for the common goal of creating good
jobs for local residents. African American community
development organizations and congregations helped
to recruit African Americans who had never had
formal construction training or union work, including
ex-prisoners in re-entry programs and others who had
been historically shut out of the industry.
The formal training combined specifc construction
skills and education. Training to help build cross-racial
unity between African American and Latino trainees
included a three-part education series tapping expe-
rienced facilitators and educatorsBernard Moore,
who was then working with UNITE-HERE; Gerald
Lenoir of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration
(also profled in this report); and Mayron Payes of the
Center for Community Change. The frst session was
attended by 30 African Americans. Ten Latino im-
migrants attended the second session from the work-
ers centers. The third session brought 18 Latino and
African American trainees together to learn construc-
tion skills and a framework for understanding race,
immigration and work.
Key components of the session covered the history
of union labor and its dynamics with different immi-
grant communities; the historical struggle of African
American workers to get into trade unions; the im-
pacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), especially the loss of U.S. manufacturing
gArDEn stAtE AlliAnCE for A nEW EConomy
As we gathered in front to prepare for
the action, one guy in our group, Ed, be-
gan to rail against immigrant workers
who are working for pennies. He was
an experienced carpenter and could not
get any work. One of the others in our
group got angry and said So, Who
loses? Ed stopped and grinned, and
said We all lose.
Kate Atkins, former Director of GANE
24
jobs; the impact of trade policies on Latin American
economies, in particular, how they force many people
to migrate to the United States; the purpose and
benefts of unions; and who benefts from pitting one
group against another for jobs.
Trainees shared common experiences of discrimina-
tion they face living with the labels of illegal for
immigrant workers and ex-felons for African Amer-
icans. They also broke down false statements such
as African Americans are lazy or theyre taking our
jobs with a deeper analysis and gained new perspec-
tives on each other.
One exercise, the Diversity Puzzle, involved using a
series of poster-size pictures. One picture is of im-
migrant workers at a march carrying a sign United
We Dream. Another is a picture of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. delivering his I Have a Dream speech. A
third is a picture of an African American man from
the 1968 sanitation workers strike in Memphis hold-
ing a sign with the words, I am a Man. Pictures are
cut up into puzzle pieces and handed out to partici-
pants who must fnd others who have pieces of the
same picture and together they put the puzzles back
together. In mixed-groups, the puzzle-mates discuss
the questions: What was Dr. Kings dream? What is
the status of it? Is the dream different for African
Americans and immigrants?
The new multiracial union, Laborers Local 55 based in
Newark, was begun with the frst trained workers
22 African Americans and fve Latino immigrants
from the day laborers center. Today it incorporates
the entire state of New Jersey and Delaware and has
around 150 African American and Latino members.
As the residential housing construction market fell due
to the recession, Local 55 found a new opportunity
to fnd work for its members because of the federal
stimulus money coming to the State of New Jersey
for weatherization. Working with GANE, the union
organized a successful nine-month campaign for a
state policy that requires weatherization contractors to
pay a living wage of $17 an hour, provide workers ac-
cess to training, and hire ffty percent of their workers
from low income neighborhoods and from those new
to construction. The hope is that these new standards
for weatherization contractors will help to shift the
standards in construction industry as a whole.
Following up on this success, the New Jersey Build-
ing Laborers Training Fund partnered with the Black
Ministers Council, vocational/technical schools and
Local 55 to secure $2.9 million for weatherization
training for the whole state of New Jersey. The frst
pilot program was completed in January 2009, provid-
ing training connected to good jobs, union member-
ship and a career. In the next two years, the Laborers
Training Fund will train 600 people, a mix of African
American, Latinos and Caucasians in weatherization
with skills that will transfer into residential construc-
tion when that market rebounds.
25
LESSONS LEARNED
Structured dialogues during a campaign and
throughout are critical. It is important to carve out
time for structured dialogues. GANE did three dur-
ing their nine-month campaign. GANE leadership
said that seven dialogues would have been optimal in
order to give trainees more time to talk and discuss is-
sues together. Skilled and experienced facilitation and
resource people to conduct the trainings was key.
We were always reminding people of our dialogues. It
encouraged everyone to be thoughtful. It slowed us
down, made people less goal oriented, and brought
a deeper analysis to all staff and leaders, says Kate
Atkins, former Director of GANE. She also stresses
the importance of doing dialogues in the context of
concrete organizing campaigns versus dialogues in a
vacuum. If you dialogue in a vacuum, people dont
have enough motivation to push past things. In a cam-
paign you get to see through action how it plays out.
Establishing a common framework on race, immigra-
tion and work is also essential. This framework and
training content helped to create a sense of shared
struggles as workers and an awareness of how race is
used as a tool of economic oppression to keep low-
income working people divided. Building peoples
identity as workers has also helped to open up com-
mon ground and shift hardened assumptions.
This provides a new perspective other than Us vs.
Them. It helps people to see how the system works
to divide us and that everyone has a right to work and
feed their families, says Richardson.
FUTURE PLANS
Local 55 is charged to fnd employment for ninety
percent of the graduates of its weatherization train-
ing programs and is actively seeking contracts to fnd
trainees and Local 55 members work in weatheriza-
tion, green jobs and residential construction. Based on
the policy it won, GANE and the Laborers Interna-
tional Union of North America is pushing for a wage
and beneft standards policy broader than weather-
ization jobs in Newark. The New Jersey policy is the
pilot for a national proposal that has been brought to
President Obama to create a competitive grant pro-
gram for cities to set up weatherization programs that
hire local residents, pay union-scale wages and ben-
efts, and have strong local hiring requirements.
[A common framework] provides a
new perspective other than Us vs.
Them. It helps people to see how the
system works to divide us and that
everyone has a right to work and
feed their families.
Wayne Richardson, President, Laborers Local 55
26
Cro..raciat attiavce. are criticat to bvitaivg .trovger orgaviatiov.
ava a .trovger vorevevt. Yov cavvot bare a .vcce..fvt .ociat ;v.tice
vorevevt if ,ov ao vot bvita tbe.e attiavce..
-Mvica ervavae, igbtavaer avcatiov 1eav Mevber
HIGHLANDER RESEARCH & EDUCATION CENTER
BACKGROUND
Since 1932, the lighlander Research and Lducation
Center based New Market, 1ennessee in Appalachia
and the South has helped build cross-racial alliances
between Arican Americans and whites in the labor
and Ciil Rights Moements. Since the mid-1990`s in
response to two actors: 1, the loss o jobs and clo-
sure o actories moing across the border to Mexico,
and 2, the growing innux o Mexican and Central
American immigrants into the region, lighlander
began to address immigration in its popular education
and leadership deelopment work.

lighlander implemented a two-year Immigrant
Leadership Deelopment Institute rom 2004 to 2006,
targeting Latino immigrants and ocusing on organiz-
ing skills and political education designed to help par-
ticipants understand how their struggles intersect with
those o other oppressed communities. lighlander
was instrumental in the conenings that ounded the
1ennessee Immigrant and Reugee Rights Coalition
,1IRRC,, the Frst statewide immigrant rights coalition
in the South, renecting the multiracial immigrant and
reugee community in 1ennessee.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCL BUILDING
Oer the past decade, lighlander`s work on immigra-
tion has eoled. \e hae re-ramed how we think
o our immigration work rom a predominant ocus
on grassroots immigrant leadership to a wider use o
a ramework based on the intersections between race,
migration and globalization.` says Mnica lernandez,
member o lighlander`s Lducation 1eam.
My Arican American colleagues at lighlander raised
concerns that the way most immigrant rights work
is ramed does not leae room to acknowledge how
27
highlAnDEr rEsEArCh & EDUCAtion CEntEr
immigration affects other communities too, espe-
cially African Americans, Hernndez continues. We
cannot help build a strong movement for immigrant
rights if it is not also connected to a broader move-
ment for racial and economic justice for everyone.
Today Highlanders immigration work is deliberately
multiracial, identifying areas of potential confict and col-
laboration among the different racial and ethnic groups
in the Southern region. Thinking of the immigrant
and black community as mutually exclusive is inaccurate
and shortsighted, says Hernandez. We have to break
divide and conquer strategies that lead one side to say,
Those people are taking our jobs, and the other side to
say, Those people dont work hard enough. Education
and organizing rooted in understandings of globalization,
migration and race, helps to forge new alliances between
black and immigrant workers.
Highlanders yearlong leadership and organizing school
Threads, like its name suggests, threads across races,
generations and issues to knit communities together. Par-
ticipants include African Americans, immigrants/refugees
and whites from across the Southern region, especially
from the Deep South and Appalachia. Threadss 2010
theme is economic justice with participants coming from
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia,
Kentucky and South Carolina. Participants come from
grassroots organizations engaged in a wide range of issues,
including mountaintop removal, immigrant and refugee
rights, juvenile justice, food justice, predatory lending,
transgender justice, workers rights and educational equity.
A multiracial analysis is the underpinning of Highlanders
leadership development programs and recruiting strat-
egy. Through popular education, participants in Threads
connect to each others stories, build an analysis around
power and oppression, and develop relationships over
time. They begin to see how their specifc issues are part
of a broader long-term struggle for democracy, human
rights, and economic, racial and social justice.
In teaching about immigration, for example, globaliza-
tion is understood as both causing job losses in the
South as well as economic crises in other countries,
which force people to migrate in search of work. An
analysis of the history of oppression and resistance
of the African American community in the South is
another central component.
During a Threads session from the previous cycle,
several leaders working in the immigrant community
shared their experience of a recent raid by Immigra-
tion Customs and Enforcement (ICE) in their com-
munity. Non-immigrants in the group who had little
understanding of the issue of immigration were
stunned and confused. They asked questions like:
Why would people want to be here when they are
treated this way? Why do they stay here?
By the next time the Threads participants met, sev-
eral of the African American participants from the
Gulf Coast shared how they had been signifcantly
impacted by the discussion on immigration. Rethink-
ing their views about immigration, they were able to
connect the issue to what they experienced during and
after Hurricane Katrina. A later training session was
held in Biloxi, Mississippi and immigrant participants
were able to see and understand the depths of the
devastation of Katrina and the ongoing issues in the
Gulf Coast.
We have to break divide and conquer
strategies that lead one side to say,
Those people are taking our jobs and
the other side to say, Those people
dont work hard enough.
Monica Hernandez, Highlander Education Team Member
28
highlAnDEr rEsEArCh & EDUCAtion CEntEr
LESSONS LEARNED
Immigrant rights must be situated within the broader
struggle for social justice. Highlanders curriculum
and analysis helps immigrant participants locate
their struggle in the broader context of social justice
movements, the history and legacy of the South, and
the history of resistance and struggle against racism.
Participants are able see that it is broader than a cam-
paign for legalization and are able to identify how a
specifc campaign needs to be connected to a longer-
term struggle.

Highlander develops popular education tools around
race, globalization and migration that help communi-
ties gain a deeper understanding of the devastation left
behind by hundreds of years of colonization and imperi-
alism that still reverberates today.
Conversations about race are essential to building
alliances. According to Highlander staff, one of the
biggest obstacles to cross-racial alliance building is the
lack of a shared understanding about race and racism.
To address this, Highlander is holding conversations
about race within the Latino community to address
the myth that racism does not exist in Latin Ameri-
ca. Direct conversations about how racism impacts
communities in different ways are as necessary as the
acknowledgement that the struggle for racial equality
for African Americans is still incomplete. In order to
do bridge building, Highlander creates spaces where
groups can talk amongst themselves about the issues
and then come together.
Youth and young adult leadership development is
critical for the future of movement building. High-
landers youth program, Seeds of Fire, creates oppor-
tunities for youth to fnd their own voices and lead-
ership. This multiracial summer leadership program
for white, African American and immigrant youth
of diverse backgrounds develops strong connections
and parallels between issues of education and juvenile
incarceration. Youth build a shared power analysis,
understand the connections among oppressions and
forms of exploitation, become aware of the history
of peoples movements, and gain skills for cultural
work, leadership and organizing.

Highlander also works with adult allies to create space for
youth voices and leadership in their organizations. High-
lander intentionally recruits a high percentage of young
adults for every workshop.

Youth and young people are able to take this notion
of working multiracially to a whole other level, says
Hernndez, and they offer the best hope for building an
intergenerational, multiracial, multi-issue movement for
racial and economic justice.
A commitment to providing translation and inter-
pretation services is a prerequisite to efective cross-
racial alliance building. Highlander established the
groundbreaking Multilingual Capacity Building Pro-
gram to expand the pool of social justice interpreters
and translators in the region. The program also helps
social justice organizations think about interpreta-
tion and translation as important tools that allows all
participants to bring their whole selves to the table
and be equal partners, even when they speak different
languages.
FUTURE PLANS
Highlander will undertake a strategic planning process
in 2010 to focus on further developing its framework of
race, migration and globalization as well as redesigning
strategies and identifying additional tools. In partnership
with others, they will continue to develop educational
tools to address the realities and dynamics of race and
racism in immigrant and refugee communities.
29
KOREATOWN IMMIGRANT WORKERS ALLIANCE
BACKGROUND
Koreatown Immigrant \orkers Alliance ,KI\A, was
ounded as Korean Immigrant Adocates by pro-
gressie Korean immigrant and Korean American
actiists just prior to the Los Angeles ciil unrest o
1992. 1hough its initial goals were to address the lack
o accessible serices or Korean immigrants in the
community and support the interests o low-income
Korean workers, building alliances with other com-
munities o color has been a hallmark o KI\A`s
work. It has worked with the Community Coalition
o Los Angeles ostering alliances between Korean
and Arican American communities. KI\A also has a
track record o organizing Korean and Latino work-
ers in successul industry-wide campaigns or garment,
restaurant and grocery market workers.
In 2006, Korean Immigrant Adocates oFcially
changed its name to the Koreatown Immigrant \ork-
ers Alliance to better renect its shit rom issues aced
by Korean immigrant workers to those that conront
the broader community. Koreatown has always been
a multiethnic, working class community,` says Lileen
Ma, KI\A`s Campaign Director. Koreatown has long
been a Frst stop or recent Mexican, Central Ameri-
can, and Korean immigrants. \hile Korean busi-
nesses hae isible prominence on Koreatown`s main
thoroughare, the residential population is Fty per-
cent Latino and twenty-Fe percent Korean. Its other
Orgaviivg eote acro.. aifferevt tive. of airer.it, i. bor re
are goivg to be abte to covfrovt tbe orer. tbat be, e.eciatt,
iv o. .vgete.. 1be erotvtiov of tbe Cirit Rigbt. Morevevt
reqvire. v. to tbiv/ abovt bor to bvita .otiaarit, acro.. aiffer
evt raciatiea etbvic grov.. - iteev Ma, K!. Cavaigv Director
30
residents include signifcant numbers of Bangladeshis
and African Americans.
KIWAs membership has slightly more Latinos than
Koreans, refecting the neighborhood demographics.
A multiethnic approach to our work is crucial so that
we dont breed exclusive thinking about who belongs
in this community and who doesnt, says Ma.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCE BUILDING
KIWA promotes the concept that residents and work-
ers should have input and set standards for the kinds
of jobs, wages, affordable housing and development
in their community. Its organizing committees cur-
rently focus on tenant organizing to address the high
rents, overcrowded conditions and threats of displace-
ment that workers residing in Koreatown face. The
KIWA Neighborhood Organizing Committee is a
tri-lingual committee that focuses on tenants rights
and housing issues.
KIWAs organizing proactively outreaches to multira-
cial residents. Meetings and activities are conducted in
English, Korean and Spanish. Monthly tenants meet-
ings bring together twelve to ffteen people across
racial and cultural lines to share food and personal
experiences, learn about local threats to affordable
housing, discuss tenants rights and develop campaign
strategies.
Other committees address workers rights issues and
immigrant issues. Committees come together peri-
odically for community building activities to discuss
educational or cultural topics, such as workers rights
issues, immigrant issues, and the commemoration of
the sa-i-gu Los Angeles civil unrest.
KIWAs organizing style focuses not just on sharing
information but also on facilitating interaction and
relationship building in a deliberate way. Though
Koreatown is a diverse community, there are not many
opportunities for people to interact at a deeper level.
Members are drawn to the multilingual meetings and
the deliberate effort to get people from different cul-
tures to engage.
KIWA has often used participatory exercises where
people draw their experiences and aspirations to help
them bridge the language divide. For example, at a
meeting of a committee advocating for a new park in
park-poor Koreatown, participants were asked to draw
What do you want in your park? on a collective piece
of paper. In another committee, participants were
asked to draw how they would depict a particular prob-
lem in their home if it were an ailment in their body?
Unity is built around the concepts that low-income
residents and families share common experiences and
the necessity to confront issues together.
We are constantly reminding people we are in a multi-
ethnic city. We have different experiences and slightly
different stories that are somehow connected, says Ma.
KIWA is one of a handful of organizations with a
multiethnic character in Los Angeles. They refect an
uncommon alliance between Korean, Latino, Ban-
gladeshi and African Americans. Their multiethnic
presence at actions and rallies is one that has forced
city council members to take notice as they have advo-
cated together for Koreatown neighborhood issues.
Last year, KIWA engaged in a campaign to preserve
rent-controlled buildings and was able to prevent the
demolition of several residential buildings slated to
be turned into parking lots. KIWAs tenant commit-
tees also participate in a national coalition, Right to
the City Alliance, where they connect to other tenant
rights groups.
KorEAtoWn immigrAnt WorKErs AlliAnCE
31
LLSSONS LLARNLD
Organizational clarity and a commitment to being
multiracial is an important starting point. KI\A
sta has had numerous internal discussions about
what it means to be a multiracial organization and
how to express this commitment. In eerything we
do, such as the annual anniersary dinner, we hae to
intentionally make sure it`s not too Latino or too Ko-
rean. \e hae to make sure it projects who we want to
be.` All o KI\A`s organizing committees, een the
monolingual ones, hae intentional discussions about
what it means to be part o a multiethnic community
union` in a multiethnic city.
Providing translation is critical to successful alli-
ance building. KI\A has learned that you can`t cut
corners on translation. It is the most important and
the most logistically challenging part o the work.
1his requires a nuent bilingual sta or a solid core o
olunteers who can translate simultaneously and can
translate written documents. A little is not enough, ac-
cording to Ma.

Lerything rom start to Fnish must be multilingual-
the agenda, eery handout, eery piece o material,
eerything you do. 1he best meetings happen when all
the preparation has been done.`
Cultural translation is important as well. It is es-
sential to be aware that beyond language translation
there is also the issue of cultural translation and
cultural dierences. \hen there is a language barrier,
unspoken gestures can become important, such as eye
contact, body language and how people greet each
other and interact in meetings. Stereotypes and cultur-
al assumptions need to be addressed. It is important
to hae people who can help bridge cultural under-
standings and to deelop trainings around them.
lU1URL PLANS
In the next year, KI\A plans to Fnalize a curriculum
to make its leadership deelopment training more
uniorm. 1he organization will continue to ocus on
housing and equitable deelopment work with the
goal o expanding and building a powerul base o
members and leaders.
KOREATOWN IMMIGRANT WORKERS ALLIANCE
32
MIDWEST IMMIGRANT HEALTH PROJECT
BACKGROUND
1he Center or New Community`s Midwest Immi-
grant lealth Project ,MIlP, works in the states o
Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota organizing low-wage
immigrant workers in meatpacking and processing
plants where there are no unions. Many small rural
white Midwestern towns hae experienced dramatic
demographic changes in the past decade and are now
majority people o color.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCL BUILDING
MIlP`s experience in building alliances between
Somali and Latino workers originated in a meat pack-
ing plant in Lmporia, Kansas in 2008. As the pre-
dominantly Latino workorce became more ocal and
organized, plant management Fred nearly 250 Latino
workers, replacing them with 200 Somali reugee
workers. In time, connict and diisieness between
the two groups o immigrants emerged. By law, So-
mali workers, who are Muslim, are allowed to pray at
speciFc times during the workday. loweer, the plant
reused to slow down the pace o the processing line,
creating resentment and een more pressured and
dangerous labor conditions or Latino workers let on
the line.
MIlP took slow and deliberate steps to bring the two
groups together to improe relations, including a pot-
luck between Somali and Latino leaders and seeral
meetings to discuss and share dierences o religion,
diet and culture. MIlP`s methodology is rooted in
creating neutral political spaces where immigrants can
!bev tro aifferevt raciat grov. cove to a reatiatiov tbat tbe,
bare tbe .ave .trvggte ava tbe, .a, tet`. covtivve to ror/ togetber,
it i. a orerfvt vovevt.
- Carto. Ricb, ora Orgavier, Miare.t vvigravt eattb Pro;ect
33
miDWEst immigrAnt hEAlth ProJECt
talk about work issues. These meetings became a place
to deepen understanding of the roots of interracial
and intercultural conficts in the plant.
We talked about why Muslims have to pray through-
out the day and helped to show that its not the So-
malis fault. It seems like the plant does not care about
workers. They wont slow down the line for anybody,
says Carlos Rich, Midwest Immigrant Health Project,
Iowa Organizer.
The dialogues and bridge building helped the two
groups to fnd common ground as workers working
hard to feed their families. Unfortunately the Kansas
plant downsized and many Somalis from the Kansas
plant migrated to Minnesota and other surrounding
states. However, the important lessons and alliance
building between Somalis and Latinos continues and
is expanding regionally. MIHP has hired a Somali
organizer to work in Wilmar, Minnesota.
In each state where MIHP organizesMinnesota,
Missouri and Iowaimmigrant members have
formed Health Action Councils to address a wide
range of health and safety issues in the workplace.
From June 2009 to January 2010, MIHP sponsored
three regional Health Action Council meetings bring-
ing together Somalis in Minnesota and Latinos from
Missouri and Iowa to address common concerns.
Using three-way translation in English, Somali and Span-
ish has slowed down the conversation but ironically has
fostered deeper listening and understanding between the
groups. It took longer but everyone had a better under-
standing of what was said, says Rich.
Awareness that other workers of a different race and
religion are dealing with similar issues has helped to build
solidarity and inspiration between the two communities.
Said one Somali worker to Latino workers at the meeting,
Brothers and sisters, we are with you in your struggles.
The meetings have resulted in a plan to bring in Oc-
cupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
trainings and build alliances with health departments
and the faith communities. When two different racial
groups come to a realization that they have the same
struggle and they say lets continue to work together, it
is a powerful moment, says Rich.
Health Action Councils successful campaigns have
led to workers achieving greater respect from their
employers, including a small raise, the right for Somali
workers to pray during the work day, the right to bring
in their own food for lunch, the right to go to the
bathroom freely, as well as improved plant safety.
MIHP also has a project in Columbus Junction, Iowa.
In the 1980s, a pork processing plant now owned by
Tyson Foods opened up and began to recruit immi-
grants from Mexico, Central America and the Carib-
bean. These early immigrants have since settled and
established roots there. In 2008, because of federal
crackdowns and fears of raids on undocumented
workers, the plant fred hundreds of Latino workers,
replacing them with African American males recruited
from South Chicago to work with the remaining
Latinos in the plants. In mid-2009, recent refugees
from Burma with no English language abilities were
brought in as a third group of workers.
This practice is a formula to pit immigrants, refugees,
Latinos and African Americans against each other
inside the workplace. Using its relationship-building
techniques, MIHP has developed programs and strate-
gies to build worker alliances and win campaigns to
improve working conditions inside the plants.
34
LESSONS LEARNED
Time and efort building relationships is well spent.
MIHPs organizing approach emphasizes building re-
lationships. Organizer Carlos Rich spends many week-
ends at the laundromat doing his laundry when the
plant workers are doing their laundry, talking to them
and building relationships with them. Trust takes time
but investing time and effort pays off in the end.
Transfer the power to workers. Afer you develop
relationships with them, transfer the power to them,
says Rich. Most people want to do that, but dont.
MIHPs practice allows workers Health Action Coun-
cils to determine their issues, think about solutions,
and fgure out what they need to do. In MIHPs orga-
nizing style, the organizers role is to listen and under-
stand what the workers want and help them connect
to relevant entities or resources that will help them
reach their goal.

It is most valuable when workers can concretely show
they have their own space, have achieved their own
victories.
FUTURE PLANS
MIHP is proud of the steady progress they are mak-
ing and will expand their work to create stronger
bonds between Latino, Somali, African American,
Burmese and other workers. With the experience they
have gained in the last eight months, the plan is to
expand the alliance building work to other areas in
the Midwest, such as Western Kansas where there are
many Latinos and Somali workers.
miDWEst immigrAnt hEAlth ProJECt
35
BACKGROUND
1he Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance ,MIRA,
comes out o the rich soil o the Ciil Rights Moe-
ment in Mississippi and the history o partnership
between unions and black legislators to improe
workers` wages and rights in the State oer the past
twenty years. In 2000, Bill Chandler, a longtime white
union organizer in the South, called together clergy,
UNI1L-lLRL organizers, auto and communications
union workers, and leaders o the NAACP, Southern
Christian Leadership Conerence, the Republic o
New Arika, the Gul Coast Latin American Asso-
ciation and the Mississippi lispanic Association to
establish MIRA to adocate or the human rights o
immigrants and all workers in Mississippi.
1he rapidly growing Latino U.S.-born and immigrant
populations aced many challenges as they begin to
work in a system set on maintaining Mississippi as a
low-wage state. Immigrant workers, especially those
who are undocumented, ace ongoing exploitation
and unpaid wages. Oten when they try to conront
their abusie conditions, employers set them up or
arrest and deportation.
In 2008 in Laurel, Mississippi, Immigration and Cus-
toms Lnorcement oFcers ,ICL, executed the largest
raid at a single workplace in U.S. history, detaining
MISSISSIPPI IMMIGRANT RIGHTS ALLIANCE
!e vot ovt, bvita tbe orer of ivvigravt. for ivvigravt., bvt
for tbat orer to evbavce tbe .trvggte of .fricav .vericav. ritb
rbov tbe, .bare vvcb iv covvov. !e ravt to covvect eote to
getber rbo ritt be abte to ta/e orer frov tbe rbite .vrevaci.t
otigarcb, iv tbe .tate.
-itt Cbavater, MR. ecvtire Director
36
about 600 electrical plant workers. School districts in
Laurel, Jackson and other places in Mississippi have
refused to enroll Latino students.
As a membership-based organization, MIRA supports
the needs and rights of the immigrant population by
providing legal services, organizing, advocacy and
public education. MIRA has organized successful
direct actions by workers picketing contractors homes
and casinos over unpaid wages. Through these direct
actions, workers have been able to recover over one
million dollars of back pay. MIRAs pressure on the
Department of Labor has forced them to increase
their number of bilingual investigators, which was
previously one.
CROSS-RACIAL
ALLIANCE BUILDING
MIRAs goal is not only to address the abuses of im-
migrant workers but also to build a multiracial coali-
tion of African Americans, Latinos, Vietnamese and
progressive whites that will help to bring about pro-
gressive change in Mississippi. In a state where ninety
percent of white voters vote for Republican and white
candidates, the shifting demographics speeds up the
potential for Mississippi to become a majority people
of color state.
We not only build the power of immigrants for im-
migrants. That power can enhance the struggle of
African Americans with whom they share much in
common. We want to connect people together who
will be able to take power from the white suprema-
cist oligarchy in the state, says Bill Chandler, MIRAs
Executive Director.
MIRAs work with immigrants focuses on organizing
them to demand their rights as workers. At the same
time, MIRA helps immigrant workers to locate their
struggle in the context of the ongoing struggle in Mis-
sissippi of working people and African Americans deal-
ing with the same issues of exploitation and racism.
MIRAs board chair is State Representative Jim Evans,
a national AFL-CIO organizer and a leader in the Mis-
sissippi Legislative Black Caucus. He and the Caucus
have shaped the MIRAs effective legislative strategy.
MIRA actively educates and partners with the Legisla-
tive Black Caucus to stop anti-immigrant legislation
aimed at driving Latinos out of the state.
Since MIRA began its work, white supremacist legisla-
tors have introduced 230 anti-immigrant bills, includ-
ing bills to criminalize undocumented workers and
English-only laws to deny services and discriminate
against immigrants. With the leadership of the Black
Caucus, nearly all of the anti-immigrant legislation has
been defeated.
In February 2010, MIRA organized its annual Civic
Engagement Day and brought 200 immigrant workers,
ninety-eight percent of whom were undocumented,
from Gulfport/Biloxi, Laurel/Hattiesburg, and
Pascagoula/DIberville and other parts of Mississippi
to the State Capitol. They were welcomed by the Black
Caucus and the Speaker of the House and because
of the support from the Black Caucus and workers in
the capitol building, they did not have to go through
security. Immigrants heard from Black Caucus mem-
bers about the similarities in the history and struggles
of immigrants and African Americans and deepened
their understanding of what the Black Caucus does
and why it exists.
The leadership that the African American community
has provided over the decades has expanded the rights
of everybody else, including white working class
people, whether it be voting or economic rights, says
Chandler.
mississiPPi immigrAnt rights AlliAnCE
3
Immigrants met with 40 legislators, sharing their im-
migrant experiences and concerns about labor and
human rights and access to education. MIRA`s orga-
nized policy adocacy resulted in the deeat o the 16
anti-immigrant bills introduced in 2010, including a
28,g, agreement or police cooperation with ICL. It
also has resulted in the passage o our bills authored
by Arican American legislators that grant driers`
licenses to immigrants without social security num-
bers ,including reugees, asylees, students and people
with work authorizations,, proides bi-lingual court
interpreters, and guarantees access to public education
or children o all races and nationalities regardless o
status. 1hese bills are now Mississippi law.
MIRA is also working with Southern Lcho, a pre-
dominately Arican American organization, to get a
complete and accurate count in the 2010 Census. An
accurate census account o Arican Americans and
Latinos could signiFcantly aect reapportionment o
legislatie districts in aor o communities o color.
LLSSONS LLARNLD
Connecting the struggle of African Americans and
Latinos is essential. MIRA`s our bilingual organizers
constantly connect the struggle o Arican Americans
and Latinos in their door-to-door organizing and
building o MIRA`s predominantly Latino member-
ship base. As they organize Councils o Actiists
in neighborhoods, they teach ciil rights history to
Latino immigrants and connect immigrant rights with
ongoing struggles o people o color in the United
States through their newsletter, articles and discus-
sions. MIRA`s bi-monthly, bilingual newsletter is dis-
tributed in Latino and Arican American communities.

MIRA`s education and analysis draws on the 1830s
-1860s history o the Mexican army and Mexican
citizens reeing 5,000 Aricans enslaed on white
plantations in what is now south 1exas ater Mexico
abolished slaery. A key historical parallel is the shared
history o iolent pogroms and lynchings by the 1ex-
as Rangers and the Ku Klux Klan attempting to drie
Mexicans and Aricans Americans out o the South.
MISSISSIPPI IMMIGRANT RIGHTS ALLIANCE
38
mississiPPi immigrAnt rights AlliAnCE
MIRA has held four Unity Conferences, each bringing
in several hundred participants to foster alliance build-
ing among Latinos immigrants, African Americans,
Asians and African immigrants and to discuss local
and national issues.
An integrated staf and board help to build an inte-
grated movement. MIRA has a policy to have inte-
grated staff. MIRAs Legal Services Project is led by
African American woman, so that when immigrants
come to get legal support, they see who we are by
seeing our staff, says Chandler. MIRAs 15-member
board is made up of seven Latinos and seven African
Americans/Africans and one white member.
Cross-racial partnerships can lead to victories. Be-
sides its successful and innovative partnership with
the Black Caucus, MIRA has active and successful
partnerships with the NAACP chapter on the Gulf
Coast to address racial profling, establish jobs pro-
grams, and build a multiracial coalition in the wake
of Katrina. The NAACP in Biloxi has participated in
MIRAs advocacy efforts with state and city govern-
ments.
FUTURE PLANS
MIRAs ongoing legislative work includes proposing
legislation to set up a Department of Labor (Mis-
sissippi is one of the few state without one) and a
framework for bilingual education in the state. Locally,
MIRA is working on anti-racial profling ordinance in
Jackson modeled after an ordinance in Detroit which
protects both African Americans and immigrants. In
addition, MIRA is contemplating a lawsuit seeking
state funding for court interpreters. MIRA will also
continue its opposition to 287(g) agreements and
racial profling.
39
BACKGROUND
1he National Domestic \orkers Alliance ,ND\A,
unites 30 domestic workers` organizations in 15 di-
erent cities that are working to improe the liing and
working conditions o domestic workers across the
country. 1here are an estimated two million domestic
workers in the United States, mostly working in priate
homes. 1he majority are immigrant women o color.
lounded at the 200 U.S. Social lorum in Atlanta,
ND\A sets a national agenda or a workorce o nan-
nies, housekeepers and caregiers o the elderly and
deelops campaigns to create air labor standards and
protections or an industry, which has been histori-
cally excluded rom U.S. labor laws. Alliance member
organizations work with Caribbean, Arican, Latin
American, lilipino, Chinese, and South Asian women
workers and share a common analysis o globalization,
racism and patriarchy that impact immigrant domestic
workers` lies.
lounding organizations o ND\A include Domes-
tic \orkers United ,New \ork, N\,, Mujeres Uni-
das y Actias ,San lrancisco Bay Area, CA,, CASA
de Maryland ,Siler Spring, MD,, Damayan Mi-
grant \orkers Association ,New \ork, N\,, People
Oganized to \in Lmployment Rights ,PO\LR in
San lrancisco, CA,, Day Labor Program \omen`s
Collectie o La Raza Centro Legal ,San lrancisco,
CA,, ClIRLA ,Coalition or lumane Immigrant
Rights o Los Angeles,, Unity lousecleaners Coop-
eratie o the \orkplace Project ,Long Island, N\,,
laitian \omen or laitian Reugees ,Brooklyn, N\,,
Andolan - Organizing South Asian \orkers ,Jackson
leights, N\,, Las Mujeres de Santa Maria ,Staten Is-
NATIONAL DOMESTIC WORKERS ALLIANCE
!e covvect tbe bi.tor, of .tarer,, rbev .tare. rere fr.t brovgbt
ivto tbi. covvtr,. !ovev rere tacea to ror/ iv tbe bove. a. ao
ve.tic ror/er. ava vev rere tacea iv tbe feta. a. farv ror/er..
Mvcb of tbe .ave etoitatiov ava abv.e i. .titt goivg ov vor.
-]o,cet,v CittCavbett, Orgavier, Dove.tic !or/er. |vitea
40
land, N\,, and Pilipino \orkers` Center o Southern
Caliornia ,Los Angeles, CA,.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCL BUILDING
1he Alliance held its Frst eer National Congress
at New \ork`s Barnard College in June 2008. One
hundred participants rom 10 cities and 18 workers`
organizations around the country attended the three-
day gathering. 1ranslation was proided in lindi,
lrench, Swahili, Chinese, Spanish and Lnglish. At the
Congress, participants shared best practices, curricula,
inormation on green cleaning, and organizing experi-
ences. 1he Congress also deepened a shared political
ramework and analysis.
1he Congress made the connection between adanc-
ing our rights and welare and giing a global perspec-
tie on the roots o our problems,` says Joycelyn
Gill-Campbell, an organizer with Domestic \orker`s
United in New \ork, which helped to organize and
host the Congress.
Lducational workshops deeloped by the member
organizations addressed the history o the domestic
workers` industry beginning with the slae trade and
connecting it with modern-day globalization. \e
connect the history o slaery, when slaes were
Frst brought into this country. \omen were placed
to work in the homes as domestic workers and men
were placed in the Felds as arm workers. Much o
the same exploitation and abuse is still going on now,`
says Gill-Campbell.
\orkshops proide a deeper understanding o 1, ree
trade and globalization policies that hae displaced
labor, 2, racism and patriarchy that has persistently
dealued domestic work, and 3, the historic exclusion
o domestic workers rom basic workplace protec-
tions and labor standards or air wages and collectie
bargaining. 1he political education and raming o
domestic workers` struggles hae empowered many
undocumented women workers to speak openly about
the injustices they experience on the job.
\hen people realize that globalization has hurt them
and put them into these categories, they are more
willing to speak out,` says Gill-Campbell. Knowing
that there are organizations like the Alliance willing to
stand in solidarity with them against these injustices
helps them oercome their ears as undocumented
workers,` she adds.
41
LLSSONS LLARNLD
Culture work is important to building alliances.
\e build unity through culture,` says Gill-Campbell,
through dances, story, poetry, music, readings, impro-
isational skits about Coming to America.`` Culture
allows the women to express themseles and their
story. It is important to keep their cultural expression
and talent alie so they eel connected to their country.
It keeps them in touch with who they really are.`

lounding ND\A member Domestic \orkers United
has a Culture Committee and a bilingual ,Spanish-
Lnglish, choir. At ND\A gatherings, each o the
member organizations perorms and shares a part o
their cultural heritage.
Participatory democracy strengthens alliances.
ND\A emphasizes leadership deelopment that sup-
ports the political deelopment o domestic workers
in the organization and the broader moement. Prac-
ticing participatory democracy, the structure o the
Alliance acilitates the inolement and leadership o
the member organizations and their indiidual mem-
bers in the building and strengthening o the oerall
alliance.
Broadening alliances increases power. ND\A pri-
oritizes moement building among domestic workers
and other communities and workers in struggle. lor
example, the Alliance has entered into an historic
partnership with the AlL-CIO in a campaign aimed
at passing the Conention on the Rights o Domes-
tic \orkers at the International Labor Organization
,ILO,. 1he AlL-CIO will open up its delegation to
domestic workers and ND\A as a non-aFliate to
participate in the discussions at the ILO in Genea.
1he partnership is sering as a model or building a
labor moement that represents the interests o all
workers.
lU1URL PLANS
1he National Domestic \orkers Alliance is adancing
campaigns at local, national and international leels. It
is supporting campaigns in Caliornia and New \ork
or the passage o a Domestic \orkers` Bill o Rights
as well as other statewide legislatie proposals to de-
elop industry labor standards and basic protections
which hae neer beore existed in the history o the
United States. 1he New \ork State bill is poised to
pass during the 2010 legislatie session.
ND\A has also launched a national campaign to
push or regulatory reorms at the U.S. Department
o Labor that would signiFcantly improe the lies
and working conditions o domestic workers through-
out the country. linally, the Alliance is working with
domestic worker organizations and unions around
the world to ensure the successul passage o a strong
Conention on the Rights o Domestic \orkers at
the International Labor Organization in 2011.
42
BACKGROUND
People Organized 1o \in Lmployment Rights ,PO\-
LR, began in 199 with a ision o building unity
between Arican American and Latino low-income
workers and tenants to Fght the root causes o poerty
and oppression. laing an analysis that working class
and people o color had to come together to Fght the
root causes pushed us to do the diFcult work o bring-
ing Arican Americans and immigrants together,` says
Stee \illiams, PO\LR co-Lxecutie Director and
co-ounder.
PO\LR`s analysis o the root causes points to the
changing nature o capitalism that has altered the state
o work, leaing more and more people in a perma-
nent state o poerty. 1his analysis also articulates the
negatie role that the United States has played impact-
ing economies throughout the global south, orcing
more people to come to the United States and compete
or low-wage jobs. PO\LR began organizing wel-
are recipients who, due to the 1996 \elare Reorm
Laws, were required to do workare jobs preiously
done by union workers. Since then, PO\LR members
hae waged oer 20 campaigns addressing the shiting
economic and political terrain impacting the lies o
working class people.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCL BUILDING
In 1999, an increasing number o Latina women, many
undocumented, whose children were in the public
welare system, became inoled in the organization. As
the number o Latinas grew, misperceptions and ten-
sion between Latinas and Arican Americans became
more acute. Some Arican Americans oiced complaints
oer the cumbersomeness o translation at the meetings.
Many o the Latinas articulated sharp critiques o the
Arican American community: 1hey hae papers and
PEOPLE ORGANIZED TO WIN EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS
etivg eote vvaer.tava tbe rorta aifferevtt, tbrovgb otiticat
eavcatiov i. criticat to bvitaivg vvit,. !e`re att beev fea tie., bvt
ta.tivg vvit, i. ba.ea ov ovr abitit, to covvect ovr .trvggte. to otber
tbe .trvggte. of otber eote of cotor.
-tere !ittiav., PO!R Coecvtire Director
43
speak English. The only possible explanation for why
they dont have jobs must be because they are lazy.
We turned to political education to address the friction
between members. It was a turning point for the organi-
zation where we could have split apart, recalls Williams.
POWER initiated a mandatory 10-week process for the
leadership of the organization, ten African Americans
and ten Latinas. Leaders were told that at the end of the
10-weeks they were to make the decision whether or not
POWER should continue to be a multiracial organiza-
tion or split into two ethnic specifc groups.
In the frst session, the group broke into separate
African American and Latino groups, where they each
talked about the key problems in their communities and
what their perceptions of the other group were. The
frst session was followed by two sessions where lead-
ers studied the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the history
of African Americans, and viewed a flm clip from Alex
Haleys Roots.
Many of the Latinas said they had no idea about the
particular experience of African Americans and slavery.
They had thought that African Americans were just
another immigrant group who had come to the United
States at an earlier time. They had not been aware of
the clear legacies of slavery, says Williams.
This was followed by four sessions of study about the
history of U.S. military and economic interventions
throughout Latin America, focusing particularly on Ni-
caragua, including a flm about a Nicaraguan revolution-
arys personal story.
For African Americans this was profound. Many had
thought that Latin American countries were poor coun-
tries because people were lazy, and that people were
coming to the U.S. to take advantage of gains that had
been won through the Civil Rights Movement, says
Williams.
The fnal session mirrored the frst session with people
reviewing the top concerns of their particular communi-
ties and revisiting the future of the organization. The
leaders unanimously voted for POWER to continue
to be a multiracial organization. Through this process,
POWER staff and leadership sharpened their collective
analysis about the nature and history of US imperialism,
white supremacy and patriarchy.
This experience has led to a deeper political conscious-
ness among POWER members of the value of being a
multiracial organization. Individual members have taken
a leading role promoting multiracial alliances through-
out the larger movement. African American POWER
members have become advocates of language rights and
translation for non-English speakers in other commu-
nity meetings and formed an African American contin-
gent in the marches for immigrant rights. Latina POW-
ER members have stood up against anti-black racism
within the Latino community. As they have discussed
the need for legalization of undocumented workers,
they have connected that issue to the larger fght for the
political enfranchisement of those with felony convic-
tions who are denied the right to vote.
When POWERs Latina Women Workers Project waged
a campaign targeting the San Francisco Police Depart-
ment for the systemic impoundment of cars driven by
undocumented drivers, they chose the term racial pro-
fling in the name of their campaign to connect with
the experiences of African Americans. Though other
members of immigrant rights groups were reluctant to
link the issue to racial justice, the women were insistent.
In 2005, POWER began two organizing campaigns that
focus on separate issues directly affecting their different
member constituencies. The Bayview Organizing Proj-
ect organizes low-income residents against gentrifcation
in the last remaining African American neighborhood in
San Francisco. The Women Workers Project organizes
Latina domestic workers.
PEoPlE orgAnizED to Win EmPloymEnt rights
44
POWER recognizes the importance of people work-
ing on campaigns that most directly affect them. At
the same time, the organization has been intentional
in creating opportunities for members to build re-
lationship, deepen political education together, and
engage in common campaigns. Amandla is a POWER
project that brings together leaders in each of the
campaigns to address issues of concern to both their
constituencies. In 2007, Amandla African American
and Latino members joined the successful campaign
to kick Junior ROTC out of San Francisco schools.
LESSONS LEARNED
Analysis and ongoing political education are essential
to building multiracial unity. POWERs ongoing po-
litical education has been critical to sharpen peoples
consciousness, provide tools for understanding the
world, and develop leadership.

The POWER University 100 series is a nine-week
class geared towards new members to introduce
the idea of multiracial unity and the importance of
organizing in the changing economy and to teach
practical skills. The POWER University 200 Series is
for emerging leaders in the organization to learn about
the ways in which patriarchy, white supremacy, impe-
rialism and the U.S. social movements impact working
class peoples lives.

Fantastic Fridays is a discussion space for members to
talk about issues happening in the world. In the Har-
riet Tubman Book Club, members read and discuss
books about different social movement histories in
the world and how they relate to experiences in the
United States. In 2006, POWER published its own
book, Towards Land, Work & Power, offering a plat-
form to unite African American, Latinos and other
communities of color.
Addressing diferences in how racism and economic
exploitation are experienced by diferent racial
groups is important. POWER has learned that it is
important to directly address the different realities
that racial groups experience instead of just talking
about the similarities. Addressing the differences is an
important step to seeing the common root causes of
a system that exploits low-income workers in different
ways.

For example, in terms of jobs and employment, the
African American community experiences high levels
of unemployment and structural dislocation from the
formal workforce. In the Latino community, people
are working several jobs, overworked, but underpaid
or not paid at all.

We have to acknowledge the differences and deepen
our ability to explain the different realities and talk
about where those differences came from. Only then
people are willing to move forward, says Williams.
Interpersonal relationships matter in building alliances.
A large part of political solidarity work is building in-
terpersonal relationships. People have incredible soli-
darity and respect for each others food, says Williams.
Through cooking contests, sharing food and playing
charades across language barriers, people have built
social bonds with one another. The cross-racial relation-
ship-building skills have proven valuable as POWER
expanded its multiracial unity building to include low-
income Chinese workers from the Chinese Progressive
Association.
FUTURE PLANS
POWER is determining what the next joint campaign
will be that will beneft both the Latino and African
American communities, possibly focusing on jobs or
free public transportation.
PEoPlE orgAnizED to Win EmPloymEnt rights
45
POWER OF A MILLION MINDS COLLABORATIVE
BACKGROUND
1he Power o a Million Minds Collaboration was
ormed in 2008 bringing together seeral youth orga-
nizing groups rom across New Orleans with a shared
commitment to increase educational equity and to
change the uture or young people in the city. Orga-
nizations in the collaboratie include the Vietnamese
American \oung Leaders Association o New Orleans
,VA\LA,, lyre \outh Squad ,l\S, and \oung Adults
Striing or Success ,\ASS,, projects o the Juenile
Justice Project o Louisiana, which are both predomi-
nantly Arican American, Kids Rethink New Orleans
,Rethink,, which has a dierse group o members, and
the newest member added this year, the LatiNOLA
\outh Leadership Council o Puentes New Orleans.
Lach o the organizations has its own particular
emphasis but shares a common commitment to
education reorm in New Orleans. \ASS ocuses on
education and juenile justice. Rethink adocates or
a youth oice around the rebuilding o New Orleans`
public schools. VA\LA concentrates on youth em-
powerment, education and enironmental justice. l\S
ocuses on education and economic disparities, and
LatiNOLA directs its eorts toward improing educa-
tion and language access. 1hey all share a commit-
ment to be sae spaces or queer youth.
1he cross-racial collaboratie oers promising po-
tential in a city where racial diisions are entrenched,
schools are largely segregated, and tensions hae
emerged among Latinos, Vietnamese and Arican
Americans. In the atermath o lurricane Katrina, an
innux o migrant and guest workers, predominately
Latinos, came to New Orleans to work in construc-
tion and rebuilding the city. 1he Vietnamese com-
!e`re got to brea/ aorv cvttvrat .tereot,e.. v.teaa of goivg to
a forvv ava tr,ivg to etaiv, re`re got to .bor tbev bor re are
.ivitar ava rbat va/e. v. vviqve. !e .borea tbev tbat re va,
too/ aifferevt bvt re .bare tbe .ave .trvggte. a. otber ,ovvg eote.
- Mivb ^gv,ev, ecvtire Director, 1ietvave.e .vericav Yovvg eaaer. ...ociatiov
46
munity arrived in New Orleans in the mid 1970s
at the end of the Vietnam War. At that time, about
2,000 Vietnamese refugees were resettled into Section
8 housing in remote East New Orleans, where they
established their community.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCE BUILDING
Cross-racial alliance building is a new experience for
many of the youth in the collaborative. For VAYLAs
executive director, Minh Nguyen, who was born and
raised in New Orleans, working together across racial
lines is a dream come true.
I frst started my education in a predominantly Af-
rican-American elementary school, then an all Cau-
casian private school and I lived in the Vietnamese
community. My parents worked in an African Ameri-
can community and I have been exposed to the Latino
community. I have personally seen all the parts of our
community but Ive never seen everybody in the same
space working together.
The frst year of the collaborative emphasized becom-
ing more aware of one anothers issues and communi-
ties. Each organization committed to attending regular
meetings of the other organizations to learn about
their missions and campaigns and to observe their dif-
ferent and similar styles of leadership and work. Each
organization also hosted a big social event for the
others to attend and meet their communities. VAYLA
invited others to attend their annual Halloween fes-
tival. FYS held a big concert and Rethink invited the
other groups to a picnic.
Weve got to break down cultural stereotypes. Instead
of going to a forum and trying to explain, weve got
to show them how we are similar and what makes us
unique. We showed them that we may look differ-
ent, but we share the same struggles as other young
people, says Nguyen.
By visiting one anothers communities, youth got to
see different realities in the city and different com-
munity youth spaces. FYS meets at John McDonogh
Senior High School in the Trem neighborhood,
YASS is in the Central City, Rethink is based down-
town, LatiNOLA is in Gert Town and VAYLA is in
New Orleans East.
In January 2010, the Collaborative held its frst three-
day retreat that brought together 40 African-American,
Caucasian, Latino, and Vietnamese youth, ranging in
age from preteens to early twenties. A cross-racial
committee of youth had spent nearly a year meeting
biweekly to plan the retreat. At the retreat, partici-
pants were placed into groups mixed by organization
and gender. The agenda included youth-led trainings
on policies, organizing strategies and identifying issues
of common concern.
In this short time as a collaborative, the executive
directors and youth leaders of the organizations have
formed strong bonds of friendship and support. They
have been meeting biweekly, writing grants with each
other on behalf of the collaborative, and leveraging
staff and other resources to support common work.
Collaborative members participated in a photography
PoWEr of A million minDs CollABorAtivE
47
project exhibited at City Hall called Through the
Youth Lens, featuring photos of the conditions in
their schools. They also were organizational hosts of
the Youth Organizing Convening that brought to-
gether representative of 125 youth organizations from
across the country in New Orleans. Collaborative
members also support one other at press conferences
and campaign events.
Nguyen refects, Instead of us fghting as multiple
organizations, we are now fghting as one large voice.
They see Vietnamese, Caucasian, African American,
Latino and others. It says: You mess with one of us,
you mess with all of us.
LESSONS LEARNED:
A foundation of strong relationships must anchor a
cross-racial alliance. The Collaborative has taken the
time to form a strong foundation of interpersonal
relationships that has created the motivation to in-
vest in building the alliance. This has helped to break
down stereotypes not only among youth but has also
impacted parents and elders in their communities.
Nguyen recounts the experience at the funeral of a
Vietnamese youth that was attended by African Amer-
ican youth. When the Vietnamese elders in the com-
munity saw other youth of color crying and showing
sympathy, it changed their perceptions.
Providing transportation is important to insuring
participation. One of the main challenges the Power
of Million Minds Collaborative faces is transportation.
Getting youth who live racially and regionally separated
to come together for youth meetings is a key part of
the Collaboratives strategy. However, the lack of good,
reliable, and affordable public transportation in New
Orleans stretches organizations resources and staff
capacity.
FUTURE PLANS

Out of the retreat, the Collaborative will be launching
a joint campaign around educational equity in the city
of New Orleans and will continue the effort to shape
the future of youth.
PoWEr of A million minDs CollABorAtivE
48
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becove vore arare ava vvaer.tavaivg of ivvigravt. ava
vatire eote. ritbiv Mi..i..ii. t ba. vaae v. better attie.
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-ero, ]obv.ov, ecvtire Director ava cofovvaer of ovtberv cbo
SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST EXPERIMENT
BACKGROUND
South by Southwest Lxperiment ,SxS\, is a shared
program o Southern Lcho based in Jackson, Missis-
sippi, Southwest \orkers Organizing Project ,S\OP,
based in New Mexico and the Southwest \orkers
Union ,S\U, headquartered in San Antonio, 1exas.
All three organizations hae long established track
records building grassroots leadership and community
change.
Southern Lcho, ormed in 1989, is an education and
training organization that deelops grassroots leader-
ship in the Arican American communities in rural
Mississippi. S\U was ounded in 1988 to organize
and build leadership o predominantly Latino low-
income workers, youth and amilies or worker rights
and economic and enironmental justice. S\OP has
been organizing and empowering low-income com-
munities and communities o color across the state o
New Mexico since 1980. Leading sta o the three
organizations hae had long-standing relationships
and ongoing dialogue about connecting black, brown
and red communities and struggles.
In the wake o the natural and human-created disas-
ters o lurricane Katrina in 2005, the three orga-
nizations organized a People`s lreedom Caraan o
olunteers rom New Mexico, 1exas and Mississippi
to the Gul Coast to address some o the immediate
human needs.
49
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCE BUILDING
Out of the Caravan experience, in 2006 the three or-
ganizations began SxSW to develop sustained work to
connect peoples and communities across racial, cul-
tural, language and geographical barriers that tend to
divide communities in the South and Southwest. The
intention was to go beyond the alliances and collabo-
ration that they had done together in the past to build
a deeper process of partnership and trust.
The program began with three to four staff from each
of the three organizations coming together for a retreat
to deepen relationships and organizational understand-
ing. This involved a layered process of three days of
storytelling, listening and mapping. They began with
sharing their personal life road maps and what brought
them to the work they do. This was followed with shar-
ing organizational road maps that spoke of the people,
conditions and history that brought the organizations
into being. Lastly they shared road maps, timelines and
histories of each state.
By the end of three days, we had a complex road map
that spoke to who we are as people, what we are as or-
ganizations, and where we come from, recalled Leroy
Johnson, Executive Director and a founding member
of Southern Echo.
Based on the transformative experience of that frst
retreat, the three organizations made a commitment
to replicate the exchanges beyond the level of staff
and include board members, youth and elders in their
respective organizations. We pledged that whenever
we got together we would have at least 45 people.
Each organization would bring 15 people from each
state from their membership and partner organiza-
tions, says Johnson.
Despite the cost and diffculty of bringing large
groups of people together across state lines, in three
and a half years, SxSW held six gatherings through-
out the three states bringing together a total of 300
people. The exchanges incorporated a process for
sharing individual, organization and historical state
road maps and discussing common historical realities
of colonialism, slavery, and racial subjugation of Afri-
can Americans, Latinos and Native Americans across
the Southwest and South. They also included the shar-
ing of cooking and cultures. Groups brought bands,
taught line dances, and barbecued for each other.
Its not just talking about who you are, but sharing the
living out of who you are, says Johnson.
The result has been not just the building deeper cross-
racial organizational relationships with one another
across states, but also greater cross-racial alliances
within their individual states. Through the South by
Southwest activities and processes, weve become more
aware and understanding of immigrants and native
peoples within Mississippi. It has made us better allies
for immigrant and indigenous rights, says Johnson.
In 2009, SxSW gathered together 50 persons from
across the three states, half of whom were young
people ages 13-21. They discussed and developed
four areas of joint work that will be carried out by
cross-regional committees. These include the Peoples
Freedom Caravan II traveling from New Mexico,
Texas and Mississippi to the 2010 U.S. Social Forum
in Detroit to be organized by the youth; a curriculum
based on the SxSW process developed over the past
four years, addressing shared history and shared strat-
egies for coming together; census and redistricting
work; and developing new models of local democratic
governance and community budgeting.
soUth By soUthWEst ExPErimEnt
50
LLSSONS LLARNLD
Alliances built upon relations are stronger than
those that are issue-driven. SxS\ was committed
to a process that was drien by relationships. 1hey
learned that it takes time to time to build trust and
not to let the issues or unding to drie it. Oten the
process was not unded, and they had to rely on using
general support and t-shirt sales. 1hey learned that i
the relationships are solid and built on loe or each
other, that the commitment to each other will be there
across time.
e exchange of culture and sharing food are impor-
tant ways to build relationships. 1he sharing o ood,
music and culture is just as important as sharing analy-
ses and political perspecties. 1hrough the intentional
SxS\ process, people could share who they really are
and deelop strong bonds.
Developing youth leadership can help push the
alliance building process. \outh leadership and inter-
generational gatherings and processes are important
to SxS\, though leaders admit that they hae been
challenged to be responsie to young people. 1he
pace they pushed us is aster than we knew we could
go,` says Johnson. In SxS\, the young people hae
played an important role in documentation, technology
transers and organizing.
SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST EXPERIMENT
51
SUNFLOWER COMMUNITY ACTION
BACKGROUND
Oer the past ten years, Sunnower Community Action
,SCA, has become a multiracial community organiz-
ing and adocacy organization in the state o Kansas.
Begun as a predominantly Arican American group
with a handul o whites, SCA began tackling issues
o concern in \ichita`s Arican American neighbor-
hoods, such as the unequal distribution o city ser-
ices, negligent landlords and abusie utility company
practices.
In 1999, SCA`s board, at the time comprised largely o
Arican American neighborhood leaders, made the de-
cision to hire a Latino organizer to organize lispanic
1

people moing into \ichita. 1his decision to become
1 SCA uses the terms Latino/a and Hispanic interchangeably.
This report reects the terminology used by the interviewee.
a multiracial organization stemmed rom an awareness
that lispanic neighbors were acing the same issues
and that in order to Fght on broad issues in the city,
it would take more than black olks to Fght it,` ac-
cording to SCA Deelopment Director Dorlan Bales.
CROSS-RACIAL
ALLIANCL BUILDING
1oday SCA has 30 members, hal o whom are
Latino, about thirty percent black and twenty percent
white. 1here are two lispanic and primarily Spanish-
speaking chapters, a mostly black chapter, a student
chapter and a new chapter emerging in Northeast
Kansas that is racially mixed. Lach chapter identiFes
its own key issues, yet chapters oten support one
another`s campaigns.
Cro.. Raciat .ttiavce bvitaivg ba. eavaea ovr orgaviatiov`.
ri.iov of it.etf ava it. vi..iov. .. vvttiraciat eote fgbtivg for
cbavge, re bare vore orer!
-Dortav ate., Deretovevt Director, vvforer Covvvvit, .ctiov
52
In 2003, the lispanic chapter identiFed three issues:
1, the lack o access to driers licenses or undocu-
mented immigrants, 2, the lack o access to bank
accounts by undocumented immigrants, 3, the lack
o capacity o state oFces and departments to sere
Spanish-speaking residents due to the dearth o trans-
lation serices and sta awareness. 1hese were issues
that could not be addressed
locally but required
adocacy at the state
leel, which lead to
SCA`s Frst big state
rally in 1opeka in
2003 ocused on im-
migrant rights. Black
members o SCA
supported the rally
and stood together
with lispanic chapter
members.
In total, 2,000 people
attended in reezing
temperatures, 1,500
whom were lispanic, plus 500 who were a mix o
blacks and whites. 1his sizable demonstration o a
cross-racial alliance shocked Kansas legislators and led
to passage o in-state college tuition rates or undocu-
mented Kansas high school graduates.
Leadership deelopment and training is a key compo-
nent o SCA`s organizing work. Once or twice a year,
SCA conducts a twenty-hour Democracy School or
its members attended largely by Arican Americans
and lispanics. Based on a curriculum deeloped
by the Center or Community Change, the trainings
start with history. 1he curriculum lays the theoretical
ground work beyond any one issue, raming a history
o struggle rom the U.S. Ciil Rights Moement, to
Cesar Chaez and the arm worker moement, to the
role o young people and the immigrant rights moe-
ment.
Brown people oten don`t know much about the Ciil
Rights Moement and black people don`t know much
about current immigration struggles and abuses. Once
they hear those stories, they see how much they hae
in common,` says
Bales.
Unity and cross-
racial understand-
ing between the
chapters is built
through other lead-
ership trainings and
Saturday meetings
that bring the chap-
ters together to tell
their stories ,with
translation, and to
deelop strategies.
SCA has continued
to organize cross-racially and adocate or
joint concerns at the state capitol, eery year select-
ing two or three o the most pressing issues identiFed
by the membership. Cross-racial alliance building has
helped SCA go broader than \ichita.
Beore that, we were just an organization in one
neighborhood. Going multiracial helped us to think o
the whole city and now we see ourseles as a state leel
organization working on state leel issues,` says Bales.

SCA is also part o the National People`s Action, a
network o 26 mostly Arican American and white or-
ganizations in 16 states that has historically addressed
lending and housing issues. SCA proides NPA`s
strongest leadership on immigration rights issues.
SUNFLOWER COMMUNITY ACTION
53
sUnfloWEr CommUnity ACtion
LESSONS LEARNED
Focus on shared struggle. SCA focuses on the com-
monality that is bigger than either of the two interest
groups. SCA has campaigned on issues that members
share in common across the racial divide, such as
predatory lending, foreclosures, racial profling and
police accountability. After three years, SCA, together
with partner organizations, won a campaign for
greater police accountability. Video cameras have been
installed in Wichita police cars as a pilot program with
plans to expand it.
Tink bigger and partner with others to win. Even
a small organization can think bigger and look for
people outside their own group to partner with and
expand their work. You dont need to wait until you
are big to do this. Partner. Open up your group by
making translation available. Give new folks leader-
ship opportunities, says Bales.
FUTURE PLANS
Hispanics in Southwest Kansas asked SCA to help
them to organize into a chapter and a new chapter is
forming in Northeast Kansas. With these two new
additions, there will be an SCA chapter in each of the
four congressional districts in the state. This will en-
able SCA to fex more muscle as a statewide organiza-
tion. Goals include increasing membership to handle
multiple issues on SCAs agenda and to possibly start
an SCA sister organization in Oklahoma.
54
Cro..raciat attiavce. bare vaae v. a .trovger orgaviatiov,
ava tbe airer.it, ba. .trevgtbevea ovr cavaigv..
- ]eavve Ceraci, 1oce. ...ociate Director
VOCES DE LA FRONTERA
BACKGROUND
Voces de la lrontera in \isconsin is a membership-
based organization that educates low-wage and immi-
grant workers about employment rights and promotes
grassroots immigrant leadership. Voces operates
workers` centers in Milwaukee and Racine and is a
regional leader in statewide immigrant reorm cam-
paigns. Lmerging out o a Latino American history
class at a Racine high school in 2003, Voces ounded
its Frst youth chapter or Latino students, called Stu-
dents United or Immigrant Rights ,SUlRIR,. Voces
now has ten high school chapters in Milwaukee and
Racine ranging in size rom 5 to 30 core members.
CROSS RACIAL
ALLIANCL BUILDING
Voces` leading cross-racial alliance building work has
been at the high schools through the youth chapters.
In 2006, the teacher-adiser to SUlRIR taught an
Arican American history class at a Racine high school.
Students in the class ormed an Arican American
student ciil rights club called Students United in the
Struggle ,SUI1S,, which was modeled ater SUlRIR.
1he two clubs began supporting each other`s eents
and since 2006 hae cooperatiely participated in
three successul campaigns together.
55
In 2003, SUFRIR began organizing a campaign for
in-state tuition fees for undocumented immigrant stu-
dents. Together, beginning in 2006, SUFRIR and
SUITS led mobilizations, lobbying and testifying at
the State Capitol in Madison.
In 2007, SUITS initiated a campaign pushing for the
recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a school
holiday in the Racine Unifed School District. Supported
by SUFRIR, SUITS organized a citywide signature cam-
paign. At school board meetings, Latino students testi-
fed that the many issues Martin Luther King advocated
for are still issues right now in Racine.
In 2008 both groups worked together in a massive
get-out-the-vote campaign involving a racially mixed
group of 400 students in Racine. The core of 30 SU-
FRIR and SUITS students held meetings to plan the
campaign strategy and events.
It was a united effort, says Melanie Benesh, Voces
Youth Organizer. The students decided that it would
make a stronger message to go out knocking on doors
in multiracial teams to refect the racial unity that the
city needs to see, says Benesh.
Leadership training and learning about each others
issues happens contextually during biweekly chapter
meetings or during the course of the campaigns. Vo-
ces also conducts a leadership retreat every year bring-
ing Milwaukee and Racine youth members together.
The political education curriculum addresses rac-
ism, oppression and the role race has played to keep
people divided. Students watch several videos about
youth organizing, including The Truth about Blacks
and Latinos.
The year 2009 was a year of victories. The two-year
student-led campaign for the Martin Luther King
Day holiday was victorious. January 2010 was the frst
time the holiday was recognized. Students helped to
plan Racines frst all-day celebration event, includ-
ing a morning of community service, an afternoon
of social justice workshops, and an evening commu-
nity banquet, which expressed a message of African
American and Latino unity. In 2009, the students also
won the campaign for in-state tuition for undocu-
mented students in Wisconsin with the passage of a
bill in the state legislature.
The impact of the cross-racial alliance has been signif-
icant in the lives of the students themselves. Friend-
ships have formed and racial barriers are breaking
down in the high school where the demographic of
the school are forty-fve percent white, thirty percent
African American and twenty-fve percent Latino.
When we build leadership among African Ameri-
can and Latino students, it helps to break down the
segregation within the schools, says Benesh. The
minority students are the most isolated students in the
school. When they see students of different colors
fghting for them, it helps them academically and en-
courages them to become leaders. It has changed the
culture of the school.
In 2010, the students at Racine High School requested
that they no longer have two separate clubs and
voted to combine the Latino and African American
clubs under the new name Youth Empowered in the
Struggle (YES!). The groups members are Latino, Af-
rican American and white. Several of the other Voces
chapters are also becoming multiracial and adopting
the new name.
voCEs DE lA frontErA
56
LESSONS LEARNED
Providing opportunities for cross-racial contextual
learning is important to relationship building and
alliance building. Each year Voces conducts a Lead-
ership Trip to Washington, D.C. for a group of ten
youth leaders that is invaluable for deepening per-
sonal relationships, bonding and learning. This year
it was an intentional mix of students of different
races and academic achievement levels. Students meet
with representatives of the Center for Community
Change, the Washington bureau of NAACP, United
We Dream (Dream Act students) and the Holocaust
Museum.
High schools are excellent places for alliance build-
ing. High schools are locations of great potential to
build multiracial alliances among students. Voces cred-
its the strong relationships it has with teachers within
the schools. Every new student chapter of Voces was
initiated by a student or teacher. The teacher-advisors
for the clubs have been instrumental in getting stu-
dents involved and shaping the consciousness of
students through the content of their classes.
Find a unifying issue. It is very important to fnd a
unifying issue that equally affects both communities
and promotes strategic unity. Though Voces primary
goal is immigration, they have found other issues to
build bridges with the African American community
such as school board issues, job creation and civic
engagement.
FUTURE PLANS
Racines unifed student chapter under their new name
YES! is selecting their next multiracial justice issue
campaign. They are considering educational spend-
ing, racial profling and the role of the police in high
schools. In addition, they continue to work on immi-
gration reform and the Dream Act.
Voces is working on further developing and expanding
its political education curriculum for adults and youth.
Voces also plans to develop more workshops to go
beyond the annual leadership retreat.
When we build leadership among
African American and Latino students,
it helps to break down the segregation
within the schools. When students see
students of different colors fghting for
them, it helps them academically and
encourages them to become leaders. It
has changed the culture of the school.
Melanie Benesh, Youth Organizer,
Voces de la Frontera
voCEs DE lA frontErA
57
The experiences of organizations profled in this
report suggest that building cross-racial alliances,
though challenging in every instance, strengthens
organizations, builds more successful campaigns, and
enhances movement building across cities, states and
regions. The impact of these alliances reverberates far
beyond merely garnering more support for immigrant
rights or an African American issue. These alliances
are weaving a much stronger social movement for
economic, racial and social justice.
The participants in this report recommended that
cross-racial alliance building can be strengthened by
philanthropic support in the following ways:
Support solidarity and relationship building
activities.
The majority of the groups interviewed said that
funders should support the building of solidarity and
relationships between and among racial groups. The
process of building unity, relationships and solidar-
ity is as important as the product or campaign. These
processes are crucial to building shared interest, com-
mon identity and effective campaigns.
Cross-racial alliance building work takes time
and requires intentionality and commitment,
so long-term strategic funding is important.
Immediate results may not be apparent, so it is im-
portant for funders to see and appreciate the small
movements happening on the ground. Funding cross-
cultural work and processes that build understanding
and unity is valuable.
As Leroy Johnson of Southern Echo (SxSW) put it,
Relationship building and alliance building have to be
sustained over periods of time. Its taken us hundreds
of years to get into this mess; it will take more than
three years to get out of it.
Solidarity that is focused not just on supporting one
anothers issues but that is also rooted in deeper
relationship and analysis of common struggle can lay
the groundwork for decades of partnership and social
change. The fact that several of the organizations
outlined in this report emerge out of past alliances
and working relationships shows that investing in the
development of strong leaders rooted in cross racial
analysis strengthens the broader social movement.
Support the efforts of African American
groups to build alliances with immigrant
groups.
A great deal of the funding for cross-racial alliance
building goes to immigrant rights organizations, par-
ticularly those attempting to build relationships with
African American communities. BAJI and Highlander
were especially vocal in saying that increased fund-
ing should also go to African American-led groups
that have alliance-building initiatives with immigrant
groups, especially in the U.S. South. Alliance build-
ing efforts have a much greater chance of success if
both sides of the equation have adequate dedicated
resources. Organizations should also be supported to
hire staff people of other races to do cross-racial alli-
ance building work.
Become catalysts for cross-racial dialogue.
Funders can do more than fund projects. They can
be a catalyst for cross-racial dialogue and learning.
Funders can create valuable spaces and opportuni-
ties that support critical dialogues between African
rECommEnDAtions to fUnDErs
58
Americans and immigrants or immigrant rights al-
lies and criminal justice adocates. Groups like CIO,
lighlander, Power and the SxS\ collaboration hae
created ery powerul spaces or dialogue that hae
opened up opportunities or deeper cross-racial un-
derstandings o historical and cultural contexts across
many diides.
Invest in the development of cross-racial
analysis and education.
lunders should inest in
cross-racial analysis deel-
opment, education and
training or sta, mem-
bers and constituents as
a cornerstone o success
or cross-racial alliances
and campaigns.
1hey can help grassroots
organizations hire skilled
acilitators and educators,
an expense they might
not otherwise be able to
aord. lunders can also
support the deelopment
and systematization o in-house curriculum modules
that address speciFc audiences and particular regional
or political contexts.
Inesting resources and time in solid and ongoing
educational processes pays o. Proiding unding or
trael and peer exchanges to allow groups to deelop
relationships at both the personal and organizational
leel, like SxS\, can also be a worthwhile inestment.
I nv e s t i n e x p e r i me nt at i on and
ne w appr oac he s .
lunders should inest in experimentation and new ap-
proaches. Organizations that hae ormed cross-racial
alliances in their organizations, regions or across the
country hae done so in response to shiting circum-
stances, crises and new opportunities. lunders can
inest in experimentation, new approaches, practices
and methodologies which organizations deelop to
adapt to shits in their demographic, economic and
political contexts. lor
example, SxS\ is an
initiatie that is largely
ununded. 1he partners
could hae greater im-
pact i more resources
were aailable. Much
o BAJI`s approach has
also been deeloped
through trying dierent
approaches and assessing
what has had impact.
Provide resources for leadership development
and the engagement of young people.
Inesting in the leadership deelopment and engage-
ment o young people connected to larger organiza-
tions and moements taps a rich potential or cross-
racial alliances and long-term social change. lighlander,
PO\LR, Power o a Million Minds, SxS\ and Voces
all joined in making this recommendation.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO FUNDERS
African American ministers from Oakland, Calif. march with
local Latino ministers in Phoenix on May 29, 2010 against SB1070.
59
Help build the capacity of organizations to
provide translation and interpretation.
Seeral o the groups, including lighlander, PO\LR
and KI\A hae placed a premium on high-leel trans-
lation and interpretation serices as a prerequisite to
eectie relationship and alliance building. 1hey hae
deoted scarce resources to insure that their members
and constituents can communicate with one another.
Support the use of culture and art as
relationship building tools.
1he Power o a Million Minds Collaboratie is the
most obious example o the alue o groups and
indiiduals coming together or cross-cultural un-
derstanding and relationship building. SxS\ also
exempliFes the results o coming together without an
immediate campaign.
Groups such as PO\LR and Voces hae also made
culture and art an integral part o their approach to
relationship building.
lood sharing, story telling, and cultural exchanges can
be entry points into establishing deep and long lasting
relationships across racial and ethnic diides. 1hese
encounters may not yield immediate results in terms
o a winning a campaign or a policy change. loweer,
in the long term, they can produce lasting bonds o
riendship and solidarity.
Provide general support for movement
building spaces and convenings.
Gatherings at the local, state and regional leels can
be a boon to moement building, as groups come to-
gether to build relationships, exchange strategies and
share resources.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO FUNDERS
A delegation of African Americans and black immigrants led by the Black
Alliance for Just Immigration gather with members of Coalicin de Derechos
Humanos at the border wall at the U.S.-Mexico border near Tucson.
60
Beloved Community Center (BCC)
P.O. Box 875, Greensboro, NC 27402
www.belovedcommunitycenter.org
Phone: (336) 230-0001
Wesley Morris, Community Organizer,
wesleym@belovedcommunitycenter.org
Joseph Frierson, Greensboro Truth and Community
Reconciliation Project Coordinator,
josephf@belovedcommunitycenter.org
Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)
1212 Broadway, Suite 812
Oakland, CA 94612
www.blackalliance.org
(510) 663-2254
Gerald Lenoir, Director,
gerald@blackalliance.org
Phil Hutchings, Senior Organizer,
phil@blackalliance.org
Casa de Maryland (CASA)
734 University Boulevard East
Silver Spring, MD 20903
www.casademaryland.org
(301) 431-4185
David Thurston,
Anti-racism Organizer and Educator
Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO)
700 N. Killingsworth Street
Portland, Oregon 97217
www.interculturalorganizing.org
(503) 287-4117
Kayse Jama, Executive Director,
kayse@interculturalorganizing.org
Families for Freedom (FFF)
3 West 29th Street
New York, New York 10001
www.familiesforfreedom.org
Phone: (646) 290-5551
Janis Rosheuvel, Executive Director,
janis@familiesforfreedom.org
Garden State Alliance for a New Economy (GANE)
401 Avon Ave. Newark, NJ 07108
www.ganenj.org
(973) 623-0967
Wayne Richardson, President, Laborers Local 55,
wayne-richardson@hotmail.com
Highlander Research and Education Center
1959 Highlander Way
New Market, TN 37820
www.highlandercenter.org
(865) 933-3443
Mnica Hernndez, Education Team,
Hernandez@highlandercenter.org
Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA)
3465 West 8th Street, 2nd foor,
Los Angeles, CA 90005
www.kiwa.org
(213) 738-9050
Eileen Ma, Campaign Director,
Eileen@kiwa.org
Midwest Immigrant Health Project (MIHP)
Center for New Community
P.O. Box 479327
Chicago, Illinois 60647
www.newcomm.org
(312) 266-0319
Carlos Rich, Iowa, Immigrant Organizer,
carlos@newcomm.org
APPEnDix i:
ORGANIzATIONS INTERVIEWED AND CONTACTS
61
Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (MIRA)
P.O. Box 1104
Jackson, MS 39215
www.yourmira.org
Phone: (601) 968-5182
Bill Chandler, Executive Director,
b.chandler@yourmira.org
National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA)
c/o Mujeres Unidas y Activas
3543 18th Street, #23
San Francisco, CA 94110
www.nationaldomesticworkeralliance.org
(510)7 61-6392
Jill Shenker, NDWA National Organizer,
jillndwa@gmail.com
Joycelyn Gill-Campbell,
Domestic Workers United Organizer,
(212) 481-5747,
joycedwu@gmail.com
Power of A Million Minds Youth Collaborative
(PMMC)
c/o Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association
of New Orleans (VAYLA-NO)
P.O. Box 870366
New Orleans, LA 70187-0366
www.vayla-no.org
504-253-6000
Minh Nguyen, Executive Director of VAYLA,
minh@vayla-no.org
People Organized to Win Employment Rights
(POWER)
335 South Van Ness Ave., 2nd Floor
www.peopleorganized.org
(415) 864-8372
Steve Williams, Co-Executive Director,
steve@peopleorganized.org

Sunfower Community Action (SCA)
2201 E. 13th Street
Wichita, KS, 67214
(316) 264-9972
www.sunfoweract.com
Dorlan Bales, Development Director,
dorlan@sunfoweract.org
South by Southwest Experiment (SxSW)
c/o Southern Echo
1350 Livingston Lane, Suite C
Jackson, MS 39213
www.southernecho.org
(601) 982-6400
Leroy Johnson, Executive Director,
leroy@southernecho.org
Voces de la Frontera (Voces)
1027 South 5th Street
Milwaukee, WI 53204-1734
(414) 643-1620
www.vdlf.org
Jeanne Geraci, Associate Director,
Jeanne@vdlf.org
Melanie Benesh, Youth Coordinator,
Melanie@vdlf.org
APPEnDix i: orgAnizAtions intErviEWED AnD ContACts
62
Applied Research Center (ARC) is a public policy
institute advancing racial justice through research, ad-
vocacy and journalism. ARC produces materials and
research on race, immigration and multiracial organiz-
ing available online, including ColorLines, a national
newsmagazine on race and politics.
www.arc.org
Rinku Sen, President and Executive Director
32 Broadway, Suite 1801
New York, NY 10004
p. 212.513.7925
f. 212.513.1367
arcnt@arc.org / arc@arc.org
Association of Black Foundation Executives has been
championing the interests of Black communities
within the philanthropic sector. ABFE is one of many
leaders in the feld who have participated in a broad
movement to direct more philanthropic dollars to
black men and boys. They create professional training
programs and initiatives, support collaboration, spon-
sor learning opportunities, and distribute a series of
annual briefng papers that identify priority issues in
Black communities and make recommendations for
strategic philanthropic investments to address those
issues.
www.abfe.org
Susan Taylor Batten, President and CEO
333 Seventh Avenue, 14th Floor
New York, New York 10001
p. 646.230.0306
f. 646.230.0310
information@abfe.org
Center for Community Change (CCC) strength-
ens, connects and mobilizes low-income grassroots
groups across race and ethnicity. CCC has produced
several curricular resources useful for cross-racial al-
liance work. Crossing Borders (Cruzando Fronteras):
Building Relationships Across Lines of Difference, a
curriculum developed in collaboration with Casa de
Maryland, addresses recent demographic shifts among
African Americans and Latino immigrants, the histori-
cal antecedents to existing tensions between Afri-
can Americans and Latino immigrants, the interplay
between jobs, race and immigration, and the process
for moving from dialogue to action. Black Brown &
Beyond and Democracy Schools (Escuelas Democ-
racia) are additional curricula. Their website also lists
resources on African American-Immigrant issues
and multiracial and multiethnic alliances.
www.communitychange.org
Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director
1536 U Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
p. (202) 339-9300
f. (202) 387-4892
info@communitychange.org
Center for Tird World Organizing is a racial justice
organization led by people of color that provides
training and resources for direct-action organizing in
communities of color and multiracial organizations.
www.ctwo.org
Danielle Mahones, Executive Director
1218 E. 21st Street
Oakland, CA 94606
p. (510) 533-7583
f. (510) 533-0923
APPEnDix ii:
ORGANIzATIONAL RESOURCES FOR CROSS-RACIAL ALLIANCE BUILDING
63
Colectivo Flatlander was founded in 2002 by immi-
grant and Chicano organizers and provide grassroots
immigrant rights groups and organizers with tools,
political analysis, training opportunities and spaces
for dialogue modeled on popular education principles.
Colectivo conducts Spanish and bilingual workshops
and produces resources for popular education and
community organizing.
www.colectivofatlander.org
PO Box 2546
Kyle, TX 78640
p. 512-644-8035
colectivo@colectivofatlander.org
Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Preven-
tion and Treatment (Community Coalition) works
with African American and Latino residents to create,
infuence and change public policy to transform the
social and economic conditions in South Los Angeles
towards safe neighborhoods, quality schools, a strong
social safety net and positive economic development
in order to reduce crime, poverty and substance abuse.
www.cocosouthla.org
Marqueece Harris Dawson, President and CEO
8101 S. Vermont Avenue
p. (323) 750-9087
Grantmakers Concerned for Immigrants and Refu-
gees helps funders connect immigrant issues to their
funding priorities by serving as a forum to: 1) learn
about current topics through in-depth research, data
and tools tailored for grantmakers, 2) connect with
other funders through events that examine major im-
migration trends and their impact on diverse commu-
nities and 3) collaborate with grantmaking colleagues
on strategies that strengthen immigrant-related fund-
ing locally and nationally.
www.gcir.org
Daranee Petsod, Executive Director
P.O. Box 1100
Sebastopol, CA 95473-1100
p. 707-824-4374
f. 707-581-1716
Highlander Research and Education Center con-
ducts research, develops organizing and educational
strategies, collects and produces resource materials
for popular educators and organizers, and sponsors
popular education programs that support grassroots
activists and community leaders in the South. High-
lander has developed numerous curriculum modules
on race, globalization and immigration. The Across
the Races & Nations: Building Communities in the
US South project offers online bilingual resources on
immigration and collaboration in the Southern United
States, as well as flm and print resources on multira-
cial organizing.
www.highlandercenter.org
Pam McMichael, Director
1959 Highlander Way
New Market, TN 37820
p. (865) 933-3443
f. (865) 933-3424
hrec@highlandercenter.org
Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP) promotes stronger
partnerships between organized philanthropy and
Latino communities. HIP sponsors regional, national
and international conferences and briefngs, research
and publications, professional development programs,
as well as provides referrals for foundations seeking
Latino staff and trustees.
www.hiponline.org
Diana Campoamor, President
55 Second Street
Suite 1500
p. (415) 837-0427
f. (415) 837-1074
APPEnDix ii: orgAnizAtionAl rEsoUrCEs for Cross-rACiAl AlliAnCE BUilDing
64
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
is an interdisciplinary research institute at The Ohio
State University that generates and supports innova-
tive analyses of the dynamics that underlie racial mar-
ginality and undermine full and fair democratic prac-
tices in the United States and throughout the global
community. Its work informs policies and practices to
produce equitable change. Among its many publica-
tions is Building Successful Alliances between African
American and Immigrant Groups: Uniting Communi-
ties of Color for Shared Success.
www.kirwaninstitute.org
john a. powell, J.D., Executive Director
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
433 Mendenhall Laboratory
125 S Oval Mall
Columbus, OH 43210
p. 614-688-5429
f. 614-688-5592
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is a coalition
charged by its diverse membership of more than 200
national organizations to promote and protect the
civil and human rights of all persons in the United
States. The coalitions website includes reports and
curricula, including a Civil Rights 101 resource.
www.civilrights.org
Wade Henderson, President and CEO of The Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leader-
ship Conference Education Fund
1629 K Street NW
10th Floor
Washington, DC 20006
LCCR phone: (202) 466-3311
LCCREF phone: (202) 466-3434
Miami Workers Center is a strategy and action center
organizing the collective strength and voice of women,
working class, and low-income people to confront
critical issues of poverty, racism, and gender oppres-
sion. The Center actively builds coalitions and enters
alliances to amplify progressive power and win racial,
community, social, and economic justice and is commit-
ted to community organizing, leadership development,
communications, and coalition building strategies.
www.miamiworkerscenter.org
Gihan Perer, Executive Director
6127 Northwest 7th Avenue
Miami, FL 33127-1111
p. (305) 759-8717
Multiethnic Immigrant Worker Organizing Network
(MIWON) is a long-term strategic multiethnic net-
work of immigrant workers centers in Los Angeles.
As a coalition MIWON members support each others
immigrant worker campaigns, work together on issues
of immigrant rights and legalization, and cultivate
the relationships of workers of different races and
ethnicities. MIWON is an alliance of the Coalition for
Humane Immigrant Rights of L.A. (CHIRLA), Kore-
atown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), Instituto
de Educacin Popular del Sur de California (IDEP-
SCA) and Pilipino Workers Center (PWC).
www.miwon.org
Jonathan Santi
153 Glendale Boulevard, 2nd Floor
outreach@miwon.org
65
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
(NNIRR) is a national network of 250 organizations
and activists serves as a forum to share information
and analysis and strengthen the capacity of immigrant
and refugee communities to participate in the immi-
grant rights movement and global social and econom-
ic justice movements. NNIRRs curriculum, Building
a Race and Immigration Dialogue in the Global Era
(BRIDGE), engages immigrant and refugee commu-
nity members in dialogue about racism, labor, migra-
tion and global economic structures in relation to
migration. NNIRR also produced an award-winning
documentary, UPROOTED: Refugees of the Global
Economy.
www.nnirr.org
Catherine Tactaquin, Executive Director
310 8th St.
Oakland,CA94607-6526
(510) 465-1984
New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice
is dedicated to organizing workers across race and
industry to build the power and participation of work-
ers and communities. The Center organizes day labor-
ers, guest workers, and homeless residents to build a
movement
dignity and rights in the post-Katrina landscape.
www.nowcrj.org
Saket Soni, Director
217 North Prieur Street
New Orleans, LA 70112-3343
(504) 309-5165
Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) is
a multiyear project intended to increase the amount
and effectiveness of resources aimed at combating
institutional and structural racism in communities
through capacity building, education, and convening
of grantmakers and grantseekers. They are also the
main resource in philanthropy for racial equity grant-
making. PRE has an extensive annotated bibliography
on African American-Latino coalition building.
www.racialequity.org
Lori Villarosa, Executive Director
1720 N Street, NW
Washington DC 20036
p. (202) 375-7770
f. (202) 375-7771
Program for Environmental and Regional Equity
(PERE), University of Southern California conducts
research and facilitates discussions on issues of envi-
ronmental justice, regional inclusion, and immigrant
integration. The Color of Change: Inter-ethnic Orga-
nizing and Leadership for the 21st Century project is
designed to catalog and understand best practices in
interethnic leadership development programs: high-
lighting the changing demography of the country and
why this calls for interethnic coalitions.
www.college.usc.edu/pere
Manuel Pastor, Director
3620 S. Vermont Avenue, KAP 462
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0255
p. 213.821.1325
f. 213.740.5680
pere@college.usc.edu
Public Interest Projects operates grantmaking, techni-
cal assistance and strategic-planning programs to foster
a movement for positive social change. PIP has a report,
Alliance Building in Action: Profles from the Field.
www.publicinterestprojects.org
Michele Lord, Executive Director
45 W 36th St, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10018
p. (212) 378-2800
f. (212) 378-2801
info@publicinterestprojects.org
66
Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture is a
national research library devoted to collecting, preserv-
ing and providing access to resources documenting the
experiences of peoples of African descent throughout
the world. The Center has an extensive online resource,
In Motion: The African American Migration Experi-
ence, which outlines the 13 defning migrations that
form African America, including the African slave trade,
internal migrations of African Americans, and immi-
gration from Africa and the Caribbean.
www.inmotionaame.org
Howard Dodson, Project Director
188 Madison Avenue
New York NY 10016
212-592-7185
digital@nypl.org
Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network
(REJN) works with 60 economic justice organizations
across the southern United States serving working poor
mostly women and youth. They work to build relation-
ships leadership and coalitions within the southeast and
also the rest of the western hemisphere. REJN has a
project called Resisting Rivalry: African American and
Latino Organizing and Educational Campaign as well
as training manuals and fact sheets on racist immigra-
tion policies and cross-cultural coalition building.
www.rejn.org
Leah Wise, Executive Director
P.O. Box 240
Durham, North Carolina 27702-0240
p. 1(919)403-4310
f. 1(919)403-4302
serejn@rejn.org
Te Southern Regional Council produces research,
policy analysis, publications and advocacy on racial
justice and poverty. Building Black-Brown Coalitions
in the Southeast: Four African American-Latino Col-
laborations is a 2009 report.
www.southerncouncil.org
Charles S. Johnson, III, President
1201 W. Peachtree St. NE
Suite 2000
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
p. 404.522.8764
f. 404.522.8791
info@southerncouncil.org
Center for Labor Research and Education, University
of California, Berkeley conducts research and educa-
tion on issues related to labor and employment. The
Labor Center has reports, workshops and curricula on
black workers, immigrant workers, women workers,
labor and the economy. The Labor Center is currently
developing a set of popular education curricula aimed
at building stronger working relationships between
African American and Latina/o immigrant workers
on issues of employment called Reducing Tensions
Concerning Immigration and Employment.
www.laborcenter.berkeley.edu
Ken Jacobs, Chair
Center for Labor Research and Education
2521 Channing Way # 5555
Berkeley, CA 94720-5555
p. (510) 642-0323
f. (510) 642-6432
67
Describe your current relationship building and alliance building efforts with Afri-
can Americans or Black immigrant communities. What issues are the alliances built
around? How did you choose the issues?
Why did your organization decide to do this? Did it just happen as a natural outcome
of work you were already doing, or was there a conscious or strategic decision made
to engage in this type of effort? Other reasons
What stage of development is this effort at early (planning, just launching), middle
(have been doing for 1-2 years) or advanced (2 yrs+)
Are you working with partners or allies outside your organization to develop or imple-
ment this effort? If so, with whom.
Have you developed a formal training program or curriculum designed to educate or
involve your members in this effort? Have you received outside training/assistance?
If so from whom?
What are some challenges or obstacles that your organization has encountered, either
internally or externally, in implementing or trying to develop these relationships and
alliances? How have these been addressed? Has it meant changes in the way you con-
duct your other work?
What have been some positive outcomes or benefts from engaging in this effort?
What have been some factors of success or best practices?
What is the next stage of development youd like to reach with this effort?
What resources do you need to reach this next level? (e.g., staff, funding, training,
networking etc.)
What advice or recommendations would you give to other organizations trying to do
similar things? To funders who are interested in supporting this work?
APPEnDix iii:
intErviEW QUEstions
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