When We Fight, We Win by Greg Jobin-Leeds

When We Fight, We Win by Greg Jobin-Leeds

Author:Greg Jobin-Leeds
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620971406
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2015-11-14T16:00:00+00:00


Others have echoed Saavedra. Many of the Washington, D.C.–based immigrant rights organizations thought they had a friend in the White House with Obama and were trying to play the inside power game. They now readily admit they were wrong. It was through direct action, dramatizing the human stories, that the movement got anywhere.

What gave Pacheco and her three friends the strength to go ahead with their effort in the face of opposition?

“I learned from the suffrage movement,” Pacheco replies. “Women didn’t have the support [and] were killed and put in jail for fighting for their rights. For us the spirit of our ancestors and the people that had fought for us in the past just gave us that push and the fire to continue.”

She pauses, then adds, “We have done everything we could and our friends were getting deported, our families were getting detained. . . . We didn’t have any more to lose.”

For Pacheco, there was one more all-important inspiration to take the first step on her 1,500-mile journey: “At the center of all this was this love that we have for families, for ourselves, but also for this country.”

NEVER BACKING DOWN

In June 2010, six weeks after the Trail of DREAMs ended with a rally outside the White House, Juan Rodriguez received a surprise invitation to a meeting inside the White House.

“At the center of all this was this love that we have for families, for ourselves, but also for this country.”

There was a catch: Rodriguez was the only Trail of DREAMs participant who was invited to this meeting with a small group of national advocates. He was told that he could meet the president because he had recently received permanent resident status. The others were undocumented and thus could not attend.

Rodriguez’s instinct was to refuse to participate, but his three comrades insisted that he had to meet the president to “represent all of the people who were excluded from the meeting and the families who were separated under Obama’s deportation policies and the quotas.” Rodriguez, acutely sensitive to the symbolism, saw the chance to bring his protest right into the White House.

On the day of the meeting, Rodriguez and other advocates were ushered into the ornate Roosevelt Room of the White House. President Obama entered and shook each person’s hand in friendly greeting. The president extended his hand to Rodriguez.

“I’m sorry, I can’t shake your hand,” said Rodriguez, standing stiffly. He tried expressing to the president that his presence and demonstration of disappointment represented the families who had been separated by the deportations. But before he could speak, a flash of anger crossed Obama’s face. He directed everyone to sit down.

Rodriguez recalls, “It shifted the entire tone of the meeting from [being] a friendly gathering between Obama and his friends who care about immigrants to an accountability session on the president around the policies that he kept supporting, as well as the lack of leadership on . . . immigration reform.”

Confrontation and direct action had gotten the DREAMers the attention of the White House.



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