Renewing Politics from the Ground Up: Lessons from Latino Organizing

“My mom was involved in her union. She was a cafeteria worker. She would take me and my sisters out to marches and protests and a historic hunger strike out in Little Village where I'm from. You would see people there praying the rosary and doing the sign of the cross. They were invoking God in organizing, and it creates this sustenance, this inner fortitude, and this relentless courage to face whatever injustice they were facing . . . On September 13th, we hosted a People's Mass outside of the Great Lakes Naval Base, where they said they would house hundreds of ICE agents . . . The day prior, on September 12th, an ICE agent shot and killed a father, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, who was dropping off his 3‐year‐old and 7‐year‐old son at day care and school. So, people brought up pictures of him to honor his life . . . On the bus ride back, because it was an hour away, [people] were sobbing because they felt that God was with them. I think that's the power of our faith when it's in public witness.”

—Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez, co-founder and director of training and formation at CSPL was a panelist for the September 29 Latino Leader Gathering on “Renewing Politics from the Ground Up: Lessons from Latino Organizing,” hosted by the Georgetown University Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.  You can view resources from the dialogue on their website.