Angela’s sectionsIntergroup Resources

www.intergroupresources.com

1. Home / introduction

a. Who is Intergroup Resources for?

b. Why Intergroup Resources?

c. How do people approach this work?

d. Our framework

e. How to use this site

f. About Us

In 2005 activist anthropologist Angela Stuesse, then a Community Outreach and Education Coordinator for the Mississippi Poultry Worker Center MPOWER, sought materials for bridge-building and political education with the majority African American and Latin@ immigrant worker leaders in the area’s chicken processing plants. She was surprised how few resources she could gather on the topic. Cobbling together what little she had found, she led MPOWER’s effort to create and pilot a series of workshops titled Solidarity/Solidaridad: Building Cross-Cultural Understanding for Poultry Worker Justice.

Around the same time, the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity embarked on a project supported by Public Interest Projects that researched the dynamics of African American-immigrant alliance formation. Looking at case studies of cross-organizational coalitions between Black- and immigrant-led groups around the country, they highlighted the challenges and opportunities that characterize collaborative efforts between these communities in the United States. This key insight emerged from the work: Even when the focus of the cross-racial alliance is on policy advocacy and change, learning experiences that increase understanding of each group’s culture, history, and worldview are critical to alliance-building. Without them, even well-intentioned efforts are likely to founder on the shoals of misunderstanding and mistrust. But with them, groups may begin to see one another in a new light, identifying commonalities of experience upon which to build the power necessary to affect change.

In 2009, when Dr. Stuesse joined the Kirwan Institute as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, these intersecting interests came to light and soon gave life to a collaborative research project titled, Rooting Intergroup Relations: A Curricular “Mapping” of the Field. Guided by an Advisory Committee of organizers and popular educators, throughout 2010 and 2011 the research team conducted interviews with 75 community organizations, worker centers, unions, and independent activists across the United States. Responding to the needs identified in their prior work, the team sought to identify and analyze programs and materials groups have used to engage

communities of color in critical analysis of globalization, immigration, race, and power with the goal of finding “common ground” and intentionally building relationships across differences of race, ethnicity, and nationality.

The project’s primary objective was to make the materials found and the lessons learned broadly available to organizations/communities embarking on “intergroup relations” work. Intergroup Resources was created to meet this goal. To learn more about the research participants, questions, methods, and products, visit “The Research.”

Paragraph here about Intergroup Resources collective (TBD).

g. The Research

The research that produced Intergroup Resources was funded and carried out by the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, which works to create a just and inclusive society where all people and communities have opportunity to succeed. The project was also supported by the University of South Florida’s Department of Anthropology and Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Click below to learn more about the research participants, questions, methods, and products.

1. Acknowledgement of Participants

a. Research Team

The Research Team for Rooting Intergroup Relations: A Curricular “Mapping” of the Field included:

Angela Stuesse, Assistant Professor, University of South Florida Department of AnthropologyDr. Angela Stuesse is an engaged anthropologist and an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida. She was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Kirwan Institute in 2009-2010. She is currently writing a book, Globalization “Southern Style,” based on her research on Latino migration to rural Mississippi, the poultry industry, and cross-racial worker organizing there.  While in Mississippi, she was a founding collaborator of the poultry workers’ center MPOWER, where she developed and piloted a curriculum titled Solidarity/Solidaridad: Building Cross-Cultural Understanding for Poultry Worker Justice. 

Andrew Grant-Thomas, Deputy Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and EthnicityDr. Andrew Grant-Thomas is Deputy Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University. His interests include structural racism and implicit bias, alliance-building between immigrants and African Americans, African American males and gender dynamics within the African American community, and systems thinking. He previously directed the Color Lines Conference and managed a

range of policy-oriented racial justice projects at the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. He is editor of Twenty-first Century Color Lines: Multiracial Change in Contemporary America.

Cheryl Staats, Research Associate, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and EthnicityCheryl Staats’ work at the Kirwan Institute centers on immigration. She was a researcher on a project team for the 2008-2009 Kirwan Institute initiative that explored alliance building between African American and immigrant communities with an eye towards the challenges and opportunities associated with these partnerships.

Kerra Carson, Graduate Research Assistant, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

Owen Gaither, Resource Center Intern, University of South Florida Department of Anthropology

Ashley Meredith, Graduate Assistant, University of South Florida Department of Anthropology

b. Advisory Committee

Rooting Intergroup Relations: A Curricular “Mapping” of the Field was guided by an Advisory Committee of organizers and popular educators from around the country. Each brought to the project a wealth of experience in creating materials or facilitating dialogues for relationship-building between African American and immigrant communities. At key moments throughout the project, the Advisory Committee provided feedback and critique that shaped the direction of the research as well as its products. In addition, a two-day gathering in March 2011 provided crucial space for community-building, discussion of preliminary results, and the initial planning for Intergroup Resources.

The Advisory Committee was comprised of:

Jennifer Gordon, Professor of Law, Fordham UniversityJennifer Gordon teaches immigration, labor, and public interest law. In 1992 she founded the Workplace Project, a nonprofit labor rights center dedicated to organizing immigrant workers in Long Island. In recent years she has researched issues of conflict and solidarity between African American and immigrant workers. She is the author of Suburban Sweatshops: The Fight for Immigrant Rights as well as numerous articles and reports.

Dushaw Hockett, Director, SPACESSentence about SPACES mission here. Prior to founding SPACES in 2011, Dushaw Hockett served as Director of Special Initiatives-Black America Organizing Project for the Center for Community Change in Washington, D.C. In 2007 he put together a panel at the national summit for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement on organizing in the

context of Black and Brown. He is an author of Crossing Borders: Building Relationships across Lines of Difference.

Gerald Lenoir, Executive Director, Black Alliance for Just ImmigrationBlack Alliance for Just Immigration is an education and advocacy group formed in 2006 that works to link the interests of African Americans with those of immigrants of color in support of a just immigration policy in the United States. In addition to directing BAJI, Gerald Lenoir also co-founded the Priority Africa Network, which advocates for progressive U.S. policies toward Africa and organizes dialogues between African Americans and black immigrants.

Carmen Morgan, Program Director, Leadership Development in Interethnic RelationsLeadership Development in Interethnic Relations works to empower, mobilize and equip multiethnic, multicultural, and multi-identity individuals, communities, schools, and organizations with awareness, skills and the action steps necessary to foster positive and sustainable intergroup relations for social change. In her role as Program Director, in 2002 Carmen Morgan co-wrote and edited ExpandingLDIRship: A Resource Promoting Positive Intergroup Relations in Communities Through Awareness, Skills and Actions, which remains the centerpiece of LDIR’s community programming and training.

José Oliva, National Policy Director, Restaurant Opportunities Center UnitedThe Restaurant Opportunities Center United uses organizing, research, and policy advocacy to improve wages and working conditions for the nation’s low-wage restaurant workforce. Prior to joining ROC-United in 2008, José Olivia founded the Chicago Interfaith Workers’ Center and then became the Coordinator of Interfaith Worker Justice’s National Workers' Centers Network.

Steven Pitts, Labor Policy Specialist, UC Berkeley Labor CenterThe UC Berkeley Labor Center conducts research and education on issues related to labor and employment. As Labor Policy Specialist, Steven Pitts focuses on alternative strategies for worker organizing and economic development and social policy with an emphasis on labor-community alliances. He recently worked on a Ford Foundation-funded project to build solidarity between Latina/o immigrant and African American workers with the goal of increasing their power to lead and fight together for better work conditions and economic justice.

Laura Rivas, Program Associate, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee RightsThe National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights works to defend and expand the rights of all immigrants and refugees, regardless of immigration status. As staff of NNIRR’s Immigrant Justice & Rights Program, Laura Rivas coordinates the Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network (HURRICANE), documenting human rights abuses of immigrants. She is also helping to revise NNIRR’s acclaimed BRIDGE curriculum. She has experience working with communities to advocate and coordinate academic support for low income students and parents.

Saket Soni, Director, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial JusticeThe New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice was formed after Hurricane Katrina to organize African-American and Immigrant workers and residents across the color line. Along with the center’s members and organizers, Saket Soni has crafted and led strategic campaigns on international labor trafficking, human rights conditions in detention centers, ICE collusion with employers, and the enforcement regime in the post-Katrina Gulf Coast.

Eric Tang, Assistant Professor, University of Texas-AustinAt the University of Texas Eric Tang teaches courses on diaspora, race, and resistance and directs the Community Engagement Incubator. His research interests include Black-Asian comparative racializations, Southeast Asian refugees, and activism. He previously worked as a community organizer with the Committee Against Anti-Asian American Violence (CAAAV) in New York City.

Gustavo Torres, Executive Director, CASA de MarylandCASA de Maryland’s primary mission is to work with the community to improve the quality of life and fight for equal treatment and full access to resources and opportunities for low-income Latinos and their families. Gustavo Torres has been the Executive Director of CASA de Maryland since 1993. He was involved in the creation of the Crossing Borders curriculum, an organizing toolkit for bridging the racial divide, and in training Latino and African American communities in Maryland to use it.

Leah Wise, Executive Director, Southeast Regional Economic Justice Networkblurb needed

c. Contributing Participants

The research team would like to thank the individuals and organizations who generously shared their time, experience, and materials for the purposes of this project. Intergroup Resources and all other products of this work are a collaborative interpretation of the collective wisdom of the fighters and visionaries below, and would not be possible without their support:

Name and Affiliation at Time of Interview

Carolyne Abdullah, Everyday DemocracyLupita Aguila Arteaga, STITCHFrancisco “Pancho” Argüelles, Colectivo Flatlander for Popular EducationJenny Arwade, Albany Park Neighborhood CouncilGreg Asbed, Coalition of Immokalee WorkersKate Atkins, formerly of Garden State Alliance for a New EconomyCharles Behling, The Program on Intergroup RelationsCarol Bishop, Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment (CAFÉ)Cherie R. Brown, National Coalition Building InstituteVeronica Carrizales, AGENDA/SCOPE

Tanaka Charles, South Florida Coalition of Labor Union Women ChapterDaniel Coates, Make the Road New YorkRob Corcoran, Initiatives of ChangeMaureen Costello, Teaching ToleranceTerence Courtney, Atlanta Public Sector AllianceKatarina del Valle Thompson, Service Employees International UnionTy DePass, Independent Activist, BostonAjamu Dillahunt, North Carolina Justice Center, formerly of Black Workers for JusticeJacinta González, New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial JusticeJennifer Gordon, Fordham University School of LawMonica Hernandez, Highlander Research and Education CenterDushaw Hockett, Center for Community ChangeWalidah Imarisha, Western States CenterTrina Jackson, Center to Support Immigrant Organizing, Network of Immigrants &

African Americans in SolidarityKayse Jama, Center for Intercultural OrganizingLeroy Johnson, Southern EchoDave Joseph, Public Conversations ProjectNunu Kidane, Priority Africa NetworkKalpana Krishnamurthy, Western States CenterKristin Kumpf, Midwest Academy; formerly of Interfaith Worker JusticeEunSook Lee, National Korean American Service and Education ConsortiumJessica Lee, Basic Rights OregonGerald Lenoir, Black Alliance for Just ImmigrationJon Liss, Tenants and Workers UnitedRubén Lizardo, PolicyLinkSaul Lopez, Make the Road New YorkAlexis Mazón, UC Berkeley Labor CenterNadia Marin-Molina, National Day Labor Organizing Network, formerly of the

Workplace ProjectAurea Montes-Rodríguez, Community CoalitionCatherine Montoya, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human RightsCarmen Morgan, Leadership Development in Interethnic RelationsCourtney Morris, Independent Activist, AustinCinthya Muñoz, Causa Justa :: Just CauseJohn Ocampo, ROC-MiamiJosé Oliva, ROC-UnitedBeatriz "Bebe" Otero, CentroNíaFrancisco Pacheco, National Day Labor Organizing NetworkManuel Pastor, Program for Enviromental and Regional Equity, University of Southern

CaliforniaColette Pichon Battle, Moving Forward Gulf Coast / Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy Steven Pitts, UC Berkeley Labor CenterMaria Poblet, Causa Justa :: Just CauseKimberley Propeack, CASA de MarylandLaura Rivas, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Arianna Robinson, Be Present, Inc.Roland Roebuck, Independent Activist, Washington, DCJanis Rosheuvel, formerly of Families for FreedomRev. Kelvin Sauls, Facilitator of the African Diaspora DialoguesJason Selmon, Sunflower Community ActionLola Smallwood Cuevas, Los Angeles Black Worker CenterSaket Soni, New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial JusticeDenis Soriano, New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial JusticeJuan Soto, Gamaliel of Metro Chicago / Pilsen Neighbors Community CouncilEric Tang, University of Texas at AustinAnnie Tobias Allen, Be Present, Inc.Gustavo Torres, CASA de MarylandJerry Tucker, The Center for Labor Renewal / Solidarity Education CenterCristina Tzintzún, Workers Defense ProjectEric Ward, Center for New CommunityRev. Patricia Watkins, TARGET Area Development CorporationCricket White, Initiatives of ChangeSteve Williams, POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights)Janvieve Williams Comrie, Latin American and Caribbean Community CenterLeah Wise, Southeast Regional Economic Justice NetworkLuz Zambrano, Center to Support Immigrant Organizing, Network of Immigrants &

African Americans in SolidarityJorge Zeballos, Institiute for Dismantling Racism

ii. Research Questions

Four overarching questions guided this research:

1. What curricular materials and programs, loosely speaking, have been developed for building relationships between immigrant communities and native-born communities of color in the United States?

2. What frameworks do they use to approach this work?

3. What pedagogies and methodologies do they employ?

4. In what contexts and in what ways have these materials and programs been successful, and what have been their biggest challenges?

iii. Research Methods and Timeline

In spring 2010, the research team assembled an Advisory Committee of organizers, activists, and educators who committed guide to the project through phone and in-person meetings at critical junctures. The first of these was held at the outset of the project to collaboratively identify research objectives, questions, methodologies, and products. The Advisory Committee’s participation continued to be central throughout the project, as this collaborative process of

knowledge production and movement building shaped its analysis, recommendations, and outcomes.

Between June 2010 and August 2011, the research team conducted un- and semi-structured phone interviews with 75 individuals selected for their experience leading cross-racial relationship building efforts. These participants represented community coalitions, worker centers, “grassroots” organizations, unions, university-based institutes, and national and regional organizing intermediaries. In a few cases they were independent community activists. Many were the creators of formal curricula, dialogue guides, or other types of political education materials, while others had experience facilitating relationship-building efforts.

In order to limit the scope of inquiry, the research focused on organizations and individuals working with adults and, with one or two exceptions, did not follow leads related to K-12 education or youth empowerment. To further bound the project, the research team pursued people, materials, and programs that expressly included immigrants as one of their central demographic groups. This excluded many relationship-building efforts targeting a diversity of U.S.-born populations alone (the most common being Black-white dialogues). Interviews generally lasted between 60 and 90 minutes and centered on the needs or interests behind intergroup programs’ existence, their varying approaches to the challenge of relationship building, and their outcomes to date. Participants shared generously regarding the structural inequalities that drive their work, the pedagogy of adult popular/political education, the challenges to prioritizing relationship-building amid their day-to-day activities, and the strides their organizations and members have made toward a more just world. The research team used an iterative approach to analysis of interview notes and transcripts, thus identifying themes for further inquiry and consideration. Participants’ rich descriptions and thoughtful insights were brought back to the Advisory Committee and discussed at length during a two-day in-person meeting in spring 2011, in which analyses were strengthened and the groundwork for www.intergrouprelations.com was laid.

Throughout the process of interviewing and analysis, the research team also collected curricula, dialogue guides, and other popular education materials aimed at forging intergroup relationships. In fall 2011 they reviewed and summarized these in order to uncover key pedagogical innovations, underlying themes, and sundry approaches to crucial topics such as race and racism, immigration, globalization, the role of the state, and power, among others. The curricular summaries and links to all publicly available materials can be found here.

The Advisory Committee was consulted for their input on several occasions throughout fall 2011 as Intergroup Resources was developed and a plan for its sustainability created. The Advisory Committee was also involved in critiquing and providing feedback on all publications resulting from the research. The research could not have been conducted without the commitment and support of the individuals and organizations that comprised the Advisory Committee. Their contributions, and those of each participant in the research, form the heart of Intergroup Resources. However, any factual or analytical errors produced by this research are the responsibility of the research team alone.

iv. Research Products

Resource CenterThe principal product of the research is the creation of www.intergroupresources.com.

Publications and PresentationsThe research will also result in several academic and policy-oriented presentations and publications. A list of these to date follows. Please check back for links and updates.

Stuesse, Angela, C. Staats, and A. Grant-Thomas. Forthcoming. “Title here.” Submitted for publication in City & Society.

Stuesse, Angela, C. Staats, and A. Grant-Thomas. Forthcoming. “Title here.” Report published by the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.

Hockett, Dushaw, A. Stuesse, and C. Staats. 2012. “A New Place on Race: A Resource Center for Intergroup Relations.” Transforming Race 2012: Visions of Change, Columbus.

Stuesse, Angela, A. Grant-Thomas, and C. Staats. 2011. “Challenging the Conflict Narrative: Rooting Intergroup Coalitions for Social Justice.” Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting, Seattle.

Stuesse, Angela, A. Grant-Thomas, and C. Staats. 2010. “Rooting African American-Immigrant Relations for Worker Justice: A Curricular ‘Mapping’ of the Field.” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans.

BibliographyThe research team has produced a bibliography of related scholarly, popular, and policy-oriented works on the themes of alliance-building, intergroup relations, and changing demographics of immigrant receiving communities. This reading list may be of interest to students, scholars, organizers, activists, or policy-makers, and may be found here.

Network-BuildingFinally, a critical outcome of this work has been an increasingly-connected network of activists, organizers, and educators dedicated to cross-racial education and coalition-building. Out of this network, a partnership of organizations has emerged, dedicated to stewarding Intergroup Resources and providing “offline” technical assistance to groups seeking to use the resources on the site.

3. Pedagogical innovations

a. Historical Timelines

The most commonly-used tool for facilitating political education about the histories and struggles of different identity groups in the United States is the historical timeline. Typically it is

comprised of 8½ x 11-size images with brief, descriptive captions, and it is installed along a wall—or around all four walls—of a room. This setup offers opportunities for visual, kinesthetic, and dialogic engagement with the content of the timeline. Each image/caption represents a key moment in the political, economic, or social history of an identity group—African Americans, Chinese Americans, Mexican Americans, Irish Americans, women, LGBT, etc. In depicting the highlights of policies and events, as well as their effects on and responses from communities, the timeline encourages participants to explore the experiences of different groups, draw connections between historical events, and recognize the parallels and convergences of experience, oppression, struggle, and resilience that they represent.

One of the earliest and most widely used timelines appears to be that found in BRIDGE, published in 2004 by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. The BRIDGE timeline focuses on policies that disproportionately disadvantaged or harmed different groups of color in the U.S. over time. The BRIDGE timeline has been adapted by many organizations over the years, and has inspired others to develop their own historical timeline activities as part of a larger political education or dialogue initiative. Some notable variations include:

Key moments in a community’s history are added to the timeline, thus making it more relevant to a particular location and/or identity group.

The National Network of Immigrant and Refugee Rights is in the process of revising the BRIDGE timeline to introduce a history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. These revisions will add key events leading to today’s border militarization and link these to domestic policies that criminalize people of color in the United States.

Causa Justa :: Just Cause uses a timeline that includes a focus on African American migration within the U.S. and specifically to Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The UC Berkeley Labor Center’s C. L. Dellums African American Union Leadership School timeline includes additional material on African American history, starting with the transatlantic slave trade, as well as on labor organizing in California.

The Western States Center’s Uniting Communities Toolkit highlights key moments in the history of the struggle for LGBT equality and links these to immigration histories and the fights for racial and gender justice in the U.S.

The African Diaspora Dialogues’ timeline focuses on the theme of African migration. Community Coalition in South Los Angeles has a timeline focusing narrowly on the

history of racism in the United States, focusing heavily on the slavery of African Americans.

Participants are encouraged to add their own histories to the timelines, as a way to personalize the activity and link personal history with broader political/social history.

MPOWER’s Power and Oppression workshop series asks participants to draw a picture that tells a story about a time when the participants or their families overcame or resisted oppression, and add this to the timeline.

The UC Berkeley Labor Center’s C. L. Dellums African American Union Leadership School and the IWJ/Midwest Academy(?)’s Wall of History invite participants to add their own or their families’ histories of migration to the timeline.

The events in the timeline represent historical events depicted in a film or video that is viewed by participants in advance of the activity. The activity thus begins as an opportunity to process and discuss the content of the film/video.

MPOWER’s timeline is built around events from the film “Shadows of Hate,” which depicts how white supremacy and anti-immigrant sentiment have impacted the lives of different minority groups throughout U.S. history.

Timeline handouts are circulated for participants to take with them and share, to reinforce the key lessons of the activity.

BRIDGE Crossing Borders Causa Justa :: Just Cause

Resources with historical timeline activities

Publicly-available curriculaBRIDGECrossing BordersUniting CommunitiesMPOWER’s Power & Oppression workshop series

Other timeline resourcesProject South offers timelines related to movement building, real cost of prisons, and work & wage.

In their book “Can We All Get Along?” Paula D. McClain and Joseph Stewart Jr. include an appendix with detailed timelines of different racial/ethnic identity groups in the U.S.

Quote

We give people two different colors sets of sticky notes. One color is for the actual historical timeline (dates from U.S. history). Other set is for own family and personal experiences. When did your family come? From where did they come? Why did they come? When did you first get involved with this movement? You are now part of this wall of history. Sometimes we’ll literally draw a line down the middle – dates of oppression on the bottom; dates of resistance on top. Cesar Chavez would go on top; the Japanese internment would go on the bottom. The goal is ‘where are we today’ --- that’s a mix of where we are in this country and what our own personal story is. We are part of that journey. –Kristin Kumpf, Midwest Academy

b. International Labor Solidarity and Experience

One of the most powerful ways to grasp the ways that neoliberal globalization disproportionately burdens working people across the world is to visit a working-class community in another country. A few of the organizations that participated in this project have experience organizing international labor exchange opportunities for their membership with precisely this goal in mind. In each case, these were collaborations among three distinct organizations that came together to

create opportunities for their members to recognize connections among African American and immigrant experiences of disenfranchisement and low-wage work. Among the convenings and exchanges that took place, they each organized a delegation of U.S.-born workers who visited factory workers in Mexico.

In the case of the partnership between Black Workers for Justice, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), and the United Electrical Workers Union (UE), Local 150 in North Carolina, the cross-border organizing efforts of the UE and FLOC facilitated the opportunity.

The South by Southwest Experiment was a multi-year inter-organizational collaboration between Southern Echo in Mississippi, the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) in New Mexico, and the Southwest Workers Union (SWU) in Texas, which involved a series of regional convenings that brought each group’s membership into dialogue. A highlight for the Mississippi participants was a DATE? trip to visit a GM assembly plant just across the U.S.-Mexico border. Themselves former GM factory workers who had lost their jobs when the company left Mississippi in search of lower-cost production, the delegation was gripped to see first-hand the dismal working and living conditions their Mexican counterparts faced. The trip resulted in a profound and deeply personal understanding of the logics, mechanics, and effects of unregulated capitalism on a global scale. Such opportunities for experiential learning are rare, as they require considerable resources, take a lot of planning, and typically only present themselves as opportunities when the organizers have cross-border or other international connections. There are other groups that organize similar opportunities for individuals, often for a fee (see, for example, the United Universalist Service Committee’s JustWorks and Global Exchange’s Reality Tours).

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Approximately 50 people from Southern Echo attended. A few people cross the border and had conversations with poultry plant workers; two realized they had worked in the same factory in Mississippi. What they found was that the problems, no matter what the location, remained the same -- underpaid workers, discouraged unionizing, and mistreatment. That experience with powerful and strengthened their resolve to not allow for the "they are taking our jobs" philosophy to flourish. –Leroy Johnson, Southern Echo

c. Making Connections between African American and Immigrant Experiences

With the persistence of both real and perceived tensions between African American and new immigrant communities, many organizations are developing activities that encourage their members and constituents to make connections between these groups’ historical and present-day experiences. These typically include comparisons of migration experiences, indentured servitude, and policing / criminal justice. Some of the most noteworthy examples from our research include:

The Middle Passage and Human Trafficking

Several interviewees referenced a powerful activity that re-enacts the Middle Passage—the experience of being transported on a slave ship across the Atlantic—which we have been unable to locate. This “experiential” activity humanizes a historical system of oppression in visceral ways, promoting empathy and stimulating thought. It also opens an opportunity for discussion of human trafficking and the experience of undocumented migration. Groups with experience facilitating conversation around these issues include Black Workers for Justice, the UC Berkeley Labor Center, the Center for New Community, and the Highlander Research and Education Center. To find resources on contemporary human trafficking, see humantrafficking.org.

Slavery, Indentured Servitude and Forced Labor

“I think that orgs should invest time in really looking at the history of slavery as a starting point for working with any ethnic group. I think that’s important because it doesn’t matter what ethnic group you’re working with, people are addressing experiences of racism grounded on the history of racism in this country,” asserted Aurea Montes-Rodriguez of the Community Coalition. We came across two organizations with campaigns that made reference to the experiences of African Americans either as forced laborers or indentured servants vis-à-vis current conditions:

Tenants and Workers United in Virginia organized taxi drivers to change a law that protected a monopoly and allowed the taxi company to pass along many of its costs to the drivers. Former Director John Liss shared, “We did a lot of talk about sharecropping because, at the end of day, it was very much like sharecropping – you’d end up in debt/ drivers would be making next to nothing. It was interesting in terms of the racial history of this country, these immigrant men of color taxi drivers saw themselves vis-à-vis the dominant white monopoly company.”

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is an organization of low-wage agricultural workers in South Florida. Its Anti-Slavery Campaign uncovers, investigates, and assists in the federal prosecution of slavery rings preying on farmworkers. The CIW also educates the broader public about modern day slavery. Its Modern Day Slavery Museum is housed in a truck and travels around the country to community groups and college campuses to educate people on modern day slavery.

Mobility as a Means of Survival and Opportunity: Immigration and the Great Migration

Interviewees commonly recognized parallels between 20th Century African American migration out of the South (the Great Migration ) and present-day immigration:

The UC Berkeley Labor Center’s C. L. Dellums African American Union Leadership School shows a film, Uprooted. They stimulate participants’ reflections on why their families migrated to California as a segue into discussing contemporary immigration.

Tenants and Workers United in Virginia has also facilitated conversations about the similarities between the migration of African Americans from South to North and that of women immigrating from Central America to the United States in the current moment.

To do this, they put Jacob Lawrence’s pieces on the Great Migration onto slides and used the images to stimulate conversation.

Parallel Movements? Civil Rights and Immigrant Rights

Some immigrant rights activists are quick to declare the question of immigrant rights the “civil rights issue of our time.” Others are reluctant to invoke the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s because of the deep meaning it holds, in terms of its historical context and for the communities that led its anti-racist struggle. While recognizing this tension, interviewees offered some key examples of how the parallels were helpful in their work:

The Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network in North Carolina conducts an activity that shows how anti-immigrant organizing in the South parallels white supremacist organizing. By focusing on the discriminatory elements of immigration policy and other domestic policies, the organization encourages its participants to build the notion of global citizenship.

The Mississippi Poultry Worker Center MPOWER has screened the award-winning film A Time for Justice, available to educators free of charge through Teaching Tolerance, to audiences comprised of new Latino immigrants. MPOWER staff used simultaneous interpretation to narrate the film in Spanish. The film uses black and white photographs and narration to vividly depict the violence that southern Black communities endured during the Civil Rights Movement. MPOWER’s members reported shock at the level of racist violence endured, as well as inspiration at the courage of those involved in the movement. The film worked well as an introduction to the recent histories of racism and struggle in Mississippi and the South.

Jason Selmon of Kansas Sunflower Community Action noted that comparing the struggles and goals of the Civil Rights Movement and the immigrant rights movement “was a good way to do it, because once people got to know each other a little bit, that relationship was deepened. Helped our members understand that they’re part of the same organization and part of a bigger movement.”

The Criminal-Immigration Nexus: Policing and Prisons

In contrast to the comparisons with more historical experiences of African Americans discussed above, several organizations interviewed offer examples of bridge-building using present day themes. With the rise of local law enforcement of federal immigration laws and the longstanding over-representation of African Americans in the criminal justice system, these comparisons often hinge around issues of criminalization, incarceration, and racialization:

Families for Freedom in New York City’s work lies at the intersection of the U.S. criminal and immigration systems. It uses public education as a starting point for dialogue. The organization has used media, radio, and public service announcements on the impact of the criminal justice system on immigrants and citizens of color to reframe

debates and relationships. In 2011 this work contributed to the rollback of Secure Communities in the state of New York.

Similarly, in 2010 the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice’s African American and immigrant constituencies united in a campaign to get an immigrant member released from jail after having been illegally detained for months. A sheriff with a reputation for disproportionately targeting Black and Latino communities catalyzed collaboration of the organization’s membership across difference, while freeing one man became both an organizing goal and an opportunity for popular education around racialized policing practices and the Prison Industrial Complex. The Center prevailed on both accounts.

In YEAR?, the Garden State Alliance for a New Economy conducted a dialogue among ???. A memorable segment that gave way to bridge-building around parallel experience was framed around the concepts of identity and work. Some African American workers spoke of having served jail time. They shared feeling like they carry the felon label on their forehead and how it affects their ability to access work. Immigrant workers talked about the experience of being undocumented, and how it, too, impacts access to work. Facilitators reflected on the emotion in the conversation and how it enabled both groups to better recognize their common struggles as criminalized workers of color.

Causa Justa :: Just Cause is working to end the criminalization of Black and Latino communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its members and those of other ally organizations recently rallied around the issue of a city policy that punished those driving without a license by impounding their car for 30 days. This practice disproportionately affected African American and immigrant communities and affected people’s abilities to get to work. With driving a basic need, they held community hearings and town halls throughout the city where people talked about their experiences. In uniting various communities of color in a common struggle, Causa Justa :: Just Cause and its allies convinced the police chief to alter the policy in favor of a less punitive response.

Resources with activities for making connections between African American and Immigrant experience

Publicly-available curricula

Quotes

We did an exercise where people laid next to one another like humans experienced on slave ships; the exercise generates feelings of being closed in and not able to control your space. What does that look like today in the back of a trailer for the people being stuffed in trailers by coyotes? We try to get people to empathize with others. —Ajamu Dillahunt, North Carolina Justice Center, formerly of Black Workers for Justice

For us, the immigration system is jacked and unjust and discriminatory and biased, and when you layer on top of that people who are going through the criminal justice system, then you’ve got a very clear point of alliance building for immigrant communities and non-immigrant communities, particularly Black and Brown communities that are not immigrant. . —Janice Rosheuvel, Families for Freedom

d. Popular Theater

Known also as participatory theater, community theater, protest theater, action theater, theater for social change, and theater of the oppressed, popular theater uses theater as a tool for social transformation. It typically involves the “audience” as participants in the story-telling, relies heavily on improvisation, and invites groups to explore attitudes and social problems and imagine a range of potential solutions. All opinions are welcome, questioning is vital, and critical analysis is encouraged. It often serves as the entry-point into a larger conversation about life circumstances, injustice, and, ultimately, justice.

Paragraph on how groups we interviewed have used popular theater?

Resources for incorporating popular theater into your work

In partnership with community groups, ImaginAction invites participants to use experiential workshops, theater performances, and other creative events to explore embodied knowledge, challenge the inevitability of violence, and use their imaginations for a more just and joyous life for all people. Founded by acclaimed Creative Director Hector Ariztizábal, ImaginAction draws its inspiration from Theater of the Oppressed, psychodrama, traditional storytelling, mask-making, drumming, improvisational drama and creative ritual. It offers workshops on multicultural understanding as well as interfaith dialogue. ImaginAction’s website also offers a list of books on Theater of the Oppressed.

Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed is a non-profit organization that organizes an annual meeting that focuses on the work of liberatory educators, activists, and artists; and community organizers. Its mission is to challenge oppressive systems by promoting critical thinking and social justice. PTO’s website includes an extensive list of links to organizations, websites, and efforts dedicated to popular and social justice theater.

The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB), founded in 1989 and located in New York City, is a forum for the practice, performance, and dissemination of the techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed (TO). Its co-founder Marie-Claire Picher has facilitated thousands of hours of TO trainings throughout the U.S. and internationally. TOPLAB’s website houses an events calendar of its various workshops and other activities. In fall 2011 many of its workshops supported the Occupy Wall Street movement.

People’s Theater: Institutional Racism Workshop, by Californians for Justice, is a 90-minute plan for a workshop that uses popular theater to engage participants in an analysis of

intrapersonal, internalized, and institutional racism. It explores issues of immigration, law enforcement/incarceration, and education and can be accessed online at Build the Wheel.

Ben ni walen: Mobilising for human rights using participatory theatre is an introductory guide to using participatory theater methods for exploring human rights issues. Produced by the Amnesty International Dutch Section’s Special Programme on Africa as part of an effort to promote awareness of human rights in rural African communities, the guide introduces the basics of participatory research and theater methodology. It can be accessed online by searching “Ben ni walen” on the website of Human Rights Education Associates.

Study participants with experience using popular theater for intergroup dialogue

Network of Immigrants & African Americans in Solidarity (NIAAS) (An initiative of the Center to Support Immigrant Organizing)UC Berkeley Labor CenterCoalition of Immokalee WorkersNew Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial JusticeTenants and Workers United

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Example of pop ed from CIW 1990s: Reflection on how system pits people against each other—popular theater that had crew leader w/ mixed crew, discriminated against both, then reflection. Split crew—regardless of ethnicity, even if same ethnicity—one always feels like they’re doing more work. When divided by race, crew leaders would encourage people to think they were better workers than the other group, and had to work harder to show that. Helped people see how this was used for benefit of the employer, not mutual benefit of workers. –Greg Asbed, Coalition of Immokalee Workers

e. Storytelling and Listening: Fishbowls and other dialogue techniques

Storytelling and listening are two critical components to bridge-building dialogue, and several interviewees lifted up their importance. Some offered anecdotes and resources for learning how to tell a compelling story or listen with intention:

The 2007 Dreams Across America Tour involved 100 DREAMers who travelled across the country to tell their personal stories and call for a just, comprehensive immigration reform. Its purpose was to change the hearts and minds of those who heard the stories. In preparation for the tour, one of the collaborating organizations, the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, compiled a series of workshops on How to Tell Your Story. The collaborative provided tour participants with materials and training. While focused on telling stories to optimize sympathetic media coverage, parts of the training may be useful in bridge-building exercises as well.

Teaching Tolerance encourages storytelling to build relationships among students of diverse backgrounds in K-12 classrooms. When interviewing teachers about their

practices, they learned that some were using in-depth heritage stories to create a shared history. They encouraged students to ask their parents about hardships their families had endured and how they ended up where they are today. This approach, explains Teaching Tolerance Director Maureen Costello, “Becomes much more than a cultural exchange about dress/food/etc and more about values, hardships, joys, finding commonalities that make us all human. It’s a testament to the power of story and narratives that connect us to find our commonalities.”

The United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) organized a series of gatherings called Lived Experiences, in which community leaders shared the stories of their communities with one another. The presentation of stories was organized by racial/ethnic group, and the leaders of each group collaborated in advance to create their presentations. Jenny Arwade from the Albany Park Neighborhood Council reflects,

It was everything from a Korean organization staffer that spoke about the model minority myth and breaking down some of the stereotypes of the Asian American community … [to an] undocumented Latino mother who spoke about …the fears she has about being deported and fear of leaving behind her U.S. citizen children… [to] young people from the Philippines who spoke about family separation and the …visa backlogs that separate families. …These were all powerful stories, [and] …out of that specific dialogue came the focus around family separation as the uniting theme across races and religions. …We tried to strategically build on these broader dialogues into more strategic and focused issue dialogues that set into specific policy campaigns that we were working on.

Fellow collaborator, Rev. Patricia Watkins of the TARGET Area Development Corporation, says, “This made people realize that we’re connected in many more ways than we think. Ultimately our goal was to move policy together. And to bring new ideas to the table about people’s experiences, breaking down those barriers to build a strong coalition to push policy that benefits all of us.”

The organizers of Lived Experiences believe that having specific communities develop their own presentations served as a leadership development tool because “it wasn’t just staff people developing a curriculum for others to use over and over; it was the leaders/community members who were presenting were grappling with how they tell the story of their own people.” Moreover, they believe the combination of large-scale events, which provided a feeling of momentum and movement-building, and smaller group discussions that enabled people to reflect and engage at a deeper level, were crucial to the program’s success.

Luz Zambrano and Trina Jackson, representing the Center to Support Immigrant Organizing’s Network of Immigrants & African Americans in Solidarity, note that they started off their first session by asking participants to bring something that would help them tell others who they are and where they come from. “We give space to that,” they say. “We use people’s own knowledge and history. We don’t rush, because it’s very

important that we get to know each other. The time we spend on this is time well spent, because that’s ultimately how we’re going to build relationships.”

Initiatives of Change facilitates community dialogue and often starts by asking participants “Can you tell us about your grandparents’ neighborhoods and where you live now? How are they alike or not?” Cricket White, National Director of Training and Program Development, explains that this type of storytelling not only helps participants recognize similarities and differences they may have with one another, but also lets them begin to see one another as individuals, and not an expression of an entire group. Another storytelling activity she shares involves a string of 3-4 feet in length, with a knot in the middle, with one end tied to a chair. When each person held its other end, “they had to tell about when born, the knot was for telling what’s changed in their lives, and then they had to sit in the chair and say why are they at the table.” This began to offer a more nuanced picture of each person in the room.

The South by Southwest Experiment, an initiative of Southern Echo in Mississippi, the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) in New Mexico, and the Southwest Workers Union (SWU) in Texas, involved a series of regional convenings that brought the groups’ membership into dialogue. At one convening they created life roadmaps, organizational roadmaps, and community roadmaps. Leroy Johnson, Executive Director of Southern Echo, explained, “These maps, when taken in their totality created a three-dimensional picture that led to eye opening experiences around oppression while being holistic by including all three areas (individual, organizational, and community).”

Another pedagogical tool used to encourage both storytelling and listening is the fishbowl. This technique can be used when time is more limited, because the majority of participants are active listeners, with a smaller group (inside the “fishbowl”) doing the talking. Below are some relevant resources for learning to conduct fishbowls:

Resources on fishbowls

Resources on storytelling

Lived Experiences?

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The format of the meetings were initially small groups that focused on sharing stories and asking each other questions. Doing so built a readiness to connect … [and] opened them up to doing more work together. –Leah Wise, Southeastern Regional Economic Justice Network

f. Cultural Exchange: Food, Music, Dance, and Art

Many organizations interviewed mentioned the importance of cultural exchange—the sharing of food, music, dance, and the spoken word—to finding commonalities and building relationships of trust across difference. Some, such as the Highlander Research and Education Center, which houses a Cultural Program, lift it up as a central piece of their work, vital to making social change.

Food—the sharing of cuisines, breaking of bread, and nourishment of bodies and souls—is a key component for many groups doing relationship-building work. Food can be used to break the ice early on, giving people time to arrive and begin to get to know one another. Conversations around food are non-threatening, easy exchanges to have, and when food from different cultures is presented, it offers participants an obvious starting point for engagement. The presence of good food can also be beneficial later on in a program, to fuel processing and healing, lighten the mood, or simply allow for organic small group conversations to take place in circles. Given the importance that food has in many cultures around the world, its incorporation into any cross-cultural dialogue can only be therapeutic.

Music and dance also have a way of increasing individual and group energy, bringing down walls, and inspiring change. They are often crucial aspects of cultural identity, and, for many, music underscores the memories of key life moments. Examples of how music and dance have been used by the organizations interviewed include:

In an intergroup dialogue between Black southerners and new Latino immigrants in North Carolina, a performance by Fruit of Labor, a singing ensemble whose music was born out of the struggle of organizing African American workers in the “Black Belt” region of North Carolina and the South, was followed by a performance of a Mexican dance group. “Music has a way of opening people up – the harmonies, tones, rhythms that move people,” reflected organizer Ajamu Dillahunt. Despite language differences, participants were able to engage with one another’s cultural heritage.

In Chicago, ??? held a spring choir concert which brought together choir groups from churches across the south suburban community. The musical offerings were intentionally diverse, both in terms of the racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds of the performers and the languages of the songs performed. Organizers reported that the musicians of different backgrounds had considerable interaction during the reception following the concert.

In the 1990s the membership of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers was roughly equal parts Hatian, Mexican, and Guatemalan. While the organization emphasized commonalities of class with their saying “A worker is a worker is a worker,” this didn’t mean denying group identities: Some Haitian members formed a drum group, and the organization celebrated traditional festivals from the various cultures. “You were a part of each other’s cultures because you were a part of the CIW,” remembers co-founder Greg Asbed.

Brief discussion of Dushaw’s 3Ms exercise that he used in our March convening, if he’ll allow it.

The spoken word can also be used in powerful ways to build cross-cultural bridges, as Jenny Arwade of the Albany Park Neighborhood Council shared. She recalls youth leaders creating poetry and other artistic presentations for a large-scale event that celebrated the Day of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. These linked the struggles of immigrants and African Americans around common values and issues. The poetry was later used to open and frame an inter-organizational relationship-building effort called Lived Experiences.

Resources related to cultural exchange

Drawing on a long history of using music to support organizing in the South, the Highlander Research and Education Center’s Cultural Program works to involve cultural workers in social justice efforts. It supports community groups around the South that seek to incorporate cultural work into their organizational movement building.

The Institute for Cultural Partnerships, located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, facilitates opportunities for understanding among diverse cultures and communities. Its website features diversity trainings and initiatives, as well as a resource “marketplace.” In 1998 ICP published Refugee Arts: A Strategy for Successful Resettlement, a manual for refugee resettlement workers to help them identify practitioners of cultural and artistic traditions and connect them to resources. More recently they published The Art of Community: Creativity at the Crossroads of Immigrant Cultures and Social Services, which offers case studies as models to catalyze dialogue and inspire readers to learn more about the artistic and cultural traditions of immigrants and refugees within their own communities.

An amazing artist activist, Ricardo Levins Morales, has created art for social justice for several decades to advance local, national, and international campaigns and movements. He and his work can be found at RLMArts.com.

Quotes

We always start off our dialogue times with food – the aromas and tastes – we always start with food. This also helps us in giving people time to arrive. This part usually lasts 15-30 minutes. People self-select where and with whom they sit. Food is a conversation starter. We let people know what’s being served and its origins. Food breaks the ice. It provides an atmosphere of warmth and hospitality. Food is an important ally to me doing these dialogues. Questions like “what kind of food is is?” are so neutral to ask, and even the most shy people are comfortable asking them. The whole food experience – stomach, mouth, nose, taste, aromas, etc. Breaking bread together is such a port of entry. –Rev. Kelvin Sauls, African Diaspora Dialogues

One of the observations Mr. Johnson makes is that food and music are necessary cultural permanencies that are a part of one’s racial/ethnic identity. By using similar tools like drums, dancing together, eating meals, fostered an ability to break bread together. –Leroy Johnson, Southern Echo

g. Film and video

h. Wellness and healing

i. Other innovations