Women's Crossroads

Sometimes you come across people that just restore your faith in humanity. Anaelisa Vanegas-Farrara, who spoke at Simon’s Rock yesterday, is such a person: a caring, kind, hardworking young woman who takes her motto from Margaret Meade:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

How true that is! Anaelisa, with her husband Diego and a small group of thoughtful, committed activists are changing our local community here in the Berkshires with their tireless advocacy work on behalf of immigrant workers and families.

“Immigrants are the backbone of our community,” Anaelisa says; “the tourism industry couldn’t survive without the work of immigrants, most of them Latinos. And yet they’re largely invisible; they don’t get promoted, and they barely earn a living wage.”

Latino immigrants, who make up the majority of immigrants in many areas, including here in Berkshire County (where the official number of Latinos is set at 12,000; the actual total may be far higher) make the difficult journey to this country in order to work and send money back to their families. They are good people by any measure—honest, hardworking, disciplined. One recent study showed that, contrary to popular belief, when immigrants move into a neighborhood, crime actually declines!

With their grassroots organization Manos Unidas (United Hands), Anaelisa, Diego and their associates are working to support and empower local immigrants through educational programs, art projects, festivals and outreach to the larger Berkshire community.

After ten years working out of their living room, Anaelisa and Diego have finally managed to purchase a house in Pittsfield to use as a center for their work. Called Casa Tierra Común (Common Earth House), the center will hold a bilingual lending library, a computer resource room, a food pantry and clothing exchange, a community garden, and a site for events and organizing work.

Anaelisa was at Simon’s Rock hoping to find students interested in volunteering, interning and participating in the grassroots work of building solidarity with the local immigrant community, and she received a warm welcome. Various interesting suggestions for collaboration were batted around the table:

• a Latino film festival;
• a speakers’ series were local immigrants would be invited to tell their stories, through interpreters if needed;
• a free ESL program, with students serving as English tutors for immigrants;
• a bike drive in the spring, with students working to rebuild old bicycles for use by immigrants without cars
  

mmigrants have always been the great engine of America, as we remind ourselves selectively on holidays like Thanksgiving, which celebrates the good fortune of earlier generations of immigrants who found a warmer welcome in New England than many immigrants do today.

At least in our little corner of the world here in the Berkshires, we can do better. And with the help of activists like Anaelisa and Diego, we will.

Labels: activism, immigrants