I am also so thankful that the folk group was able to come together on pretty short notice and put up with me trying to teach two new songs with just one practice right before the service! Whew. I am not one to usually take on a leadership role, but we had a vision for the service, and in addition to sermon-writing, I was to carry out a mission for special music (since the choir does not meet for the summer). I was thankful for the opportunity to teach and lead my congregation in "Awakening" as a call to open up the service and our hearts to work for justice, as well as a couple other justicey songs.
The folk group is used to me popping in and joining them for practices day-of when I am in town and able to join them in the service, and it is so fun to worship in that way, and especially play and sing with my papa! I also so appreciate everyone's energy to help this come together, as well as all of those who came up and shared with me how the service moved them or resonated with them. I'll miss this community for sure, but after hearing Lyle talk about the vibrancy of multicultural Southside Presbyterian with a mixture of white, Latino, African-American, and Native American peoples all worshiping in communion together, I am even more excited for next year.
Today I'm thankful also to have had the chance to finally sit down and have a meal and spend time with with a wonderful soul and learn so much more about him. We had been in the same friend group for a while, and he has such a huge heart that he was always running around serving others and preparing himself for med school (so that he can serve others), so many of us in the Carleton Christian community felt blessed by his energy and love in the community but of course wanted more chances to get to know him more! I'm thankful to have learned we have some pretty interesting things in common, especially in terms of our faith background, and his recounting a social justice-oriented, multicultural church that raised him as a village was just amazing. I'm thankful for his friendship, and that though we are just getting the time to hang out now, it won't be too little too late because we'll be able to cross paths this summer. Thanks God for bringing him into my life!
I definitely understand if you do not want to take the time to read this all, but I wanted to include the script of my part of the Tucson service sermon, in case you'd like to check out what I shared with my community. (If you've been following my blog, you may see some familiar bits and pieces - this reflective blog was quite vital to draw from to sermonize!) I realized there were so many words and so much I wanted to share in so little time, so I think I ended up rattling a lot of it off in a spoken word-type cadence. Be forewarned, I did actually include a smiley to myself in my sermon. As the Spirit moves... :-)
"Hi all! I just want to thank Lyle and Jeannie for their incredible hearts of service for Tucson and for those moving and heart-stirring reflections they just shared with us. I think I'm even more sure this is where I'm meant to be. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Kathryn Schmidt, and I grew up in this church :-) I just want to talk a little about what the concept of social justice means to me, and why I feel called to do social justice work specifically in Tucson.
I’ve said it
before, but I’ll say it again. Growing up in this St. Luke community, which I
affectionately call a “hippie church,” was a truly inspirational experience.
Apparently from before I was born, I was enveloped into a tightly woven network
of people passionate about living the way we were made to live through
environmental consciousness, through non-violent action for peace and justice,
through tolerance and respect of differences, and through caring for our
brothers and sisters around the world.
Through my
own faith journey, I have come to understand that I see God’s face through
other human beings and we are the vessels for God’s love. But more than just
trying my hardest to act with love and kindness towards my friends, strangers,
enemies (hope I don’t have any enemies!), I have always felt called to serve
others. What’s more is I have always felt my service is part of a bigger
picture, that I’m called to answer a bigger question. Just had to figure out
what that was.
I’ve come to
understand helping others is when I am the happiest, but the kind that requires
both humility and compassion. The kind of simultaneously working for positive,
systemic change and brightening a single person’s day by bringing human
kindness to circumstances of hardship and injustice.
Combined
with a love for Spanish, the passion for social justice that my family and this
church community instilled in me inspired me to pursue a more just relationship
between the U.S. and Latin America. I would see in the news political fights
over immigration and drug wars but this church always called for compassion,
which was so instrumental.
I wanted to
learn and understand more than the stories of the border patrol or of those
providing humanitarian assistance. I wanted to understand the systems that
create vast migration flows of human beings. So I read books, went on an
educational BorderLinks delegation with my dad and a group from St. Luke to
Arizona and Mexico, and found myself called to pursue social justice as more
than a hobby. Successive internships at the Peace Corps headquarters and with
Witness For Peace (a non-profit grassroots NGO that works for peace, justice,
and sustainable economies in the Americas) gave me a better idea of how I could
best help others in a way that would sit right with me. And then it came time
to figure out how to live out my International Relations major and Latin
American Studies minor.
Facing the sea of options was both
exciting and daunting, but I knew I wanted more hands-on experience working
with specifically migrants from Latin America so as to better serve Latino
communities in the U.S. and understand the effects of U.S. policy. Upon recommendation
from Dick Headen, actually, I applied for a year of service with the
Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Young Adult Volunteer program and was especially
drawn to the Tucson, San Antonio, and Miami sites, for perhaps obvious reasons.
And I actually applied
last June right after I graduated with support from Pastor Gwin and the St.
Luke Session, but the program's calendar year came up too fast as I already had
some incredible work and travel opportunities through this past fall. I was
relieved that my application could be kept valid for this coming year, so since
January I have been working with the placement process and was placed in Tucson
to start in late August!
YAVs work with the program to
be placed in sites (cities) around the country to live out our faith through
service work and live in intentional community with the other volunteers in our
sites. So in Tucson, I will have the opportunity to live with the other
volunteers who are also really drawn to service related to Latin America and to
using their Spanish! And part of the deal is that we will not only have intentional
community and reflection time, but we will also be part of a new home church
community there, Southside Presbyterian, that has a number of connections to
this St. Luke community, and has been instrumental in the Sanctuary movement
and in advocating for migrants’ rights and wellbeing in so many different
capacities.
I was hoping that our actual
work placements would have been set by now so that I could share with you what
I will for sure be doing, but the site coordinator has been working tirelessly
to add another possible placement in addition to BorderLinks (where the YAV
would be doing education outreach in the community and also leading delegations
of US citizens down to Mexico, like the one I went on with St. Luke) and
Southside Presbyterian (where the YAV would be doing a mix of community
organizing and work with the homeless program). The Tucson site coordinator had
to add a new work placement because the Southside worker center YAV placement
actually worked itself out of a job, which is the most exciting news! A YAV was
typically placed there to function as an advocate of sorts to work with
migrants and take their concerns to legislators, but now the migrant community
has developed its own leaders and own strength and structure to advocate for
themselves!
Long story short, I’ll keep
you guys posted! But what I do know for sure is that I am excited to take this
next step in my faith journey and serve the Tucson community by working with
Latino communities and educational outreach surrounding issues of justice for
migrants.
And I know immigration policy and the effects of US policy
towards Latin America and the reality of the borderlands can seem really
foreign to us here in Minnesota, but immigration justice hits home here too. As
many of you know, I haven’t been around here much since graduating from
Carleton College last year, but I have had some incredible travel opportunities
within this country and within the Americas, and I have been so fortunate that
with the second half of my gap year, I have had a wonderful opportunity to tie
the Borderlands and immigration policy to Minnesota communities. Since I knew
that I could bank on experiential education with the YAV program for the next
kind of schoolyear, I decided I wanted to go back down to Northfield where I
had gone to Carleton to figure out some part-time things and then another
incredible opportunity fell into my lap, and I became an AmeriCorps Promise
Fellow with the Northfield TORCH program, which stands for Tackling Obstacles
and Raising College Hopes.
This is an academic support program that started in the
Northfield High School 7 years ago to tackle this thing called the achievement
gap: to generalize, in schools these days, minority students and low-income
students don’t do as well in basic indicators like reading, math, and
graduating. Minnesota actually has one of the worst achievement gaps in the
country. Northfield is part of the typical pattern in the U.S., with a huge
influx of Latino immigrants in the last few years and a predominantly white
population otherwise figuring out how to handle it. When a group of dedicated
individuals realized the graduation rate for Latino students, many of whom were
undocumented, was 36% and that something had to be done, they started this
program, TORCH.
When
Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who came out as an
undocumented immigrant from the Philippines last summer, came to Carleton this
winter, he said: “We have lost a generation of people who just gave up.” What’s
the point of working hard in high school if there’s no hope after? Why take the
SATs? Why bother with visiting colleges when they would just turn you away? We
need to accept everybody with education
access. While we need all the doctors and lawyers and physicists and
journalists we can get, we can’t all get 4.0s. Jose was very frank about his
own privilege and about how hard he worked to get where he is. We need to
provide all undocumented students the same opportunities as others because it
is imperative we provide good, solid jobs for all who want to live with dignity
and roofs over their heads. If they’re capable and willing to work for it, we
should ensure the system works for them.
The TORCH program is an anomaly in the state of Minnesota,
and it has expanded to offering many different services including tutoring,
academic advising, internship and job search assistance, and college visits, and
other high schools are seeking to model similar programs. After seven years,
the graduation rate for Latino students is now 98%, and the program is still
expanding to serve more low-income students as well as would-be first
generation college students.
I am so blessed and fortunate to learn from this program,
from those who initiated these efforts to serve mainly the Northfield Latino
community, and from these students who are working on their education but have
much different realities to what I had. So I came in in the middle of the year
to support the program as I was needed, and my main responsibility was working
with students and families on filling out their FAFSAs and getting financial
aid to make post-secondary education a real possibility.
As
far as how policy is affecting the students that I work with, it gives me hope
that though it will mean there will be more competition for the high school
population in this small town to get jobs, President Obama's band-aid
immigration policy DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)
means undocumented immigrants who came here under the age of 16 could apply for
temporary legal status and permission to work in this country. And TORCH
has been successful in getting something like over 30 kids processed through
DACA, so more immigrant
students whose families came here for more opportunities can legally get jobs
and help their families out!
And I'm
so thankful for the passage of the Minnesota DREAM Act! While we have work to
do nationally, this will mean that all students with Minnesota residency,
regardless of documentation status, can get in-state tuition at public colleges
and universities! I work with a few DREAMers, and I am fortunate to do so.
While many self-select into lower level classes and some need a little more
nudging than others to stay on top of their schoolwork and make college
possible in the first place, we are working to even the playing field. With
many of these students coming from low-income families (economics being the
major factor in having to leave their homelands), financial aid packages are a
crucial determining factor in where, and if these students are able to
pursue higher education and open doors to careers they dream of and can become
qualified for. This is an affirmation that they are not at fault for what our
laws see as their parents' "mistake" of coming/staying in this
country without legal authorization, as well an investment in the health of our
communities, the psyche of our young people, and future entrepreneurs,
academics, dental hygienists, auto technicians, architects, neurosurgeons, etc.
Without a national DREAM act, though, undocumented students
still face serious financial burdens, and they do not have access to federal
financial aid... There are still huge obstacles for many students, to be sure.
One student had a 1.8 GPA in high school and went on to college where he got a 3.5 GPA, but he was denied financial aid because the school couldn’t verify his parents’ financial records because they’re undocumented. But he’s a citizen. He dropped out.
Some families are mixed status, like one with five kids. My
student’s older and younger sister are undocumented but he was born in the U.S.
with his family crossing over and back. He can get financial aid that requires
us to send in a copy of his parents’ tax returns for verification as we Sharpie
out the fake Social Security numbers. But his younger sister who is two years
younger will need immigration reform to include a national DREAM Act and a
pathway to citizenship for her to realistically dream of getting to go to
Carleton, where she would be a capable student.
And we have to fight for a TORCH now-college-graduate to be able to use his social work degree to do AmeriCorps service – he wants to be an AmeriCorps Promise Fellow, but because he has temporary status through, he can’t. He has to sign up for the draft, but he can’t under current regulations serve this country that he now calls home through AmeriCorps and working with youth?
And we have to fight for a TORCH now-college-graduate to be able to use his social work degree to do AmeriCorps service – he wants to be an AmeriCorps Promise Fellow, but because he has temporary status through, he can’t. He has to sign up for the draft, but he can’t under current regulations serve this country that he now calls home through AmeriCorps and working with youth?
And these things are all what students face in their
educational pathway once they’re here in Minnesota. In writing and acting out
some of their own stories through the Latino Play Festival that these Northfield
High School Latino students put on for the community, they use that forum to tell
their own stories of experiencing much of the suffering Lyle and Jeannie have
seen: hiding from the migra, getting
raped on their journey, and once in Minnesota, struggling to figure out the
dynamics between Mexican and American identities, coming home to take care of
their siblings or to empty homes with parents out working all the time or to
alcoholism and abuse.
Immigration is part of their reality. Documentation status
is too. I’ve been fortunate to work with these kids and have the deep
philosophical conversation about human nature, as well as just be a part of
hearing snippets about these kids’ lives, like “My sister had babies too early.
I want to be the first in my family to go to college so I can get a good job
and take care of my mom better. I can’t have kids for a long time because I
don’t want to mess this up.” Or “Immigration came to Viking Terrace [the trailer
park] this morning, and I’m really glad my mom wasn’t home.” Or when one student asked, "What are you doing next year? You're
going to Tucson? Arizona? What will you be doing there?" I say I'll be
working with Latino communities and immigration policy, and his response was,
"Oh cool, can you get them to give me papers then?”
I strive for this year in Tucson to allow me to build a better understanding of how to fix our broken immigration system, what upcoming changes will be rolling out, and how to address the needs of those in the United States who have undertaken such risk and hardship with the sole purpose of bettering their and their family’s lives. I need the human face of migrant stories. I need to understand how this farmer was pushed off his land as a result of NAFTA policy, and how that woman has waited and tried to get a green card but there is no other way to feed her children. And I want to be the gringa that will try to perfect her Spanish but at least helps make it more readily apparent that someone from el Norte cares.
The concept of social justice is being God’s hands and feet right here on this earth. In my vein, it’s about asking how do our immigration policies affect our neighbors to the south? How are unequal free trade agreements connected to trends of migration? Why is there an increase in people showing up to clinics missing limbs, and why do people still undertake incredibly dangerous risks to come to this country?
To me, social justice is not about charity, or simply throwing money at an issue to hope it goes away or to soothe our conscience. It’s about empathy, about truly understanding the suffering of another. It’s about asking why a child goes hungry not just today but still tomorrow. It’s about solidarity, not coming up with solutions to others’ problems based on our own experiences, but working with communities to generate solutions based on the circumstances and experiences of the community itself. It’s about humility, and grace, and walking in the footsteps of another.
We need people to aid the hungry, the sick, and the hurt. That is all extraordinarily good work. We also have to look at the root causes though and ask why fellow human beings are facing these problems. Even though, and especially because we possess more tangible resources and more opportunities than much of humanity, it is precisely our responsibility to act with grace to work for the meekest of the meek.
Maybe social justice related to Latin America isn’t your thing, but I do challenge you to work with the gifts and skills you have to better the lives of others in systemic ways. I encourage you to figure out your own definition of social justice and challenge you to work for justice for all of God’s children as this church community has challenged me and inspired me to do, and I want to thank you, St. Luke for how you have supported me along my academic/faith/life journey, and I would like to humbly ask for your support in another way.
Each volunteer is asked to
raise $3000 for the program before they begin their service. It is estimated
that it costs the PC(USA) about $30,000 to support a YAV for a year with
communal housing, a small living stipend, a site coordinator, mentoring, and
community resources, and we as volunteers are only asked to raise 10 percent of
that. St. Luke has graciously offered to help spearhead fundraising efforts
with the June "Change for Change," and one St. Luker has generously
offered $1500 to match donations by the rest of the community, so we're already
halfway there! Funds raised beyond the $3000 will be held at St. Luke to use
for projects my site identifies once I have been there awhile. Every little bit
can help support this program, and invest in the amazing work the Tucson site
does related to immigration justice.
I want to ask this community to walk with us in this call to work for immigration justice, whether that’s keeping tabs on immigration policy and advocating for just reforms like driver’s licenses for all here in Minnesota, whether that’s supporting the work of my Tucson YAV site financially through Change for Change, whether that’s following my reflections in my blog while I’m in Tucson, or whether that’s coming down to visit me in Tucson between August 2013 and 2014 – or other St. Lukers who winter down there too! I humbly ask for your solidarity in however you are able to walk with us in this call to work for justice in Tucson, and I thank you again for all of your love and support."
So there you have it. If you've stuck with me this long, much gratitude! To see the tears of those who have actively participated in raising me in this church family was so touching, and I hope I have done justice to all they have invested in me. For more info on how you can support this Tucson work financially if you are so moved, check out my travel blog: http://kemstravels.blogspot.com/, which I will be updating during my year in Tucson as well. Thank you for listening to where my path is taking me next, and may you also find your path to work for the meekest of the meek in whatever you do in life.
No comments:
Post a Comment