Highlights from our 2020 National Gathering

Last weekend we held our annual National Gathering for 2020.

Due to COVID, we held the event on Zoom. Although it was sad not being to be surrounded by friends, this modality enabled the participation of some who were never able to travel before (or never received their traveling VISAs). The weekend was facilitated by Catie Munguia (formerly Johnston). Other familiar faces included Cori Ring and interpreters Emily Carpenter and Jan Morrill, who did a tremendous job.

 

Our agenda included an update from CRIPDES representatives and current board members, Marixa Amaya and Francisco Martínez.

You can read the notes on their entire participation here.

USESSC’s working groups sent some questions beforehand to learn how they can better connect with the existing work of CRIPDES:

 

Q: How do you use historic memory in your work and how can we accompany you in this? (historic memory group)

A: We are organizing commemorations of the different massacres to recognize their struggles and sacrifice and carry their stories forward. We are also fundraising for a project that will allow them to continue to archive this work so history can keep being remembered. We do projects through the youth groups within communities. We also give testimonials that are shared with people like us! We can work together to create and share resources. Direct accompaniment and economic support are always welcome. Continuing to teach in the US about what is happening in El Salvador is important.

 

Q: How can we continue strengthening the relationships through popular education? (PopEd)

A: We believe that we can continue strengthening relationships through different strategies, learning from the experiences that we have. Keep doing exchanges and base them on a critical analysis where everyone can give their opinion and communicate. Including a political analysis is very important, because we all come from different points of view, but sharing them is essential. We can expand our sharing between Sister Cities and CRIPDES. We need to continue to build new leadership.

Q: What would CRIPDES like to receive from the pop ed work that we do (PopEd)?

More resources for campaigns and organization. We need a team that is trained in doing popular education. We would like this to be more integrated in the way that we can work on campaigns together. Continue to look for resources to support this work.

Q: What can CRIPDES offer to the USESSC pop ed work (PopEd)?

Committed leadership with experience in this work. Organized communities who are also willing to share. Commitment on the national and local levels.

Q: How does the work that you do influence immigration? (Migration working group)

Immigration impacts the country because many young people and leaders who have been trained choose to immigrate because of the economic situation. This slows down their organizing processes. They also lose the sense of working together as a community. They need to look for alternatives such as building social programs and making projects that create income so that people don’t need to think about immigrating.

Q: How does immigration impact the organizing work that we do?

It has a big impact because they are always doing organization and training. When a young person leaves it takes away the human resources that strengthen the organizing. It also takes away the leadership that they built.

 

Q: As CRIPDES and the social movement how are you confronting the issues with climate change/water shortages and how can we help? (climate change group)

Participating in many different groups, roundtables, coalitions, reducing the exploitation of water, agricultural production. Many chemicals that have been banned in other places in the world are being used in uncontrolled ways. We can help mobilize people to pass the law around water. We need to organize campaigns to educate people about the danger of these different chemicals.

 

CRIPDES representatives mentioned a recent flyer about the environmental struggle which you can view here.

 

Their participation led to a reflection in different groups from where the following ideas stem:

 

 

We stressed that the importance of the gathering this time around was to motivate, to reflect and to promote more involvement and active participation. We can only move forward with on-going commitment at different levels.

Day 1 ended with a small tribute to Mario Dávila and his extensive work for solidarity. Molly Todd contributed the following video:

 

On day 2, our friends from Arlington shared about their work on including El Salvador in the education curriculum, its impact, and the way it has helped their own fundraising efforts.

You can watch their presentation here

 

 

Beth Soltzberg commented in the chat:

Elizabeth is great at encouraging volunteer involvement, but I think you can also tell how much work she has done and continues to do in order to coordinate and support the curriculum!! We would not be able to do it without one person who is so dedicated to keeping it coordinated and moving forward

 

Charles Johnson, among others, reacted:

I can see doing Zoom calls between Chicago GED students and Salvadoran students!

 

In the following discussion among committees, some reactions were:

This can be a precious resource for those of us who are trying to break the cycles of systemic racism and white supremacy and that manifest themselves in the way that we learn, how parents and young people learn in our schools.

Edwin Argueta

 

These project goes to the root of the history of this continent – native peoples were trampled on when Europeans colonized, slavery in America and the Americas, history in the US and Latin America.

Jesús Alvarado

 

Arlington’s initiative is connected to Pop Ed work – uses relational experiences, and education to share these experiences and information. We already have these tools at our disposal.

Catie Munguia

 

 

After a break, we split into two groups to discuss U.S. intervention in the current context and Racial justice within the organization. The results of such discussions were:

 

Ways to take action on U.S. interventions

  1. Talk about these things with your Sister Cities: Issue of learning enough to be able to talk with our Sister communities, to get information. How do we educate ourselves?  Strength is that we are non-partisan.   Educate ourselves and those in our communities in ES.
  2. We need to commit our own resources to understanding the US role in supporting in Bukele and acknowledging that the large majority of population in US supports Bukele; we need to understand the role of US
  3. Social movement needs money to do analysis and work to convince people about Bukele
  4. Migration issues
  5. Alliances to hold Biden accountable, be part of a coalition. Joining coalitions like Code Pink, and can bring personal perspectives and ES issues

 

Discussion of racial justice

A summary of the discussion:

  • Using/mobilizing “white privilege” to physically shield BIPOC, e.g., at protests – but if we continue to depend on “white people’s lives mattering more,” we are playing into the system
  • What are ways for white people to “step down” and create more spaces for listening
  • Bystander & complacency; in USESSC history, complacency prevented people from getting involved. And if we’re not anti-racist, we are complacent in a racist structure (we must acknowledge this idea comes from Dr. Kendi)
  • Systemic change is the goal
  • We need to listen, not to be the “white savior”
  • Why are we not developing relationships w/ Salvadorans in the U.S., in our communities, but continue “delegations” to El Salvador (as tourism?)?

 

And the group currently leading these discussions offered a survey for anyone who wants to get involved: https://forms.gle/oHufVEobvakDSonZA

 

 

We ended our weekend with a “domino” exercise organized by Lily Herakova, which you can see here.

 

This would not have been possible without everybody’s participation and disposition. Special thanks to everyone who kept notes, especially to Jacey and board members Delia and Nicola.

 

Read all the notes here and contact us if you have thought of other ways in which you could get involved or contribute to the work of the entire network.

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