Latino-Jewish Forum in Sacramento promotes immigrant rights
Its been a tough time in the immigration news department. Steve Magagnini reports on a positive immigration story coming out of Sacramento.
The Latino-Jewish Forum, Sacramento’s multicultural partnership, hosted Stories of Immigration on Sunday to promote more empathy and understanding of the immigrant experience. Many in the audience of 100 – including Jews, Latinos, Iraqis, and African and Asian Americans – were on the brink of tears after watching two films depicting the saga of unwanted immigrants: Jews fleeing Nazi Germany denied entry into the U.S. in 1939 and undocumented youth from Mexico trying to make it in 21st-century America.
The forum was attended by Oscar Vazquez and Lorenzo Santillan – two “dreamers” who grew up in a gang-ridden Phoenix neighborhood. As members of the Carl Hayden Community High School robotics club, they upset competitors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other top universities in a national robotics competition in 2004. Their story – which included a robot named Stinky made of PVC pipe, duct tape and glue and stuffed with tampons to absorb water from a slow leak – was detailed in the film “Underwater Dreams.”
The Latino-Jewish Forum was born last summer when Sacramento Jewish activists reached out to local Latino leaders to explore the similarities of what can happen to immigrants. The forum has broken down barriers and educated Jewish leaders about the discrimination suffered by undocumented immigrants.
The forum, one of the first of its kind in the nation, has its roots in the city’s response to the events of summer 1999, when white supremacists firebombed three Sacramento synagogues and a women’s clinic and killed a gay couple in Redding. Led by the late Mayor Joe Serna – a son of Mexican migrants – more than 5,000 people came out to support the victims.
Meeting at least twice a month over potlucks, each group has come to better understand each other.
KJ