Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States

Mariano Espinoza and Alondra Kiawitl Espejel

Mariano Espinoza and Alondra Kiawitl Espejel are former executive director and the assistant director of the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network (MIFN), respectively. We spoke in their offices in St. Paul, Minnesota. The MIFN is a young organization that grew out of the need to raise the visibility of and respect for the new Latino immigrant population. It was founded in the wake of the National Immigrant Workers’ Freedom Ride of 2003 and the Minnesota Freedom Ride of 2004, held in the tradition and spirit of the civil rights Freedom Rides of the sixties, to call for humane and just changes to America’s immigration laws. louis: I would like to hear your perspective on the current climate around immigration and the challenges you face advocating for the education and human rights of immigrants. mariano: It is really, really sad to hear all the debates about immigrants and immigration from politicians and people who are against us. They close their eyes knowing that we are here. alondra: To me, it’s as rational as math. Take the Dream Act. You need people to work. It’s a mathematical equation. This plus this equals that. But people don’t wanna see that. They’re invested in keeping the same sick system. mariano: This country has built a system where the upper class doesn’t have to work. They don’t have to clean toilets. They don’t have to cook because they are professionals. Most service jobs belong to nonwhite people . Yeah, white people are also affected, but most of the workers are immigrant workers or people of color. This country has created this monster where so many Americans believe they are a superior class, and they don’t mariano espinoza and alondra kiawitl espejel 78 conversations across our america see how they benefit from an immigrant presence here. As long as we go to different countries to get the cheapest resources and labor we are going to continue to have these problems, not only in this country, but all over the world. If we pass immigration reform here, it won’t change conditions that make people leave their home country. louis: Do you believe it’s possible to create meaningful change? alondra: We’re taking baby steps through our organizing. If we just look at Minnesota, one of the struggles has been that Spanish-language radio hasn’t been friendly to these discussions. We have these contradictions within our own so-called community that are preventing discussions and mobilizations from happening. louis: Why is the struggle for immigration reform important to you? alondra: I read this quote by Che Guevara a while ago that talks about how deep down inside the revolutionary is really doing all that he or she is doing out of love. That really defines it for me. Because you care about people, and when you’re happy and you’re good and you’re cozy and you have food to eat, you wonder, “Does everybody else have it the same that I do? Is everybody else enjoying the same privilege? Is everybody else able to be happy like I am at this moment?” Part of it is because a lot of my life was living this precarious line of not knowing if we were going to have food, not knowing if my parents were going to get deported one day to the next. It was constantly being in that really weird place of having privilege because I got to go to college but not being free enough to live a life free of struggle and challenges and racism and people not knowing how to pronounce my name. Or having to learn English when I was ten and crying because my Alondra Espejel and Mariano Espinoza of the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network. Photo of Alondra taken by Louis Mendoza. Mariano’s photo from MIFN office archives. 79 the crucible of change and adaptation mom wasn’t here. I would pretend that I was sick in the mornings so I wouldn’t have to go to school. All those memories were so deep down inside that I really wasn’t able to cope with them until I was in college, where I was introduced to Chicano Studies classes, classes about Cuba and Puerto Rico. These classes helped me understand my family better. I remember my grandma. When I was young, she...