Faith In/And Democracy Grantee Profile: Engaging Immigrant Congregations in Civic Life
Conversation with Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy (VICPP)
Faith In/And Democracy is a pilot funding and learning initiative led by PACE to explore the ways faith and faith communities can support democracy and civic life. PACE caught up with all five of the cohort participants to get a status update on their projects thus far, and we are releasing a series of interviews over the next month to highlight their leadership and share more about their early learnings.
The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy aims to involve additional immigrant congregations in its work. Here’s more from our conversation:
Q: Tell us more about your project. What are the tangible action impacts you are pursuing?
A: Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy (VICPP) engages immigrant congregations across the Commonwealth of Virginia in civic activity. VICPP has developed ten chapters that engage Christian, Jewish, and Muslims leaders in civic actions to address economic, social, racial, and environmental justice in Virginia. Our project seeks to create new tools and resources for immigrant congregations, and engage leaders from 10 immigrant congregations with our existing VICPP chapters.
Q: Why did you take this on and what do you hope it achieves?
A: Although VICPP works on immigrant rights issues and is active in the Commonwealth’s two largest immigrant rights coalitions, there are few immigrant congregations involved in VICPP’s work. VICPP chapters do not have as many connections with immigrant congregations as they would like, thus are missing a growing segment of the faith community in Virginia.
Ultimately, we hope to learn how to address immigrants’ concerns and hesitations about being involved in democracy and civic life. We’d like to equip VICPP chapters, staff, and board to effectively engage immigrant congregations and create the resources needed to do so effectively.
Q: What are you learning so far?
A: We’ve learned that many of the larger Catholic parishes in Northern Virginia, for example, have large immigrant memberships with separate masses and assigned staff. These congregations are relatively easy to reach and connect. Conversely, the small storefront Pentecostal or Evangelical immigrant congregations are much more complicated to reach. There is often times no church phone number or the pastor also holds a full-time job and is difficult to communicate with. Additionally, in those congregations is little history of working in broader interfaith or ecumenical efforts.
We also learned that although not everyone is registered to vote, or eligible to vote, people are interested in learning more about advocacy and how to do it.
Q: What success have you seen so far in your project? Any stories to share?
A: So far, we’ve built relationships with 11 new immigrant congregations in Prince William County thanks to intensive outreach in that area. We’ve also translated our basic brochure into Spanish and are working on developing advocacy tools for Latinx congregations. We’ve also been connecting with many non-Christian immigrant congregations (mosques, temples) and reaching out to intermediaries that can help. One of our staff members who speaks Korean met with Korean United Methodist leaders from across the state. A United Methodist District Superintendent who is Korean opened the doors for us. Few of the congregations had ever done much with advocacy, but most were quite interested. Working through the judicatory structures has been an effective way to reach new congregations.
Q: What are your biggest challenges as you look ahead?
A: One of our biggest challenges is that immigrants are fearful about playing a public role in advocacy, even if they themselves are documented. The idea of getting publicly involved in your community — that’s generally associated with civic engagement — gives many immigrant populations pause in working with us.
