Creating Space for Immigrants
By Lawson Sadler, Baylor University
On June 18th, the United States Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen gave a press conference on the Trump Administration’s family separation policy at the US/Mexican border. In the wake of public scrutiny and protest in response to over 2,500 children separated from their families since the beginning of the zero tolerance policy, Nielsen said, “We will not apologize for doing our job.”
That same day, I began my assignment as coordinator of a summer camp for low-income Latinx children, who are all immigrants or first-generation Americans. I’d spend the next five weeks with my Cielito Lindo campers, attending STEM programs, taking swim lessons, learning ecology at the James River, and practicing Spanish tongue twisters.
Cielito Lindo’s goal is the same as all the programs at the Sacred Heart Center of Richmond, Virginia: to empower the Latinx community through outreach and resource access. Sacred Heart believes in the inherent humanity and value of immigrants in America, and provides spaces for families to thrive together in the Richmond community. In a moment of situational irony that morning, I realized that my SHECP internship directly contradicted the spirit of the zero tolerance policy.
Located in Manchester, a historically African-American neighborhood of Richmond’s southside, the Sacred Heart Center shifted its focus to serve the growing Latinx community that has moved into the area in the last two decades. The mission of Sacred Heart is to open opportunities economic and social integration, family success, and community leadership. I saw that mission lived every day by the staff and volunteers who connected clients to opportunities for employment, education, healthcare, legal services, childcare, and transportation.
Before arriving to Richmond, I was not aware of the shifts going on within the city. On my first drive through Monument Avenue, observing the statues memorializing the Confederacy, I felt that Richmond was a city struggling to reconcile its past and its future. It is buzzing with new economic growth and an influx of young professionals and families. Large minority communities have a historic connection to the community, with recent additions of immigrants and refugees from all over the world. Swaths of the community’s east and southside are gentrifying quickly, while original residents continue to live in public housing or are evicted by rising rent prices. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are patrolling neighborhoods and arrests are becoming more frequent, with 25 in the month of July alone.
Sacred Heart is at the center of changes in Richmond, as it has been for over 25 years. Its commitment to community development recognizes the value of empowering the individual to elevate the family and community. Perhaps the greatest proof of Sacred Heart’s care-forward approach is in the details. In the pre-kindergarten play area, all of the toys and furniture are labeled in English and Spanish. For children who will likely not learn how to read and write in their first language unless they can take it as an elective in high school, this is as significant to their education as it is to their cultural identity.
While the children enjoy pre-kindergarten programming, their parents attend their own Spanish literacy classes. One of the ongoing conversations among staff during my internship was how to develop programs to best accommodate families who speak indigenous languages like K’iche’ and Mixtec dialects.
I found this atmosphere of cultural celebration to be what makes Sacred Heart a community space. The team never allow themselves to become complacent in their work, and constantly ask the question: “What can we do better?” In a world where working with immigrants has become a political act rather than a humanitarian one, Sacred Heart doesn’t shy away from the necessity of its work. In the face of policies like zero tolerance, Sacred Heart gives immigrants the space and support to write their own stories.
Lawson Sadler is a student at Baylor University, class of 2020. She was one of 130 students selected for the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty’s 2018 Internship Program. Each summer, SHECP interns are placed with nonprofit and government agencies that work on the front lines of poverty and serve as co-educators to students. The views and opinions expressed in this reflection are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty.
