Inauguration!

On January 20th, 2009 we all gathered at the Day Workers' Center and watched this historic inaugeration of our new president. We had three TV's playing at once, and had speakers hooked up to Spanish radio so we could all understand. We were in solidarity with all those who went to the inauguration in person as we stood in the cold to watch!

After the ceremony was over, we had a discussion and asked ourselves questions such as 'what are our hopes for the future? for this administration?', 'how to you see the relationship between African Americans and Latinos changing as a result of this election?', and 'what are you priorities for this administration?'. All of the questions brought up good conversation and showed a wide range of opinions and perspectives.

The next day, Hilary sent out an email in reflection:

"Dear Brothers and Sisters:

This is indeed an exciting time for all of us in the United States and the world. I felt so proud to hear President Obama mention our patchwork nation and how it is strong because we include everyone. He asked us to take responsibility for ourselves, our nation and our world, and to make sacrifices and hard decisions for the common good.

I couldn't go to Washington DC to see the inauguration but my daughter Gabi was present. She took the bus from Boston where she was going to the university. I ended up watching the inauguration from Seattle, standing outside in the cold alongside 75 day laborers and our staff and volunteers in our workers center. We had four tvs going and also projected it on a screen with Spanish translation. After watching the whole ceremony and hearing Obama's speech, our staff led a discussion with the day laborers analyzing what they had heard. Their conclusion: an immigration reform was not on the horizon and that despite new leadership that they could believe in, things were going to worse for them before they got better. The economic recession is deep and is affecting them first and worst. They have no govt support to get them through the hard economic times when there are no jobs going out of the center and every day more people are coming to the center looking for work. At the same time, govt enforcement of immigration is tightening and will probably not be stopped by the new administration. So it was a hopeful day, but also sobering.


In solidarity,

Hilary"