Advancing and Defending Immigrant Rights
From Mobilize the Immigrant Vote!
Dear Allies and Friends,
In recent weeks, Americans have witnessed the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia, the occupation of Wall Street and cities across the country, some of the most anti-immigrant legislation to date in Alabama , and hopeful immigrant rights legislation in California for education access, changes to car impound policies, and recognition of the diversity of the Asian Pacific Islander community. At home in California, grassroots leaders across the state in multiple coalitions are engaging voters in critical policy campaigns and building momentum towards 2012, with some high profile local races including this November’s election to decide the next Mayor of San Francisco. At MIV, we launched our Take Back the American Dream Campaign with a six-region campaign to engage voters around a values message of reclaiming the promise of this country and uniting around tax and fiscal reform solutions. The preliminary results of our 2010 Treatment and Control Study are now available. We hope the following updates are useful to your work and look forward to future opportunities for collaboration.
What Do Alabama and California Dream Mean for the Future? By Xiomara Corpeño, CHIRLA National Campaign Director
California youth have helped advance immigrant justice once again with the historic passage of the California Dream Act, AB130 and AB131, which opens up access to state financial aid for undocumented students. With a January 2013 implementation date for the larger of the two bills… read more
MIV 2011 Take Back the American Dream Campaign
In September, MIV launched our Take Back the American Dream Campaign led by grassroots immigrant organizations across the state to reclaim the values which have been hijacked by our opposition in order to advance a progressive statewide agenda.
For too long, progressives have lacked a compelling narrative that captures the hearts and minds of everyday people. Building on the work of Van Jones, MoveOn, Eric Liu, and Nick Hanauer, the MIV American Dream narrative starts with core values that the majority of our communities share rather than issues that have traditionally divided us, and seeks to speak to our communities, our histories, and our futures.
MIV is testing this narrative with a pilot voter engagement and media campaign that builds on the decades of expertise of our grassroots partners in engaging with our communities in Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Korean, and beyond.
To join in the MIV Take Back the American Dream Campaign, contact Martha Figueroa at martha@mivcalifornia.org To learn how to invest in the campaign, contact Executive Director, Aparna Shah, at aparna@mivcalifornia.org
Treatment and Control Study Results Now Available
In 2010, MIV partnered with Lisa Bryant of the University of New Mexico to do a treatment and control study of immigrant family voters in California. Select final results and analysis are now available, and a fuller report is forthcoming. Overall, Ms. Bryant shares that the “MIV campaign was very effective in turning out voters.” Read the full Summary Report .
Tools for Evaluating Movement Building
Evaluation of social and racial justice organizing, voter mobilization and civic engagement is a growing field. While there are many expert evaluators, ultimately low-income immigrant communities and communities of color must be the thought-leaders and generators of cutting edge methods and indicators for evaluating our efforts. November is an excellent time of year to refine your plans for a thoughtful end-of-the-year evaluation and begin inserting clear evaluation indicators and methods into your 2012 work plan. The following are some excellent resources and tools that can support your planning and evaluation.
- The PILA-produced Mobilize the Immigrant Vote Toolkit
- The MIV MOVE Toolkit
- Movement Building Indicators by Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice: A cutting-edge tool that supports social justice organizations in their strategic thinking around planning and assessing their movement building work.
- Soon to be released! Transactions – Transformations – Translations: Metrics That Matter for Building, Scaling, and Funding Social Movements by the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity. Check out their website in the coming days to obtain a copy of this compelling report.
- Marking Progress: Movement Towards Racial Justice by Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equality
2012 Ballot Preview
In 2012, California expects a series of ballot initiatives that will again have major impact on the state and have ripple effects across the country. Organizations across California are collaborating on how to move tax and fiscal reform measures through the ballot box. In this issue, we focus on the statewide efforts to repeal the death penalty in California. Read more
Honoring PILA
MIV is thrilled to welcome long-time partner and ally, Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), to the MIV Statewide Strategy Council. Founded in 1972, the Chinese Progressive Association educates, organizes and empowers the low income and working class immigrant Chinese community in San Francisco to build collective power with other oppressed communities to demand better living and working conditions and justice for all people. We would also like to share the newest additions to MIV’s senior statewide staff team: Martha Figueroa, Political Director, and Rebecca Concepcion Apostol, Capacity Building Manager. Read more
Honoring PILA
Transitions are part of our work. This year, MIV’s founding organization, Partnership for Immigrant Leadership in Action (PILA), decided to close down as we know it, pass on their amazing programs to sister organizations, and transition the organization to MIV. In these ways, PILA’s work lives on through MIV and the other sister organizations who will be taking on their programs, INCITE and the Movement Strategy Center. Please join us in honoring the outstanding and impactful work of PILA over the years, with particular acknowledgement to all the staff and Board members over these years. Thank you, PILA.
In unity,
Mobilize the Immigrant Vote
November 5th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
The future of our country is with our young people. Our country is great because of the diversity. Many people want to help. Alabama is unfortunately cutting itself off from many wonderful people.