Date: February 11, 2011
To: English 1311 students
From: Angelica Valdez
RE: Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center
There are a lot of immigrants that are in need of help. There are many people that want to come to the United States but they cannot due to economic problems or just difficulties in general. Las Americas was born on March 1 of 1987 to answer the needs of these people. They provide aid to people who are trying to escape from the violence that is occurring around them. A good example is what is happening in Juarez, there are a lot of people that are trying to come to the United States to escape all of the violence that is going on in their home city. They are in need of help but yet they cannot find it due to the long process of becoming a citizen. They are in desperate need because a lot of people are being murdered and they don’t want it to happen to their own family members. Not only that but by the children seeing all of the violence their minds are being corrupted and we will not know how they will be in the future. Due to high rates of killings, there are a lot of orphan children. People are so desperate to run away from all of this violence that refuges are arriving to the United States, there is where Las Americas take action. Their mission is to provide legal representation to immigrants and by supporting their human rights.
The stories that they have shared are very touching and show how really important and helpful their agency is. A touching story is of a woman who was born in El Salvador; she was passed form stranger to stranger when she was a child since her mother was murdered. Her father gave her away to a couple and they would make her work and as a punishment they would place her hands in a hot iron plate until they were burned. She then was sent to this strange man to be his wife and she would be sexually abused. She soon had an opportunity and decided to escape to the United States, she was detained in El Paso and Las Americas represented her and helped her. She is now happily living in the U.S freely.
When we become aware of these types of situations that are happening around the world we have the necessity of helping them. Las Americas provides a lot of advertisements so that people can become familiar with their agency to help them in any way possible. Las Americas provide events so that people could join them such as 2010 Border Heroes. They also ask people for donations; once you enter to their webpage there is a site where you can sign as a regular supporter to send them economic aid. They have a site where you could become a member and they sent news and updates from their organization. They also have a facebook page and a twitter so that people are able to follow them. Finally a way that Las Americas communicate with the community is by many of the stories from people that they help come out in TVs news such as in ABC-7 News.
This agency relates a lot to our community because we see immigrant issues everywhere in the United States. Every day in the news we see people that have to leave their families because they are sent back to their home town because they are not citizens. A lot of people surrounding us are going through this issue but we are not willing to help. Agencies such as Las Americas are a hope and an answer to many people that are fighting for their freedom. This type of associations shows us that there are people willing to help others that are in greatly need of justice.
