reflection 6
Carmen Guerrero: Tireless immigration activist and iron warrior
I’m 50 years old and from Mexico City. I crossed the border in 2000, after I was kidnapped in the state of Mexico. I’m undocumented, and the single mother of three daughters — all DACA beneficiaries, who are community organizers in Montgomery and Philadelphia counties.
I’ve worked with New Sanctuary Movement since 2007. That year there was a workplace raid of cleaning people at ABM. The majority of people apprehended were mothers with children, and many of them ended up being deported.
At that moment NSM turned to me because of my leadership in the community. I received a call from them offering to help, and asking me what the affected workers might need. They collected food, clothing, and financially contributed. They helped me create a shelter in my house for the workers who were scared to go home for fear ICE might be waiting for them. We had to find housing for the kids whose parents had been deported, it was a whirlwind of activity, and without NSM the work wouldn't have gotten done.
They worked to bring “Know Your Rights” workshops and legal aid clinics to Norristown. After forming the Coalición de Fortaleza Latina, we continued to collaborate with NSM on vigils and workshops.
I have participated in acts of civil disobedience with NSM in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. At the action at City Hall in Philadelphia, I was physically harmed by the police. Now I live in King of Prussia, where there isn’t much of a Latinx community, but where a lot of refugees live. There is a need for resources and education about rights for both.
They goad us with violence so we will leave
I wasn’t always an activist, but at school I was considered a leader, and in the neighborhood [in Mexico] where I lived, we all helped each other. But after my kidnapping I thought: if I’m given the chance to keep living, I can’t not do what needs to be done.
I personally experienced a lot of injustices, but we started organizing ourselves. I am a tireless person, a persevering person. Like an iron warrior.
We’re living a new global dis-order. The human rights situation in our own countries is serious. In Mexico, the government is a mafia. There is impunity. We are invisible. There are millions of disappeared people. They needle us with violence and terror so we will leave.
I don’t see American dreams anywhere. We’ve experienced abuses all the time here in the U.S. We had organized day laborers, women, young people — then after 2010 “Secure Communities” swept it all away.
Immigrants are scapegoated. They are using us. They want us to feel like we have no rights, like we have no voice. They call us terrorists and criminals, and blow up the stories so people will attack us. They want to “divide and conquer.” The most important work that the Coalition and NSM can do is one of unification, to accomplish the changes necessary to recognize everyone as one humanity.
My body is my temple
I don’t belong to a religion. I’m an indigenous woman (my mother is Maya-Tzeltal and my father Otomi), and I honor the four elements — air, earth, fire and water. My body is my temple.
My purpose in fasting is to center myself. When your life is stressful and painful, you have to strengthen the body so that you can continue to confront [national] challenges. Five other members of the Coalition will also take part in this NSM fast, to holistically deal with this blanket of sorrows [we live under] so we can keep fighting.
For me, fasting isn’t a sacrifice, it is a path leading to the finish line. I fast so the fire doesn’t go out.
