Perspectives and Analysis from our Nation

PROTESTERS DEMAND PROTECTION FOR INDIGENOUS MIGRANT CHILDREN
By Josephine Chu and Thomas Ilalaole | Jul 9, 2019 | Immigration
”Nearly 150 people protested outside the U.S. Customs and Border Protection building Tuesday, chanting “down with deportation” and demanding better monitoring of border detention centers and access to indigenous language translators.”

Amazonia Synod 7: Laudato Si and the Synod on the Amazon
By Scott Wright, Jun 2nd, 2019
”Each indigenous child whose life was stolen was forced to migrate, because they are the most affected by centuries of structural inequality and discrimination in Guatemala. Our children often have no future in the rural and extremely impoverished communities that they come from.”

Who Killed Claudia Gomez?
By Lauren Bohn, May 1, 2019
”A year ago this month, a 20-year-old Guatemalan woman seeking opportunity in the U.S. was shot dead by a Border Patrol agent in Texas. A video of the killing went viral on Facebook and spurred a media outcry, yet neither the agent’s name nor why he opened fire has ever been made public. In the first of our series on women and migration, we ask, will her family ever get justice?”

Report: Department of Homeland Security is ill-equipped to protect the lives indigenous immigrants Many immigrants arriving at the Southern Border speak neither English nor Spanish.
By Rebekah Entralgo, FEB 21, 2019, 8:00 AM
”The language barriers between officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and indigenous immigrant and asylum seekers have life-or-death consequences, according to a new report released by the Center for American Progress.”

Art Can Transform the World’ Mayan dance group presents message of strength and unity
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
”On Sunday evening, Sept. 10, some 60 area residents got a chance to see an international dance group perform in Centreville’s Historic District, outside St. John’s Episcopal Church. Sponsored by the Centreville Immigration Forum (CIF) and the International Mayan League, the Grupo Sotz'il performed “Uk’u’x Ulew: Heart of the Earth.” This was a preview of the show it’ll do next week at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.”

In Defense of Land and Water, From Standing Rock to Guatemala
By, Jeff Abbott, 9 August 2017
”The defense of water knows no borders, according to the Mayan Ancestral Authorities, the communal authorities and elders of Mayan towns across Guatemala. This reality has led the Mayan leaders to work in solidarity with the Lakota Sioux as they challenge the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.”

Mayan Elders from Guatemala Traveled to Standing Rock to Show Their Support for #NoDAPL
By Andrew S. Vargas, November 8, 2016
”While the #NoDAPL protests at Standing Rock have galvanized the US’s Native peoples in ways we haven’t seen since the height of the American Indian Movement in the early 70s, the battle of indigenous peoples to protect our earth from destruction has been brewing for some time now. In Latin America, activists from Mexico, Central America, and all the way down to the Ecuadorian Amazon have put their lives on the line in defense of their lands and dignity over the past years. And far too often, their lives have been taken for their work.”

Mayan Elders Go to Standing Rock to Show Solidarity
By, White Wolf Pack
”In a show of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux, Maya representatives from the Mam and Ixil peoples of Guatemala came to the Oceti Sakowin Camp to sit down with the members of the Standing Rock Tribal Council to share the pain of their own experiences.”