Latino leaders explore the role community organizing can play in national politics

Following the 2024 presidential elections and the tensions that have been simmering since, a dialogue at Georgetown University drew attention to the crucial role of community organizing in the Latino community and how it can serve to reinvigorate the voice of people in politics, both in local-level issues and broader political movements.

Featuring a four-member panel of experts, the night of the Sept. 29 Latino Leader Gathering, organized by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, focused on “Renewing Politics from the Ground Up: Lessons from Latino Organizing.”

“Community organizing (is) a practice and process that encourages the participation of all within a community by forming bonds of solidarity,” said moderator Christian Soenen, the initiative’s projects manager.

Exploring how the tradition of organizing within Latino communities “can inform politics driven by and in service to the people, especially society’s most vulnerable members and oriented towards the common good,” he added.

Panelist Nicholas Hayes-Mota, a social ethicist and assistant professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University in California, cited “the dignity of the human person” as a core principle that guides community organizing work and, consequently, could aid in the renewal of national politics.

“Organizing is an approach to politics that prioritizes dignity in many ways, starting at the individual level. It develops the sense that they have worth, they matter, and they have something to contribute to our ongoing discussion of what the common good of our society is,” Hayes-Mota said during the event, which was also livestreamed.

Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez, co-founder and director of training and formation at the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, also known as CSPL, a Catholic and Christian-rooted community organizing coalition based in Chicago, echoed Hayes-Mota’s comment on human dignity, adding that at the heart of organizing is also “relationship building.”

Comparing relationship building to prayer with God, Arellano-Gonzalez said, “There’s no shortcut to building relationships. It takes time, trust, patience, meeting people where they’re at. … You’re intentional, you open yourself up, you listen, you’re present.”

“That’s the real gift in relationship building, where we get to witness one another’s journey,” she said.

Latino communities, especially those motivated by the Catholic faith, Soenen said, “have been at the forefront of grassroots organizing efforts and for people-powered change, drawing from a rich tradition that is informed by Catholic teaching.”

During the panel, political strategist and organizer Julie Chávez Rodríguez shared that she was only 12 years old the first time she led her first farmworkers march in Salinas, California. It was also the first time she got to hold the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe during the march — and, around that time, it was the first time she was arrested for civil disobedience.

“All of that instilled in me a sense of agency and that desire to help instill that sense of agency in others in whatever way possible,” noted Chávez Rodríguez, who is the granddaughter of labor movement champion Cesar Chávez.

Chávez Rodríguez — who was campaign manager for both the Biden-Harris campaign and the Harris-Walz campaign — said that grassroots efforts are vital in politics, as it is a “critical opportunity” to “think about base building and to think about the grassroots organizing that we need to ensure (they) are reaching people.”

Meanwhile, Rosie Villegas-Smith, the founder of Voces Unidas por la Vida, a pro-life education, advocacy and community organizing group in Phoenix, addressed the topic of abortion and the need to reach out to Hispanic families and women to offer assistance — which ranges from a virtual pregnancy assistance center to driving people to be able to get ultrasounds.

She also discussed the need for a spiritual revival, noting that “pushing faith out of the public life has only led to chaos, violence and disregard for human dignity.”

While Villegas-Smith’s advocacy and organizing work focuses on pro-life efforts rather than candidates or political parties, she stressed that reaching out to politicians is vital to let them be aware of the resources needed by pregnant women without means. She said that educating and informing women are key necessities, as well as taking care of their health and providing help and support during pregnancy.

“With the migrant community that we work with, when they’re facing an unexpected pregnancy, they think they’re the only ones; they feel they’re alone and there’s no help for them, especially when they’re facing domestic violence, discrimination, or the persecution right now happening with the migrant community,” Villegas-Smith said.

At last, Arellano-Gonzalez talked about how her work at CSPL merges organizing and spirituality, which she says, “transform the heart and the spirit.” To illustrate her point, she shared how earlier that month, CSPL hosted a Mass of the People outside the Great Lakes Naval Base in North Chicago, where they said many ICE agents would be.

“During the offertory, we had people bring up pictures of family or friends that had been deported or detained. And the day prior, on Sept. 12, an ICE agent shot and killed a father who was dropping off his 3-year-old and 7-year-old at day care. So people brought up pictures of him to honor his life,” she related.

A Department of Homeland Security statement issued Sept. 19 — which followed a Sept. 12 statement about the same traffic stop — claiming that agents stopped the father, Silverio Villegas González, who was in his vehicle, during an immigration enforcement operation. DHS alleged he “resisted arrest, attempted to flee the scene” and was shot by an ICE agent who had been dragged “a significant distance” by Villegas González’s car and feared for his life.

At the webinar, CSPL’s Arellano-Gonzalez shared some details reported by multiple local and national news outlets at the end of September that included bodycam videos from local police officers who responded to the scene, as well as security video from nearby stores, which she says put into question the veracity of the DHS statement.

NBC News, which obtained camera video from Franklin Park, Illinois, police officers through a Freedom of Information Act request, reported that the video “showed the hurt ICE agent describing his own injuries as ‘nothing major.'” A DHS official told NBC News that the ICE agents themselves did not wear body cameras.

According to an Oct. 1 report from The New York Times, “videos from the scene and its aftermath call into question two aspects of the D.H.S. description of events: Mr. Villegas-Gonzalez is not shown hitting either officer with his car; and, in the aftermath, one of the officers says his own injuries are ‘nothing major.'”

Arellano-Gonzalez mentioned that the Mass and other recent expressions of solidarity and prayer that remind people that everyone is a beloved child of God show how faith and organizing “cuts through the noise, it cuts through the dehumanizing narratives” about immigrants.

“What our members shared afterwards is that (the Mass of the People) was a very powerful and special experience for them,” she said. “And on the bus ride back … they were sobbing because they felt God was with them.”

Maria del Pilar Guzman writes for OSV News from Boston. OSV News staff contributed to this report.

To watch the whole dialogue, go to https://catholicsocialthought.georgetown.edu/events/renewing-politics-from-the-ground-up.

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