Spirit in Action
Acting in Faith - AFSC, Sustainable Agriculture, Water Rights, Divestment & Intentional Communities
Madeline Schaefer hosts a variety of segments about AFSC's work concerning sustainable agriculture, water rights, divestment in illegal Palestinian occupation, immigrants, and her own investigation of intentional communities for change.
- Broadcast on:
- 09 Jun 2013
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes Me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along Wow, wow, and triple wow Today's Spirit in Action program is something special, even among the many special guests we are privileged to host. Sitting in for me today is Madeline Shafer, who has been here once before. Her work now includes preparing podcast reports for the AFSC, the American Friends Service Committee Highlighting aspects of their peace and justice work And today, Madeline will be sharing rich glimpses into sustainable agriculture, water rights, divestment from corporations supporting illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories And Madeline will be also featuring some interviews she's done with people involved with intentional communities with an activist focus. I feel honored to bring you today for Spirit in Action, Madeline Shafer, Acting in Faith. As I've learned since starting my position with Friends Relations staff at the American Friends Service Committee, Quakers and AFSC have had a historically rocky relationship. The reasons are complex and often very emotional, but what seems to be clear right now Is that as our world faces the consequences of unhindered growth, it's really time for Quakers to work together again to heal the world. I work with the new friendlies on Lucy Duncan to begin to rebuild relationships by opening up dialogue around issues of inclusivity, race, class and social justice. We ask questions like, what does it mean to work for justice today? How can Quakers be part of a grassroots movement for change? What are Quakers already doing around the world and how can that inform our own work? How can AFSC support that work and provide others with meaningful ways to participate in social change? Lucy and I also tell stories and sheds some light on the programs that AFSC is already engaged in around the world. Lucy Duncan's blog, called Acting in Faith, provides a space to be open about our relationship and in sharing our stories of hurt to heal. Because I have some experience with producing audio, Lucy suggested that I create a podcast that focuses on the way that AFSC operates around the country and the world, namely by partnering with local organizations to serve the needs of people in their communities. Thus, the podcast series Calling For The Goodness was created. In each episode, I focus on a particular area of AFSC's work and speak with constituents in various communities around the country about the roots of the current program, as well as the larger issues underlying the need for that work. The first episode focuses on AFSC's Farmer to Farmer training program in New Mexico. By reconnecting to the earth, local native communities are reclaiming their right to clean water and meaningful work. It was a good year for New Mexico organic farmer, Judrick Lamb. I grew a salad mix, eight types of lettuce heads, six types of cucumbers, five types of spinach, four types of cabbage, three types of cauliflower. And it was also a good year for students at Albuquerque's public schools who every week consumed 150 pounds of organic salad greens, grown by Judrick and other local farmers in the Agri Kultura network. Agri Kultura provides local schools, grocery stores and restaurants with their fresh organic produce and competitive prices. This newly formed brokerage of organic farmers was formed by participants in the American Friends Service Committee's Farmer to Farmer training program. Believe it or not, Judrick and the network's other suppliers have only been farming for less than three years. After one year developing skills in all aspects of organic food production, from farming infrastructure and land preparation to the post-harvest methods of storage and market cultivation, Judrick was ready to set out on his own to establish his first farm. But where? Well, it turns out Judrick's grandparents own land that had gone fallow for nearly a generation. Unable to use the land themselves and learning of Judrick's interest in farming, they offered him some space to get started. He named the farm "Rania Para Mignana" which means farming for tomorrow. Now, as a successful organic farmer, Judrick can engage in meaningful, sustainable work while providing for his family. But for Judrick, being part of the farmer training program and starting his own farm was never just about economic stability. If I can get people to appreciate good food and all the labor and water and land and everything that goes into it and if they're willing to stand up to defend their right to good food, then they're most likely to stand up to defend their rights to water and land, and I think that's one of the bare minimums of self-determination. AFSC's farmer-to-farmer training program does more than encourage environmentally-friendly farming practices, get inspires communities to re-engage with their neighbors and with their land. This is the story of how and why AFSC is connecting people around the state to transform New Mexico. My connection has always been through the earth, right? And when I get up in the morning and I give thanks to the Caddio Wakanda sacred air, the Lee Wakanda sacred sun, you know, the Nia Wakanda sacred water and the Puche Maká Wakanda sacred earth, then I know that I'm connected. That was native New Mexican Pablo Lopez. Twenty years ago, seeing the ravages of urbanization on himself and his community, Pablo decided that it was time for something different. He looked back at his family to see if he could learn anything about how to live more sustainably. My dad and my mom are Wilson, Mexico. My mom is the indigenous person and she grew up near the reservation when the Great Depression hit. She never felt it. She didn't know what, you know, what depression was, because they had medicine, they had the medicine people, they had their community farms, they had animals, they had their spirituality, whereas my father who grew up right here in Albuquerque in the San Jose community really felt the impact of the Depression, you know, loss of jobs for his grandparents and his parents. Later on in life, they became two different people, whereas my father was a hoarder, my mom didn't care about, you know, materialism. Because, you know, she never had that attitude that I was lacking in. So taking that experience and saying, well, how do we return back to a self-sustainable position? So with the help of his friend and organic farmer, Don Bustos, Pablo transformed his family's land into a sustainable farm, transitioning their economic stability from direct market forces to the cycles of the earth. And while this might sound like it's part of a trendy back to the earth movement, Pablo knows that this impulse is deeply rooted in the identity of New Mexico. What I keep telling people is that we're not creating anything new, we're just going back to what was here. Oh, we had the little, you know, garden in the back and I grew beans and I grew chili. So we're just going back, kicking back one step and going back and saying, okay, this was here. How do we recreate it? How do we get started again? Pablo recognized that it was the connection to the earth and to one another that made their community thrive. He continued to cultivate this vision with his family and people in and around Albuquerque, founding emerging communities, a community development organization. As Pablo continued to help people in his community build a more sustainable lifestyle, the American Friends Service Committee was asked to help local people in the South Valley protect their right to access local water. Over the past three or four decades of economic growth, almost undetected by most New Mexico citizens, the government had been slowly chipping away at people's common right to what is a precious resource in the region. This is a big deal in New Mexico, not only because water is so scarce, but also because of the state's long history of sharing that resource democratically within local communities. Four hundred years ago, Spanish settlers integrated their method of irrigation with the indigenous water systems to create what is called an esecia system. The esecia system is made up of a network of water canals across the region that are shared amongst its residents. Historically, use of the water was allocated by a democratically elected official, or Mayor Domo. This system has been overshadowed by Western water law, which in New Mexico allows the state engineer to adjudicate people's access to water if it deems the use of that water is not beneficial. As a result, what has traditionally been a local decision is being challenged by those who would like to turn that water into a marketable commodity. Our mission is to protect the land and water for future generations and to keep it in traditional uses and make it economically viable for land-based people to hold on to their land and their water. That was Saira Namaste, the associate director of AFSC's New Mexico program. Six years ago, Saira Namaste and Don Bustos, published friend and the new director of the AFSC program, thought that maybe by teaching local residents how to farm year-round in the traditional organic method, they could help keep the rights to water in the hands of the local community. AFSC partnered with some incredible grassroots community organizations in the South Valley to make it happen. This spoke to a lot of people because we are in New Mexico. People are land-based. They've been here hundreds and hundreds of years on their land, so this is very close to their heart about using the land and water. Once they had that community support, including Pablo Lopez's organization, they would need one crucial thing, land. Many people in New Mexico have stopped farming their land, land that had been in their family for generations, due to economic pressures and government policies. So to see their land being used again in traditional ways was a really exciting prospect. Almost everyone they talked to donated their land completely free of charge. Through one woman in particular, a widow named Ruby, seeing her land transformed into a working farm has been a blessing. She would tell her friends all about it, she's in a bridge club, and some of her friends said, you know, doesn't it feel strange to have people you don't know in your property, and for each identification of privacy? And she wanted us to know that, no, she told her friends it's so wonderful that she has so many new friends in her life, and at her age, she doesn't have a lot of young people in her life. She doesn't have a lot of intergenerational relationships, and she felt like the project brought in so many new friends and so many young people. Syra and others in the program have stayed deeply connected to her and her land. So again, the program is not just teaching sustainable farming practices, it is bringing communities together. It is connecting people to one another. The connections are spreading and growing all the way up to the government level. The Agri-Kultura network, the network of farms that provides its produce to local public schools, was made possible by legislation that set aside money for Albuquerque schools to purchase local produce. Mary Darling, a member of Albuquerque monthly meeting, organized a dinner for legislators from the state to meet the farmers of the Agri-Kultura network. I was so touched to see these farmers sitting next to legislatures and legislators really being appreciative of the farmers. Policymakers and farmers sat at the same table and ate food grown on these farms. The food was prepared by the 2011 New Mexico Chef of the Year, Stan Wacker. It just so happens that Stan is deeply committed to community development and was happy to contribute his culinary expertise to the event. In a world in which it can sometimes seem impossible to link sincerity with big government or culinary awards for that matter, Mary created an opportunity for legislators to reconnect to what is really important. For them to not have to raise money and just get to see what their policy did, you know, and what a difference it made for these farmers' families, I was just so honored to see that during election season. Sitting outside around tables dotted with tea lights with the stars shining above them, both policymakers and farmers deeply understood the beauty of personal connection. All of the guests left with a renewed passion for spreading similar policies throughout the state. The program continues to deepen and expand as newly trained farmers grow salad this winter in recently constructed cold frames. Don and Saira and Pablo continue to work with community members to learn about sustainable agriculture. And the community of the South Valley continues to return to its roots to reconnect to the earth. In my opinion, there's no better way for your voice to be heard than to, like, teach your neighbors and then teach your neighbors how to feed themselves. The second episode of Calling for the Goodness tells the story of how the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement is revitalizing efforts around the country to end Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank. Don't settle up your busy water, don't settle up your busy water. This past holiday season, outside of the Macy's department store on Market Street in Philadelphia, Shann Creighton, the general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, decided to go caroling. No, she and the other carolers were not there to warm the hearts of shoppers as they search for the perfect holiday gift because these were not normal Christmas carols. They were carols rewritten to protest the sale of SodaStream, a hot new item on the consumer market. SodaStream is an at-home carbonation device that converts still water into sparkling water. You might have seen it advertised in the Sears Super Bowl. With SodaStream, we could have saved 500 million bottles on game day alone. SodaStream's marketing campaign promises to save the world by eliminating the need for plastic bottles. But what SodaStream won't tell you is that it's made in Mishoor, Edomene, an illegal settlement in the West Bank of Palestine. Although the factory does employ palstonian workers, 65% of their goods are shipped around the globe and the taxes from both the sales and the factory go to support the Israeli economy. In protest, people across the United States are standing up outside of Macy's and Bed Bath and Beyond and Stables and they're calling on department stores and customers to boycott SodaStream and help end the Israeli occupation. One thing that's important to understand is that the SodaStream boycott is not an isolated campaign. It's part of a movement that's gaining momentum all around the country, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. The goal of the movement is to cut off all economic ties to corporations that are directly profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and violations of international law. This movement, also known as the BDS movement, began on July 9, 2005 with a public call signed by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations. This statement is published on the website bdsmovement.net by the Palestinian BDS National Committee. The call does not outline any easily contested political solution or support the agenda of any particular leader. Instead, it empowers citizens everywhere to oppose human rights abuses by tracing the lines back to their personal complicity in the occupation. The question you might be asking is why? Why are people getting involved? And why launch the international campaign against corporations that are profiting from the Israeli occupation? For many of those who are most passionate about the issue, all it took was one visit to the region to understand the level of oppression suffered by the Palestinian people. Just, you know, being very easy, very quickly, being injustice. I mean, if you don't have your eyes closed. Anna Bolzer didn't believe the stories of oppression that she heard while living with the Palestinian family in Jordan. Stories of land destruction have restrictive checkpoints of a lack of basic resources. She'd grown up Jewish in the United States, fairly unpolitical, and was with the family because she was traveling around the Middle East on a Fulbright scholarship. After hearing their stories, though, she started doing her own research into the subject and finally decided that she had to just see for herself. And what she saw led her to action. Seems to me that it's not a choice, but rather simply an obligation that when you see injustice happening that the next step is to do something about it. Many people with deeply personal connections to what's going on in Palestine have been working around the globe and the conflict for years. Holding visuals, hosting dialogues, and screening educational films about the issue. But most of those people didn't have any concrete way to take action or raise their voices in protest. There are many people who said that we would like to contribute what we can do for you, visit us now, what we can do. And I think BTS is a platform for those international activists who would like to contribute and who would like, you know, to make their voices to be here. Thugan Khashawi has been on staff with AFSC in Palestine since 2004. He works with Palestinian youth to build local peace movements and has been involved in the Palestinian struggle to end Israel's occupation for years. Thugan says that the BDS movement grew out of existing grassroots non-violent struggles within Palestine to resist both occupation as well as specific policies such as the construction of the wall in the West Bank on Palestinian land. [Music] Learning of the BDS called action in 2005, AFSC staff knew this was a chance to bring the struggle to the United States. After nearly 50 years of working in the region, beginning in 1947 when the organization was asked by the UN to help with the resettlement of refugees in Gaza, AFSC has been committed to engaging in work that values and supports the basic human rights of Palestinians. In 2004, these principles had led AFSC to condemn the construction of the wall as a violation of international law and Palestinian and Israeli human rights. In 2008, the organization then developed an Israel-Palestine investment screen. In 2011, Illinois yearly meetings sent a minute AFSC offering support for divestment. This, in turn, led to more targeted divestment campaigns. But how did AFSC and other organizations who have decided to take action? How did they know what companies to divest from? Much of that information was found thanks to Dalit Baum and other members of the Coalition of Women for Peace, who created the website whoprofits.org. It was the women who said, "Hey, we need to investigate what is the corporate interest in these human rights violations, and in this constant state of war. Who are the companies involved in? What do they do specifically? No one has investigated that seriously." Dalit is an Israeli Jew who now works for the AFSC in San Francisco, helping to build the BDS movement. She grew up surrounded by the structural violence embedded in the occupation and joined the Palestinian cause later as a feminist. She now spends a lot of her time speaking with Americans about the power and effectiveness of the movement. Because, as you probably already know, there are many voices of disagreement with BDS, as well as many misunderstandings surrounding it. It's not about punishing Israelis. It's about understanding that what has been going on in Israel-Palestine is harming everybody there. It's harming Israelis, it's harming Palestinians. It's making life there horrible for everybody, much more so for Palestinians. And that, in part, the reason why it can take on and go on for so long and get worse and worse over all these years is because of the complete impunity that Israel enjoys. And they continue to support economically and diplomatically from Israeli allies around the world. And so taking sides in this case means, sometimes also, stepping away from continuing our own support to these human rights violations and international law violations and killings of people. And stepping away from our complicity means what we call boycott or divestment. The BDS movement is an opportunity to stand up for justice, not pitting one side against another, but joining forces around the country to start a dialogue about how to bring peace to a region that is faced seemingly endless conflict. The organization was invited in 2011 by the Social Justice Organization, Jewish Voices for Peace, to join their We Die Vest campaign. The We Die Vest campaign asked the investment giant, TIAA-CREF, to divest from companies such as Hewlett Packard, Caterpillar and Motorola Solutions that support Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, contribute to the construction of settlements and the wall and provide products that enable or contribute to attacks on civilians. TIAA-CREF is a very large company, serving people all over the country, including APASI staff, and likes to think of itself as a socially responsible investment firm. On a page on its website titled, "Why We're Different," a headline reads, "Not just TIAA-CREF, your TIAA-CREF." And when logging onto your account with them, the slogan "Financial Services for the Greater Good" appears. If they're really committed to the greater good, asking TIAA-CREF to divest from the occupation makes a lot of sense. Madeline Shafer is sitting in for me. Mark helps me for today's Spirit and Action program, a Northern Spirit radio program on the web at northernspiritradio.org. With almost eight years of programs available for free listening and download, and you can even pay to have a CD of a program sent to you. There's a place to post comments on the site, and we'd love to hear from you, and we'd warmly welcome as well a donation. That's what the Donate button is for. Or you can send us something by snail mail. But please, remember to support your local community radio station, such a wonderful service of wonderful music and news. Today, Madeline Shafer is your Spirit and Action host for the second time, talking about a range of projects under the care of the American Friends Service Committee, AFSC, but also some other topics of particular interest to Madeline. Back now to Madeline's spotlight on divestment from the occupied territories of Palestine. TIAA CRF also serves many universities around the country. The "T" stands for Teachers and the "C" for College. One of the main tactics of we divest is to bring this campaign to colleges, and ask students to compel professors on their colleges of pension funds in TIAA CRF to sign a petition asking the firm to divest. AFSC hosts a yearly leadership training program that gives students from around the country the skills they need to bring this campaign back to their campuses. Stephanie Fox of Jewish Voices for Peace, who helps organize the event, is witnessing students all over the country access their own power to create real change. When we bring these students together from 25 different campuses and have a leadership weekend and just see these amazing activist leaders sharing strategies and goals with each other, it's really possible to glimpse a turning tide. And students are not simply bringing this particular campaign. Many students are asking colleges themselves to divest from corporations profiting from occupation. Tori Smith and other members of the student group Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine on Erlen's campus asked the college to divest from Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett Packard. Regardless of whether or not we actually got divestment, one of the campaigns to be about raising awareness about the Palestinian issue, like we wanted to be controversial enough that we could have those conversations which weren't happening on campus before that. It certainly did provoke dialogue. The student newspaper was bombarded with editorials on the topic for months and still is. While Erlen's students have not been successful in getting the school to divest, they've certainly opened up a conversation that has been mostly silent in the past 20 years. And that's really what this BDS movement is doing. It's opening up a conversation about the conflict, asking real questions about what non-violent social change could look like. Because, of course, boycott, divestment, and sanctions have long been used as a tactic in non-violent struggles for peace. And just as in other historical struggles for freedom, from the civil rights movement in the United States to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, religious groups, including political communities around the country, are joining the movement. I'm certainly qualifying as a senior citizen these days. What we used to call old folks. Anne Remley is a member of Ann Arbor Meeting and has been working to end the conflict in Israel Palestine since 2001, when her meeting hosted two speakers, one who formally served in the Israeli military, the other a specialist in Middle East Studies at a local university. Hearing their stories, Anne and other Quakers in Ann Arbor were so upset at what they heard they had to do something about it. If you really mean it, form a committee. And that's kind of a humble thing to say. But I think there's a lot in that, you know? And I remember that day that we went off in a little side room and said, "Alright, let's meet every week until we get something put together." And let's call ourselves, and I'm the one who said this, "Let's not call this a study committee. Let's call this an action committee." That committee worked for 10 years educating people about the conflict. They hosted film screenings and created a map card that illustrates the loss of Palestinian land since 1947. It's quite a striking image, and thousands have been distributed to groups all over the country. The summit of what we have done over the years was represented by a minute that people in the meeting were finally ready to accept. The Ann Arbor Friends meeting recognizes the complex international dynamics that feed the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, creating fear on both sides and putting both Palestinians and Israelis at risk. We are concerned about the safety and well-being of all affected by this conflict. We wish to ally ourselves with those in Israel and Palestine working to bring peace. After running that minute, they realize that Friends fiduciary, an organization that handles many Quakers investments, held money in some of the companies identified as tied to the occupation. So they began a dialogue with Friends fiduciary, who in 2012 decided to divest $900,000 from Caterpillar. Friends fiduciary took a big step and sent a powerful message. Quakers asked them to do what abolitionist John Wollman asked of his fellow Quakers in the 19th century. Two, as he says, discover whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these art possessions. As coalitions of Quakers and activists and students build all around the country, each one of us has a chance to raise our voices against corporate interests. To understand how our possessions may be feeding the seeds of war, in demand in Israel and Palestine, there's free of fear, violence and injustice. The third episode of "Calling for the Goodness" focuses on how immigrants and their allies are working together in the Denver area to demand equal rights for all of its residents. Jose Cuarrero is a slam poet out of Denver, Colorado. This past February, he was invited by AFSC to recite a poem at their monthly vigil outside of the Aurora Immigrant Detention Center on the outskirts of Denver. Starting back in 2009, residents have gathered outside of the center every month. They've shared about immigrant rights work going on in the region and connected with those inside the detention center's walls. By standing with the hundreds of incarcerated immigrants being held in the for-profit prison, they're putting a human face and a human voice to an often invisible reality faced by many in Denver's immigrant communities. If the U.S. were to crumble, would Americans jump over their own borders and flock the streets of Mexico City? Would they seek refuge and da-faw or Somalia? Our perceptions on immigration would change very quickly. It's an interesting question. If U.S. citizens suddenly found themselves desperate for work and opportunity, would they, would we, flee to another country? Of course, all Americans, with the exception of the Native people inhabiting this land, were fleeing economic hardship or some form of political oppression when they first came to those countries' immigrants. It's easy to forget that part of the U.S. has passed or to misremember U.S. history as steady, homogenous, and harmonious. And with the attacks of 9/11 and the collapse of the U.S. markets, anything looks better than the present state of affairs. People have been desperately searching for security and grasping at solutions to our crumbling economic system. Many blame immigrants as a source of all of our problems. And in the past decade, the anti-immigrant sentiment has grown to an almost fever pitch. Fortunately, people across the country are countering this anti-immigrant rhetoric. They're rejecting and dehumanizing language and respecting the basic integrity of people who are providing most of us with many of our basic resources. Over the past 15 years, AFSC has been part of a local movement in Denver, Colorado, to change the perception of immigration from one of fear to one of equality in community. Denver has seen a major influx in the number of Latino immigrants since 1994, after the North American Free Trade Agreement was passed, which forced many farmers off their land and seeking opportunity in the United States. Many of those immigrants came from Mexico in search of opportunities for themselves and their families. Many immigrants work at jobs that pay below the living wage under what are sometimes dangerous conditions. Some have legal citizenship. Some do not. But all of them are part of the growing Denver community. Go to show you never know what's going to happen. Like, you just never know what shifts and historical conditions are going to happen. Danielle Short, a member of Mountain View Meeting in Denver, was hired to work with AFSC in 1999 after living in central Mexico for many years. She taught Americans and Canadians about global issues by hosting dialogues with Mexicans who are working for social change. Many of the U.S. citizens that she had met through the program came to Mexico with a deep misunderstanding and disconnect to the roots of immigration. The woman in one of these rural and indigenous communities was talking about a young woman from her village who had come back from the United States in a body bag because she had died, I don't know, I think crossing the border. And I remember one of my students in our reflection later that evening saying, "Well, she was illegal, wasn't she?" You know, and that was just kind of a shocking way to think about it for me. And so when I came back to the state, it just seemed like the right thing to do to be working here on behalf of those same people. And so that as I had been welcomed, you know, trying to create a welcoming environment for those who had to struggle a lot more to get to the United States than I ever had to get to Mexico. Danielle went on to create that welcoming environment by helping to start the group rights for all people, a Denver organization that lifts up the voices of immigrant leaders and their allies in the struggle for equal rights. After the organization got off the ground, Danielle saw the need to help non-immigrants find a way to support the work of immigrant justice in a meaningful and mutually beneficial way. She and a core group of AFSC allies formed Coloradans for Immigrant Rights, or CIFER. It really is our responsibility to kind of jam our foot in the door and hold it open. Jordan Garcia started working for CIFER at the start of 2006 and has been building the program in and around Denver. Much of his work involves teaching people how to listen. We do believe that the people who are most equipped to define what liberation looks like for immigrants is immigrants. And so I think for us it's really important to figure out how to be responsive to the needs of the immigrant community without ever being paternalistic or without ever kind of just saying, okay, we'll go along with that if we don't think it's a good idea. While CIFER has been training non-immigrants to be effective allies, immigrants have been getting out on the streets organizing for fair treatment and opposing anti-immigrant legislation. In 2006, only one month after Jordan started his work with AFSC, the US saw some of the largest marches for immigrants' rights ever. Immigrants and their allies were opposing legislation known as HR4437, which would have raised the penalties for illegal immigration and classified undocumented immigrants and anyone who helped them enter or remain in the US as felons. The legislation was never passed, but a backlash resulted in more local, statewide anti-immigrant laws. Just a few months later, we had another big march in Raleigh down at the Capitol, and just while we were outside marching, they were inside passing a piece of legislation in the Colorado legislature called SB-90, and SB-90 is similar to Arizona's 1070. So it is kind of a "show me your papers" kind of law. The law requires local law enforcement to report anyone arrested for any offense who is suspected of being an undocumented immigrant to immigration and customs enforcement, or ICE. Last year, AFSC helped start the Unite Colorado campaign that is documenting abuses of police and ICE collaboration throughout Colorado, and it's pushing legislation to repeal SB-90 that recently passed the State House of Representatives and hopefully will soon pass the Senate. The success of that repeal is due to years of work exposing the injustice of SB-90 with the help of both immigrants and non-immigrants. By me, you know, narrating this story, it's mine. It could be a million of other people out there. Tanya Soto Valenzuela works with the Colorado Progressive Coalition, collecting the stories of people targeted by racial profiling, a phenomenon that has increased dramatically with the introduction of SB-90. Tanya moved to the United States for Mexico with her family when she was nine years old. She faced many of the challenges that other undocumented students face when attempting to continue their education. Without citizen status, many colleges and universities wouldn't even consider her application. So Tanya decided to reach out to members of her community in the hope that if she told her story, she would find support. After being accepted at a local Jesuit college, Tanya remained committed to bringing her story to her classmates, many of whom were completely unaware of immigrant struggles in this country. I always heard growing up that immigrants don't pay taxes, and I saw my mom always paying taxes, you know, so it was something that, to me, like, it wasn't truthful, so I wanted other people to see. Tanya partnered with AFSC to bring issues of immigration to her college and has since remained committed to sharing the story of other immigrants criminalized by current legislation and has been working for larger social change. She has joined AFSC's Executive Regional Program Committee, is on the Denver Area Program Committee and helps lead the Detention Center Closure Committee that AFSC supports. Hearing Tanya's story has made it clear to many that immigrant rights are about human rights. Part of the vision and my understanding of Christian practice is that it's actually about bringing in the community people that their social structures try very hard to keep apart. Anne Dunlap is the pastor at Communidad Liberación, a congregation of the United Church of Christ that she started in Denver when she first moved to the area. As a religious leader, she saw the need for clergy to use their deep commitment to justice within their communities to help support the needs of immigrants. Anne was part of a small group of clergy in the Denver area that partnered with AFSC's Jennifer Piper to help form the Clergy Witness Network. As AFSC's Interfaith Immigration Organizing Director, Jennifer coordinates the network with Jan Holleran, a Unitarian Universalist Minister, to lend moral support and credibility to immigrant voices, including providing support in the form of spiritual presence and counsel during deportation hearings. The Clergy Network serves as a means of bringing entire faith communities into the work of ensuring the equal treatment of immigrants around the state. William Penn talked about amending the world. Tom Cole, also a member of Mountain View Meeting, has been deeply involved with AFSC's immigration work in Denver. The oppression of anyone impacts negatively the whole community. Tom was pretty instrumental in the founding of Coloradans for Immigrant Rights and travels around the state and the country bringing the work of AFSC to supporters and legislators. He and Danielle were some of the first people to begin to engage the local Quaker community about the issue. And in 2008, Danielle published an article in French Journal titled "Seeing That of God in Our Neighbors," which was later published by AFSC. I just really wanted to find a way to go deeper into what other Quaker testimony is and what could they say to us on this topic that seems to be somewhat controversial in Quaker Circle still. Danielle's article reminds Quakers that supporting the struggle faced by immigrants in this country for equal rights is an opportunity to live out our faith in the world. AFSC in Denver is calling on people who care about the well-being of immigrants to listen, to support, to form partnerships, and to make mistakes. By insisting that immigrants are an integral part of our communities, these Denver residents are shaping a society held together by our common humanity as we all search for opportunities to work and thrive together. There are many more podcasts to come. The next will focus on AFSC's "Friend of a Friend" program in Baltimore, Maryland, a mentoring program in state and federal prisons that teaches skills in nonviolent communication and conflict resolution. I sit down with former participants of the program as they share stories of how the program is building a movement for a radical change in the criminal justice system. In my personal life, I've been increasingly interested in cooperative living and how community lifestyles can affect larger social change. I live in West Philadelphia, a haven for young Quakers and young activists. What I learned since moving to the neighborhood two years ago is that this haven was actually created in the 70s by a group of young Quaker activists. This group of very bold young activists, spearheaded by George Lakey, among others, called themselves "Movement for a New Society" and aimed to build solidarity for social change in their neighborhood. I interviewed George about his experience of movement for new society and the interplay between community and social change. Our mission was never simply a lifestyle. From our point of view, this is really important, from our point of view, simply creating a lifestyle is self-indulgent. It is pretending that we live on an island. Who believes that? And there was implicit there, a class analysis, which is, wouldn't it be so characteristic of so many middle class people among us to want to create a self-indulgent lifestyle that pleases us and doesn't change the world? So we absolutely must enter this neighborhood, not only in a respectful way, but in a way that builds solidarity for change, and that requires things of us that we hold ourselves accountable to the neighborhood in particular ways, and that's the way we went about doing it. I also spoke with Pamela Haines, one of the first young Quakers to move into the community in the early 70s. I was part of this Quaker youth group that kind of emerged out of young friends of North America and National Quaker youth organization or community, and that was really the critical, critical group of people that I came of age with. We were all trying to figure out what to do with our lives, and there was a batch of us who knew that we wanted to figure that out together, and we wanted to do it in an urban environment, and Philadelphia was the city that we chose. We were interested in doing the right thing. We were interested in having lives that were the lives that we were meant to have, and we figured that we needed to be in the city, that we needed to not be isolated from people to figure that out. We knew that there was exciting things happening here with a movement for a new society. There were between 12 and 17 collective houses right here in the neighborhood between 44th and 49th and Chester and Locust. There was a lot going on. There were a lot of political collectives, groups of people working together on different projects. There was a lot of gathering together of that whole community in different ways, lots of questioning of big social issues and looking for creative ways to respond. It was a very exciting endeavor to be a part of. Movement for a new society. That captured it. This was Vietnam War time. It was a time of the women's movement, kind of a very beginning time of the men's movement. A sense that the country was in motion, that there were big changes that could happen, and we certainly wanted to be part of that process. A good life has to have meaning, right? You can't just be money and entertainment. I mean, that just doesn't make sense to me. That seems to me that a good life is a life that is led with. That's really hard to talk about. A good life. A good life is a life where you're using your skills and your abilities, kind of in line with your vision, along with other people, I would say. So that was what we were looking for, and that's what we got a chance to try out. Pamela also spoke with me about why she values community living, as well as its challenges. I've always lived with other people. I had three months when I was in an apartment by myself. The idea of being by yourself in an apartment. I just seem so odd. Such an odd way to live when you could be connected with people and figuring things out with people and involved with people. It just never made sense to me. I've learned that there's some costs. Like, I can't be too committed to the arrangement of things in the kitchen. That things do get put away in different places, and sometimes it takes a while to find them. And I think, okay, that's problematic, but is that a big enough problem? Is that outweigh the benefits of the kinds of conversations that we can have around the kitchen table? Well, sometimes I don't really want to be sociable, but I can always close my door if I need to. Sometimes a lot of times people want to borrow my computer, and sometimes it's inconvenient, but then I think it doesn't really make sense for everybody to have their own computer and never have to be inconvenienced. I'm thinking, I don't think it really makes sense. I think that it makes sense to figure out how to share those things so that when I'm being inconvenienced, I'm thinking, well, yeah, this is probably how it makes sense for everybody to be inconvenienced. What's Philadelphia is still a haven for young activists, although the neighborhood has changed a good deal. I spoke with Esteban Kelly, a local activist who has been instrumental in strengthening the local co-op, and once again creating that solidarity for change. What I found here was infrastructure, but I found it in a state of deep, deep, deep disrepair. All that M&S stuff was happening in the '70s and early '80s, and it folded by the late '80s, and nobody did anything since then. You had between, let's just say, 1988 and 2004, 18 years of people being really good at the small collective anarchist forms, how to politically organize in those forms, but not necessarily how to do co-operative management. People didn't raise the rent to even account for inflation and cost of living, right, and so you ended up with, they were under budgeting, they didn't have enough money, their houses were getting run down, they were constantly just drawing from emergency reserves to fix the roof and what have you. So when I got to West Philly, I saw all of the structure that all these other communities were dreaming of ever having, you know, a food co-op and a housing co-op that had multiple houses and, you know, all these other pieces. I saw people struggling to do that, and here that stuff was already there, but it hadn't been taken care of. It was all in disrepair. And so I got here and was like, but this is the stuff I know how to do, because I've seen it everywhere. I've been doing this organizing. I had already been doing that organizing for coming up on 10 years when I moved here. For more interviews and resources on community life, check out my website, www.ThisIsHowWeLiveTogether.com I'm learning more and more that when we learn how to live with one another in community, it strengthens our ability to know how to live together as a city, as a nation, and as a world. I hope you'll stay tuned as I continue to share stories of social change and transformation. That was Madeline Shaver covering for today's Spirit and Action program. Come to northernspiritradio.org to connect up with more of Madeline's work, and with that of the AFSC. Thanks to Madeline for sitting in today, and we'll see you all next week. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit and Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along, and our lives will feel the echo of our healing. You