Agua de sandía
I’m stuck trying to write this cover letter for Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. The position I’m applying for is legal advocate or paralegal. Northwest Immigrant Rights Project is a non-profit that provides legal aid to detainees as well as free legal counseling to detainees, since detainees do not have a right to public defenders. I got to know them through my work at the Church Council. They were a part of getting the Rapid Response Hotline started, which I volunteered for. They have done most of the content and resources for Know Your Rights workshops, a couple of which I was able to attend and was then confident enough to volunteer to give a KYR workshop with Colectiva Legal. NWIRP filed a class action suit challenging the Muslim Ban and they were also at the airport the day the ban was implemented. I want to work with them because I believe they are a community minded organization. They work from the ground up with the best interest of the people they serve in mind. I want to stay close to Tacoma and to the Detention Center, as I know there are plans to expand it and that will be up for discussion at City Council in September. I would be glad to continue to learn about the organizations and the work being done in Tacoma to combat detention. I got to know some local organizations, attending actions put on by Northwest Detention Center Resistance and was in communication with AID Northwest.
I want to ultimately work on immigration reform because militarization and deportation is not how we should go about solving the issue of undocumentation. It is in the interest of ICE and GEO to make detainees believe they are illegal criminals who do not deserve to be in this country, but what should be illegal is the treatment immigrants and refugees at the detention center receive.
I got to appreciate NWIRP more this year as they helped a friend of my family’s who was detained. He didn’t have a lawyer but thanks to NWIRP he had a better idea of what was going to happen and what rights he had.
As I drink my agua de sandía the bright pink drink takes me back to the warmest places of my memory, pero the most fresca ones too. Mami loves blending watermelon and keeps a pitcher of the agua in the fridge all summer long.
The agua de sandía was common for Mami when she was growing up in Honduras, too. I remember feeling prideful of the hot pink drink when I saw it being served out of a huge jarra of the kind that are common at las pulgas. Anyway it was a whole rainbow of jarras de agua fresca and it was beautiful. I remember it because moments where my identity were affirmed in my surroundings were rare growing up.
I want to work toward immigration reform so that more latinx kids growing up can be affirmed through what they see and how their families are treated. People shouldn’t be in a constant state of not belonging. I want my family to be confident that there is a place for them here.
