Wednesday, November 5: La Frontera in Our Backyard

Please join us at BHFH Nov. 5 to explore the stories of Boston-area immigrants caught in a cycle that includes labor exploitation, racial profiling, detention and deportation.

Judy Goldberger, a member of Beacon Hill Friends Meeting and Quakers Concerned for Immigration Justice, will lead the discussion as part of BHFH’s First Wednesday program. We’ll gather in the parlor at 7:30 p.m. for the 90-minute discussion, which will include light refreshments.

The First Wednesday program runs from September to May, with a current theme of In Our Backyard focused on the local implications of issues of wider significance. A September program explored labor issues, and we’ll be addressing prisons and incarceration and prisons in December.

Describing the upcoming November program, Goldberger told us by email: “Think of immigration justice, and the image that generally comes to mind is the Southwest borderlands. But in reality, thousands of immigrants living in the Boston area struggle for justice every day. Restrictive federal immigration policies, globalization of capital, and drug trafficking leave many families with few alternatives, living in the shadows in our communities.

“They are vulnerable to labor exploitation; racial profiling, detention, and deportation; unhealthy living conditions and limited access to health care; victimization by criminals; and harassment. Hear a few of our neighbors’ stories and learn ways we can walk in solidarity with them on the road towards justice.”

Goldberger first sat at kitchen tables with immigrant families in Boston a dozen years ago as a Birth Sister (doula). She is a member of the steering committee of Boston New Sanctuary Movement and a pastoral visitor with immigrants detained by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Suffolk County House of Corrections.