Day 2: There are no coincidences! Yesterday, I met with three very welcoming and humble undocu-activists from Provo, Utah. One of them read that I was in Salt Lake City for the day and invited me to meet her and some friends. Filled with excitement, I dropped all of my plans and drove out to them. As soon as we met, an instant connection was born. We passionately began to exchange stories and discussed our activism work. It was clear to us that Utah is a different world. In Utah, religion (Latter-day Saints aka LDS) and politics are extremely interconnected (when someone asks how separate the church from the government is here, folks answer that they are separated only by one block since LDS churches are literally surrounding government buildings everywhere). We began brainstorming on ways to build the activism work in this area and we soon realized that before any activism work could be done, a safe space needed to be created. Friendships, bonds and a sense of community of undocumented people needed to be established as a stepping stone to any activism work. We ended the day by recording our thoughts via a podcast and sadly said goodbye (after some exploring around the area, eating frozen yogurt and delicious soup, of course). It feels good to build connections on this journey. That is what adventures are all about!
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 14:03:34 +0000