Culture Makers: Celebrating Oakland immigrants and working on the frontlines

On daily basis immigrants from all around the world play a task in shaping the id of Oakland and contributing to its liveliness. Immigrants assist Oakland make it lovely by bringing range into our neighborhoods and faculties, offering our small firms with energy and enriching our collective cultural life.

In a second of intensified federal assaults on immigrant communities, we collect to emphasise and speak about a few of the methods through which Oaklanders can do and carry out to supply native assist and sources.

Be part of us to Cultuurmakers on Thursday, September 18 within the New Parkway Theater, the place the artwork and neighborhood reporter Azucena Rasilla within the New Parkway theater can be discussions with Abby Sullivan Engen and immigrant rights lawyer at Centro Authorized de la Raza; Gabriela Galicia, government director of Road Stage Well being Venture; and Leva Zand, the founder and government director of Artogether.

Collectively they share tales from the immigrant communities of Oakland and emphasize important sources – from navigating authorized challenges and the usage of well being care to elevating immigrant voices via artwork.

The night will even comprise highly effective spoken phrase performances by Oakland youth poet Laureate Cael Dueñas-Lara and vice-poet Laureate Sehinne Yohannes.

Furthermore, friends who arrive early can obtain an unique artwork print to take house! For this system, native artists Sergio de la Torre and Chris Treggiari can be freed from their prints of them Sanctuary City ProjectThese folks have been concerned in dialogue and make participatory artwork round immigration since 2017. They’re accompanied by members of The Oakland LowdownA hyperlocal journalism and Kunstlab, and pupil reporters from the Graduate Faculty of Journalism from UC Berkeley, which is able to invite a dialog and accumulate insights from individuals in regards to the native results of federal immigration coverage.

Right here is extra about our panel members and poets:

Abby Sullivan Enden

Sullivan Enden is the co-directing lawyer of the authorized follow of immigrant rights in Oakland Non-profit Centro Authorized de la Raza. Centro is the principle group of the Alameda County Immigration Authorized Training Partnership (ACILEP) and has activated for 55 years in Oakland, and provides authorized companies and advocacy for low earnings and immigrant populations. Because the begin of the present presidential administration and in shut collaboration with Acilep companions, the Sullivan Engen workforce has responded to dozens of ice cream buildings and arrests of the neighborhood, together with working in shut cooperation with non-legal proponents to win the quick launch of the primary Alameda County-Indenter to be arrested.

Gabriela Galicia

Galicia is the chief director of Road Stage Well being Venture, a neighborhood heart established in Oakland that focuses on bettering the nicely -being of below -secured, uninsured and lately arrived immigrants in Alameda County. Throughout her decade in varied roles at avenue stage, Galicia contributed to the event of the Road Outreach program of the group that promotes relationships with Oakland Day Laborers; Supervision of advocacy and organizing efforts at native and state stage in coalitions that promote the rights of immigrant employees; And pioneered the Collective Day Laborer program of Oakland Staff Staff that created a secure and highly effective area for workers with a low wages-it-day employee program that’s acknowledged by the AFT CIO on the west coast.

Leva Sand

Zand is the founder and government director of Artogether, an Oakland group that gives artwork packages and a compassionate neighborhood the place refugees and immigrants can flourish. For 20 years, Zand has been a devoted advocate for refugee communities and a voice for human rights and social justice. She studied legislation in her house nation Iran and obtained diplomas in sociology and feminist and non secular research. Leva’s non -profit profession began in 2005 in Sacramento for refugees from Southeast Asia. Later she managed a workforce of reporters for the Worldwide Basis for Electoral Methods (IFES), led a publication for the Institute for Conflict and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and led a gender consciousness program for the Eurasia Basis. Earlier than founding Artogether in 2017, she directed a web based faculty for the Violence Initiative for Democracy (NID).

Sehinne Yohannes

Yohannes, 16, is a Habesha poet and a junior within the Social Justice Academy at San Leandro Excessive Faculty who used poetry as a catalyst for activism, in addition to a coin when the planet feels that it was not meant for her. Her poetry describes the fact of the world through which we dwell, and the fantasies she hopes can ever come true. Poetry and writing helped her to interrupt out of her shell and gave her the boldness to be her true genuine self.

Cael Dueñas-Lara

Ninth class participant Dueñas-Lara is a Mexican-American American of the second era, born, raised and at present dwelling in East Eakland. Dueñas-Lara, a 2024 and 2025 Oakland youth polish finalist, is of the opinion that writing has enabled him to strengthen his voice and to take again concepts about himself and others. He strives to coach and encourage each his aged and colleagues by writing, to invalidate the dominant story of black and brown younger males in Oakland, whose tales have typically fashioned the social perceptions.