Marin Voice: Celebrating Immigrant Heritage Month with liberty, justice for all

This Thursday marks the beginning of Immigrant Heritage Month, honoring the economic and cultural contributions of immigrants in shaping America.

In thinking about the plight of so many hard-working immigrants over hundreds of years, I am reminded of a client at Legal Aid of Marin who sought our services for unpaid wages.

Our client came to Marin County from South America, leaving her husband and children behind in order to find work that could help support her family and provide economic stability. She worked for months as a housecleaner, spending over 12 hours per day without meal breaks or overtime. She was experiencing “labor trafficking” without even knowing it.

With the representation and advocacy from Legal Aid of Marin, our client not only received over $35,000 in back wages owed by her employer, but she also secured permanent U.S. residency for herself and her family due to the labor trafficking she endured.

This story is one of countless we witness where people come to the United States for a better life and are taken advantage of by individuals with greater economic, social and political power.

Every day, Legal Aid of Marin hears from families that, for generations, have never been able to get ahead – in large part due to illegal or exclusionary policies. We’re told of the terror our clients feel when faced with the choice of asserting their rights or risking their employment and becoming destitute or homeless.

We counsel rent-burdened families who are forced to pay more than half of their income for pest-infested apartments or to live in dilapidated RVs with no water or toilets. We also represent workers who don’t get paid and older adults taken advantage of by predatory business practices.

It should be no surprise that the communities we serve are disproportionately composed of immigrants.

Advocating for the rights and well-being of low-income residents, particularly immigrants, is our mission — and our effort to create a more equitable and just society.  But it is not nearly enough.

The reality is that immigrants will continue to come to America – despite parents and their children suffering separation at the border, despite the number of hate crimes reaching the highest level in decades and despite exclusionary rhetoric playing out daily in our national headlines.

Immigrant Heritage Month should serve to inspire a vision of our society that commits to repairing the damage inflicted by long-established policies and systems rooted in dehumanization and oppression.

By embracing the complexities of our immigrant heritage, we can foster greater understanding and empathy across our community.  Only then can we change the exclusionary systems that continue to act as barriers to opportunity today and build inclusionary systems that welcome immigrants and optimize their contributions.

We can’t change the past, but we can shape the future by committing to challenging injustice and promoting inclusivity throughout Marin.

Finally, let’s declare and accept that almost all families originally chose to come here as immigrants. The exceptions, of course, being those of us who descended from Indigenous peoples or those who descended from slaves forced to come here.

Whether by recent journeys or historical pilgrimages, someone in most of our family lines came to this country as an immigrant looking for a better life.

On Thursday, there will be a special event called “Celebrating Immigrants in Marin,” presented by the Marin Immigrant Rights and Justice workgroup and the Marin Communications Forum (3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Rafael). To register for this free event, email Michelle@First5Marin.org.

At this forum, you will hear about several immigrant experiences in Marin and the collective efforts to advocate for individuals and families, and we will talk about system changes that can create opportunities for their success. We will also be recognizing several individuals who serve the immigrant community in Marin with true dedication.

We are also extremely honored to welcome the legendary civil rights activist and community organizer Dolores Huerta as the keynote speaker.  Please join us.

Laura McMahon is the executive director of Legal Aid of Marin, which was founded in 1958 to provide free civil legal services to low-income residents in the areas of eviction defense, crimes in the workplace, consumer law, estate planning and fines and fees. Online at LegalAidMarin.org.