Lori Buckwalter
Administrator – Pacific Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
820 Alameda Ave. (P.O. Box 1319). Astoria, OR 97103
www.pacuuf.org - lori.buckwalter@gmail.com
February 12, 2008
February 24 (11am) – “And Justice for All” – Marcy Westerling of the
Rural Organizing Project (ROP) will speak at the Pacific Unitarian
Universalist Fellowship. Following the service (at 1pm), Marcy will
journey to the Clatsop Community College Performing Arts Center at
16th and Franklin in Astoria to present the last film of the PUUF film
series on immigration.
For over twenty years, Marcy Westerling has been a leader in
organizing, educating, and mobilizing grassroots responses to
violence, bigotry and injustice in rural communities. Marcy founded
the Rural Organizing Project (ROP) in 1992 to develop the ongoing
capacity of pro-democracy groups in over 60 rural and small town
communities in Oregon. This network of human dignity groups, committed
to a broad agenda of social change, is the first of its kind in the
state of Oregon and has since become a national model. The ROP is
noted for its work in not only empowering rural, small town and
frontier activists to develop and use their progressive voice, but
also for linking issues through transformational organizing which
understands the long term nature of justice work.
The film presented will be “Immigration on Main Street” described below:
With Washington stuck in place on illegal immigration policy, local
governments are taking the matter into their own hands, shifting the
cultural and political battleground from Pennsylvania Avenue to Main
Street, USA. PBS’s NOW catches up with two New Jersey mayors who have
sharply different —and politically surprising —approaches to dealing
with undocumented immigrants in their communities.
Morristown mayor Don Cresitello, a Democrat, wants to invoke a
Department of Homeland Security provision that would grant his police
department federal enforcement powers in dealing with undocumented
immigrants charged with criminal activity. “I’m not suggesting that
all of these people are involved in criminal activities,” Mayor
Cresitello tells NOW, “But for every one who is here illegally that’s
one more that didn’t need to be here. We have enough problems with our
own crime.”
An hour away, Hightstown mayor Bob Patten has turned his little town
into a so-called “Sanctuary City”—a place where efforts are made to
protect the civil rights of law-abiding undocumented immigrants. “We
don’t ask people what their immigration status is now,” says Mayor
Patten. “We simply want to treat everybody justly, fairly. There’s a
due process.”
NOW’s David Brancaccio visits the mayors and members of their
immigrant communities to uncover the impact these measures are having,
and the passions that fuel them.
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Marcy Westerling can be reach at:
Rural Organizing Project – Advancing Democracy in Rural Oregon
PO Box 1350, Scappoose, OR 97056
(503) 543-8417 - www.rop.org |