 Media Credit: Photos Courtesy Of Allison Ramirez
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 Media Credit: Photos Courtesy Of Allison Ramirez Nonprofit organizations like CARECEN help immigrants and refugees who risk their lives in order to get to America. Allison Ramirez, BC '07, works with these victims in El Salvador where others like her protest these abuses.
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It was summertime in El Salvador and Allison Ramirez, BC '07, was on her way to deliver a wheelchair to a man who had lost an arm and a leg. These injuries, the result of an unfortunate accident while he was trying to board the cargo train that carries migrants from the south to the north of Mexico, were the explicit sacrifices in his journey of immigration.
While the man was lying on a hammock, his family surrounded him and offered his visitors water and snacks, playing the role of the hospitable host. Mistaking Ramirez for an export from Spain, the family members gracefully asked questions and started conversation with their guests, soon discovering that Ramirez was actually from the United States.
Ramirez wondered why this family presented her simply with their own hospitality, showing no anger or contempt for her comfortable position in the world. In this simple house, she realized this man had nearly given his life to live in the country she had simply been born into, a country in which she could come and go at her own liberty.
Surprised and feeling slightly awkward, Ramirez at first thought that their actions were out of the ordinary. Through watching these people, she realized that these responses were instead a beautiful testament to the country of El Salvador. The simple attempts to make her feel welcome combined with their genuine gratitude shouldn't be surprising, they should be expected.
"It was beautiful, and it was something that says a lot about this country," Ramirez said.
She first began working in El Salvador after studying abroad in the country during her junior year at Boston College through the Casa de la Solidaridad program. It was the small encounters with the local population that characterized her experience and taught her some of the most important lessons.
Talking to a young girl during her community service, which is required for the Casa program, was just one simple learning experience. Ramirez said she asked the young girl what she wanted for her birthday. The young girl then responded that her family never did anything for birthdays because they could not afford to. The young girl then said, "I can't afford a birthday present but you can in the U.S." Ramirez said that these moments, just interacting with the kids, demonstrated the disparity between the two worlds she had come to know. "You definitely see how desperate the situation can be," she said.
Through the contacts she made while studying abroad, Ramirez found the Central American Resource Center by initially interning at the nonprofit during the summer after her junior year and eventually turning her work with CARECEN into her Fulbright scholarship. Ramirez ultimately chose this organization that works closely with migrants because of her own personal experience with migrants in both El Salvador and in the United States. Seeing the situation from two perspectives, Ramirez said she was most touched by these struggles and felt most compelled to work with CARECEN to improve this situation.
CARECEN is a nonprofit organization founded in 1981 by Salvadoran refugees in the United Stateswww. The initial expectations for the organization were shaped by the migrant experience of Central Americans fleeing from the brutality of civil war in El Salvador. CARECEN then developed into a response to the transition from refugee to permanent resident experienced by this traveling population.
Ramirez's own involvement with the organization is characterized by the specific things she does on a daily basis and by the people she interacts with and learns from. Louis, one of her co-workers, is an older man who is partly deaf because of a bomb that went off during the civil war. She said that his personal lessons about the problems of migration have taught her about the many problems of migration that do not get a lot of press coverage.
"I've learned a lot about what a huge struggle it is to leave this country and a lot about the social problems that are created with it," Ramirez said. She said those problems include human trafficking and "children who don't have parents around because they both left," and "people who die continuously on the border."
The organization looks to provide assistance, legal protection, and social services to immigrants throughout the United States with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, New York, and Washington, D.C. Initially they provided basic English language instruction, medical care, and even food to the local community of war refugees. More specifically, members of the organization began to involve themselves in the investigation of human rights abuses they intensified as the war continued.
CARECEN also has taken different steps within political spheres to promote understanding of the migratory experience, encouraging policy changes and legal initiatives. Specifically, CARECEN organized two lawsuits in 1985 involving the treatment of immigrants in the United States. According to the CARECEN Web site, the Orantes-Hernandez v. Meese trial involved the violation of the due process rights of Salvadoran refugees while in detention of the immigration and naturalization service (INS). After three years, the case won a significant victory, ensuring full due process rights extended to all refugees and other immigrants. The class-action suit, Perez-Funes v. District Director required the INS to cease coercing juveniles to waive their right to a deportation hearing while also requiring the INS to provide legal advice to juveniles.
Ramirez began working with CARECEN through its efforts to locate migrants that had disappeared during their journey to the United States CARECEN initially got involved in these cases when family members of the disappeared contacted the Center. Between 2004 and 2006, CARECEN worked with 74 cases, 18 of which have been resolved using a network of organizations within Guatemala, Mexico, and U.S. border towns.
Using this issue as a stimulus, Ramirez then went on to help in the formation of an organization called the Committee of Family Members of Migrants who have Disappeared or Passed Away, which continues the search for disappearing migrants while also working to promote awareness of human rights violations felt by migrants.
Furthering her work, Ramirez is now working to raise money for an event called the "Caminata de Esperanza," which involves a journey from El Progreso, Honduras to San Salvador and then on to different border towns in Guatemala and Mexico. The trip is designed to call attention to human rights violations for migrants based on visits to migrant shelters and sit-ins for coverage of the situation.
Ramirez said that the cases of families of migrants who have died or disappeared have been the most memorable and poignant experiences she has encountered in her work. "They have to live with that torture of not knowing," she said. "They are so very emotional about it. It's great that they are able to do something; that it wasn't for nothing. And I think that gives them a lot of hope, but at the same time that personal pain will never go away with them."
Ramirez is now working to make a documentary with another Fulbright scholar that will highlight the implications of the civil war of the 1980s. In this project she will be incorporating her own work with migrants, but also her own personal interest in the analysis of media within El Salvador. For Ramirez, her work is also about reaching outward and publicizing a situation in Central America that many people might miss.
"Immigration today is still kind of a big issue in the U.S. and I would just urge people to remember that it's a big world and it's worth it to look at the situation from different perspectives," Ramirez said.
2008 Woodie Awards
