Ep 72: Seeking Asylum is a Human Right with Bay Area Border Relief's Belinda Arriaga
04/23/20 • 49 min
I’m honored to share this episode, the first I’m releasing after our lives have changed in immense ways due to this global pandemic. At a time when we realize how interconnected we all are, I’m honored to bring you a conversation with Dr. Belinda Arriaga, a leader at Bay Area Border Relief, about the incredibly important work she does championing families seeking asylum at the United States Mexican border. In addition to her advocacy through Bay Area Border Relief, Belinda is Founder and Executive Director of Ayudando Latinos a Soñar, a non-profit which stands for Believing in Latinos to Dream, dedicated to working with Latino rural youth, families, farmworkers, asylum seekers, and seniors living on coastside in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bringing her training as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, she serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of San Francisco in the School of Education, as Co-Founder of the Half Moon Bay Latino Advisory, and founder of the Latino Trauma Institute. She’s beloved by those who know her as being a fierce advocate with a heart of gold.In this episode, Belinda shares about her own childhood immigration experiences journeying to America from Panama, how despite her mother’s instruction to keep her head down she learned to speak out and fight injustice, about our country’s history of honoring asylum as a human right, and now the ways in which our current immigration policies increase trauma for families fleeing violence instead of providing our protection, shelter and support. Belinda tells her firsthand accounts of the devastating conditions that families experience living in encampments on the Mexican side of the border now and also about miracles and community rising up to literally open doors. With faith in our collective generosity and hope for more miracles, Belinda and I spoke this week about what the families at the border need now. We want to invite you to say “yes” to the challenge of writing love letters in Spanish especially to the children there and also to send along children’s masks that can provide some protection from the spread of the coronavirus if it reaches their encampment. As we are sheltering in place, Belinda, the Bay Area Border Relief team and I invite you to follow the information in the show notes to take action within your homes, to send care packages that let these families know that they are not forgotten.
Much appreciation, P.S. Know someone who would love this conversation? Pay this forward to a friend who may be interested.
This Episode is Dedicated by: Vickie Giambra of ABA’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy
Vickie Giambra is a Senior Staff Attorney with the ABA’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy. She lives in Houston, TX with her husband and twice-exceptional daughter. She has been practicing immigration law since 2009. She began her nonprofit immigration law career when she joined Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in January 2017.
As a Managing Attorney, she led the General Immigration Program at Catholic Charities, which encompassed family immigration matters and provided a full range of immigration services for refugees and asylees. With a B.A., cum laude, in Latin American Studies from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge, Vickie began her career working in HR and recruitment for a large international law firm in New York and London.
This sparked an interest in employment and immigration law, which led Vickie to enroll in the University of Houston Law Center, graduating in May 2009. She’s also a member of the Texas Bar and is also a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach.
ABA Children’s Immigration Law Academy
Connect with Vickie:
Vickie’s Suggested Resources:
- DHS Measures on the Border to Limit the Further Spread of Coronavirus
- Trump administration has expelled 10,000 migrants at the border during coronavirus outbreak, leaving less than 100 in CBP custody
- U.S. deports 400 migrant children under new coronavirus rules
- Under coronavirus immigration measure, U.S. is expelling border-crossers to Mexico in an a...
I’m honored to share this episode, the first I’m releasing after our lives have changed in immense ways due to this global pandemic. At a time when we realize how interconnected we all are, I’m honored to bring you a conversation with Dr. Belinda Arriaga, a leader at Bay Area Border Relief, about the incredibly important work she does championing families seeking asylum at the United States Mexican border. In addition to her advocacy through Bay Area Border Relief, Belinda is Founder and Executive Director of Ayudando Latinos a Soñar, a non-profit which stands for Believing in Latinos to Dream, dedicated to working with Latino rural youth, families, farmworkers, asylum seekers, and seniors living on coastside in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bringing her training as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, she serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of San Francisco in the School of Education, as Co-Founder of the Half Moon Bay Latino Advisory, and founder of the Latino Trauma Institute. She’s beloved by those who know her as being a fierce advocate with a heart of gold.In this episode, Belinda shares about her own childhood immigration experiences journeying to America from Panama, how despite her mother’s instruction to keep her head down she learned to speak out and fight injustice, about our country’s history of honoring asylum as a human right, and now the ways in which our current immigration policies increase trauma for families fleeing violence instead of providing our protection, shelter and support. Belinda tells her firsthand accounts of the devastating conditions that families experience living in encampments on the Mexican side of the border now and also about miracles and community rising up to literally open doors. With faith in our collective generosity and hope for more miracles, Belinda and I spoke this week about what the families at the border need now. We want to invite you to say “yes” to the challenge of writing love letters in Spanish especially to the children there and also to send along children’s masks that can provide some protection from the spread of the coronavirus if it reaches their encampment. As we are sheltering in place, Belinda, the Bay Area Border Relief team and I invite you to follow the information in the show notes to take action within your homes, to send care packages that let these families know that they are not forgotten.
Much appreciation, P.S. Know someone who would love this conversation? Pay this forward to a friend who may be interested.
This Episode is Dedicated by: Vickie Giambra of ABA’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy
Vickie Giambra is a Senior Staff Attorney with the ABA’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy. She lives in Houston, TX with her husband and twice-exceptional daughter. She has been practicing immigration law since 2009. She began her nonprofit immigration law career when she joined Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in January 2017.
As a Managing Attorney, she led the General Immigration Program at Catholic Charities, which encompassed family immigration matters and provided a full range of immigration services for refugees and asylees. With a B.A., cum laude, in Latin American Studies from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge, Vickie began her career working in HR and recruitment for a large international law firm in New York and London.
This sparked an interest in employment and immigration law, which led Vickie to enroll in the University of Houston Law Center, graduating in May 2009. She’s also a member of the Texas Bar and is also a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach.
ABA Children’s Immigration Law Academy
Connect with Vickie:
Vickie’s Suggested Resources:
- DHS Measures on the Border to Limit the Further Spread of Coronavirus
- Trump administration has expelled 10,000 migrants at the border during coronavirus outbreak, leaving less than 100 in CBP custody
- U.S. deports 400 migrant children under new coronavirus rules
- Under coronavirus immigration measure, U.S. is expelling border-crossers to Mexico in an a...
Previous Episode
Ep 71: Talking about Boys and Sex with Peggy Orenstein
Have you ever had a “pinch me” moment when you can’t believe how things come together?
With two boys in my home, and one a teen already, I’ve wanted to interview New York Times bestselling author Peggy Orenstein for the Mother's Quest Podcast since the moment I first heard about her new book, Boys & Sex.
So, when Jill Daniel of Happy Women Dinners asked me if I’d like to co-produce a dinner and conversation with Peggy in the SF Bay Area, I said “yes” practically before she finished her sentence.
That I would have the opportunity to interview Peggy for the debut episode of the Mother’s Quest Podcast Season Five ahead of our in-person dinner was just the most incredible bonus. Because Peggy’s work is truly transformational. Peggy is the New York Times bestselling author of Girls & Sex, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Waiting for Daisy, Flux, and Schoolgirls, an award-winning journalist, and internationally recognized speaker on gender issues, especially those related to teens, sex and relationships. She’s a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and has also been published in The Washington Post, Slate, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. She’s been featured on Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, The Today Show, Morning Joe, NPR’s Fresh Air and The PBS News Hour. Her TED Talk, “What Young Women Believe About Their Own Sexual Pleasure,” has been viewed over 4.6 million times.
The need to engage in conversations with our children about sex, even when they make us feel uncomfortable, was one of the biggest take-aways I had from my interview with Peggy. In this episode, we explore the insights she uncovered through her interviews with 100 teen boys and young men about their conceptions of masculinity and sexuality, including the early and pervasive experiences they have with porn, their understanding of consent, and the ways in which they feel unable to fully express themselves as emotional human beings.
Where Peggy’s prior research revealed that girls are systematically disconnected from their bodies, boys she found are disconnected from their hearts. As you listen, I invite you to think about how you could use something you learn in this episode to connect with your child. Be aware that while we don’t have explicit conversations about sex, we do mention topics such as porn. Please use your discretion in whether you want to play this episode around children. With older boys, you may purposefully choose, as Peggy jokingly suggests, to play this episode in their vicinity as a conversation starter. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to share this interview with you. I appreciated Peggy’s openness to sharing about her own E.P.I.C. life, to her bravery in her work, her inclusion of the perspectives of transgender and gay boys and to the impact of race in our conceptions of sexuality, and her challenge to us to have conversations with our children about sex. It’s not just “one talk,” she says, but a series of ongoing ones that our times call for today. And we have to start somewhere.
Much appreciation, P.S. Know someone who would love this conversation? Pay this forward to a friend who may be interested.
This Episode is Dedicated by: Casey O'Rourty of Joyful Courage to Amy Lang of Birds & Bees & KidsCasey O’Roarty, Med, is a facilitator of personal growth and development. Her work encourages parents to discover the purpose of their journey, while also providing them with tools and a shift of mindset that allows them to deepen their relationships with themselves and their families.
As a Positive Discipline Trainer since 2007 and certified coach, Casey has led countless groups through workshops and classes that have left them feeling empowered and excited about parenting. She also offers an engaging podcast, live and online classes, and individual coaching at www.joyfulcourage.com. Her first book, Joyful Courage: Calming the Drama and Taking Control of YOUR Parenting Journey launched May 20th, 2019. Casey lives in the Pacific Northwest with greatest teachers – her husband, and two teenage kids.
👉 Registration for Joyful Courage: Parenting Teens Academy
Join the Joyful Courage Parents of Teens Facebook Group
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Next Episode
MINISODE 2: Bite-Sized Reflection from my E.P.I.C. Life - A Pandemic Poem
After a podcast pause, I’m back with a bite-sized reflection from living my own E.P.I.C. life. If in the midst of this global pandemic, you’re someone like me, with the privilege of sheltering in place, and find yourself swinging from gratitude and inspiration to exasperation, this reflection is for you!
In this minisode, I share some of the things I’ve been reading and listening to that have supported me, and how they all weaved together one night when I sat down to write some aspirations for myself, something I’m referring to now as my “Pandemic Promise.” I hope you’ll give yourself some pause so you can listen in, hear about some of the practices and ideas that are grounding me right now, and consider writing a promise to yourself.
In this minisode you’ll hear me talk about:
- A powerful essay from Indian author, Arundhati Roy, suggesting ‘The pandemic is a portal’
- How my conversation in Ep 59: The Healer Lies Within through Ayurveda with Avanti Kumar Singh reminds me to create daily rituals
- Ep 63: A Maker’s Journey to a Good Life with Jonathan Fields, my “sparktype” and the morning practice Jonathan recommended that has me starting my day with clarity.
- A reminder to reconnect with the wisdom of our ancestors from Ep 50: Weaving our Ancestral Threads with Genealogist Nicka Smith
- The metaphor of the virus as a storm and how the three breath practice we explored in Ep 51: Equanimity & The Calm In the Storm with Mindful Parent Michelle Gale are helping me
- My “Pandemic Promise” to myself
If you’d rather read than listen, you can also go straight to the blog post here.
And please mark your calendar for the 3rd Annual Mother’s Quest Manifesto Challenge, starting on May 11th in the Facebook Group. Join here.
Follow all the conversations at www.mothersquest.com/podcast
Much appreciation, Julie Neale
P.S. Know someone who would love this conversation? Pay this forward to a friend who may be interested.
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