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To participate in any of La Convivencia’s dialogues, workshops, service projects or events, please contact La Convivencia’s Volunteer Facilitator

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US Immigration After COVID: Call to Action for an Equitable Future

 March 20, 2021 at 1:00-2:30 pm

COVID has highlighted many inequities in our US society. Immigrants were especially vulnerable to the loss of jobs, lack of adequate access to health care, unavailability of financial support to undocumented immigrants, and disproportionately high number of positive cases and deaths for Latinx persons in particular. Hear stories of real people affected and what is needed to address prejudice towards immigrants and inequities in our systems and learn about work and policies to fix the US immigration system.

Please Register via this Eventbrite link:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/us-immigration-after-covid-call-to-action-for-an-equitable-future-tickets-144271585195​

Meet Our Panelists

Jessica Culley: General Coordinator

Jessica Culley has been working with CATA since the year 2000, starting as an intern and now working as CATA's General Coordinator. She is responsible for coordinating CATA's work throughout southern New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, and the Delmarva Peninsula.  Jessica is originally from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania but has lived in the Philadelphia area for 20 years.  In her former life, she studied Environmental Science in Northwestern, PA, lived and worked in rural Honduras, and studied massage therapy.   Her favorite farm produce is a slice of watermelon on a hot day in July.
 https://www.cata-farmworkers.org/

Edward J. Fenwick:
Volunteer with LALDEF and Solidaridad 

After retiring from a career in Management Consulting in 2016, I sought ways to contribute to a country that had rewarded me over the years.
I believe the essential ingredient in our countries success is a constant infusion and absorption of immigrants into our society. From our country’s very beginning immigrants bring a diversity and ethics that refreshes and renews our American spirit. It is the very essence of American exceptionalism.
In retirement I wanted to help our nation by helping our immigrant non-citizen community earn the right to stay in our country and become citizens. Volunteering in Legal Services at Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund (LALDEF) and co leading Solidaridad Central New Jersey I have found venues for supporting our immigrant non-citizens. At LALDEF I have gained DOJ Accredited Representative status enabling me to more fully support our immigrant non-citizen community. At Solidaridad we have been able to expand our service from initially responding to ICE raids to providing accompaniment to immigration court or ICE check-ins and now a Pro Se Clinic supporting those applying for asylum. 

Esder Chong: Founder, RU Dreamers

Esder Chong is the founder of RU Dreamers, a student organization at Rutgers-Newark that advocates for undocuemnted, DACA, and TPS students' access to higher education. Through RU Dreamers, she pushed for institutional and state immigrant inclusive programs and policies with a coalition of student leaders, community organizers and activists. She is currently pursuing a master's degree at Tsinghua University as a Schwarzman Scholar.

Lilia Fernandez, Ph.D.
​Associate Professor, Rutgers University
Latino & Caribbean Studies & History

Lilia is the Henry Rutgers Term Chair in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of History at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is a scholar of 20th century Latino/a urban and immigration history and the author of Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2012), a history of the migration and settlement of Latinos in Chicago in the years after World War II. She has also authored numerous book chapters, journal articles, book reviews, and essays on Latino/a community formation, labor migration, nativism and xenophobia, and urban history, Currently, she is working on several projects including a book on the history of panethnic Latino politics in Chicago and an essay on Latinos, police abuse, and the criminal justice system.

Media/Photo/Video Release: By participating in this Zoom program, I hereby agree that La Convivencia may take and use any photographs or video/audio tape(s) of me or my family members for any educational or documentary purpose it deems necessary, including, but not limited to: posting on websites, distribution via the internet i.e. Facebook and other projects that promote the mission of this nonprofit organization.
This event will be recorded on ZOOM and will be posted on all of La Convivencia’s platforms.