RAIZ Archives - Resilience OC

Welcome our New Executive Director

Resilience OC — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 04:30:57 +0000

As Resilience O.C., we want to announce our new Executive Director, Claudia Perez. Claudia began her involvement in youth and community organizing as an undocumented high school student in 2010. As an undocumented womxn of color, her participation was key in efforts that lead to the creation of RAIZ (Resistencia, Autonomia, Igualdad, lideraZgo) in December of 2011. Beginning as a RAIZ youth member, she quickly transitioned from attending people power popular education workshops, organizing collective community mural projects in Santa Ana, and co-coordinating art as a form of resistance workshops which lead to the creation of art used during annual May Day marches, to becoming one of the most committed and transformative youth mentors in Santa Ana.

From 2011 to 2012 and as part of the undocumented youth movement, Claudia participated in efforts in support of DACA and in local efforts helping undocumented youth learn about and apply for DACA. From 2012 to 2016, she co-organized annual Youth in Resistance Conferences engaging hundreds of youth each year. Between 2013-2014, Claudia became a trained RJ practitioner by CCEJ and Rita Alfred of the Restorative Justice Training Institute and was part of local efforts against the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline in Orange County. During the same period, she was part of a highly skilled and very effective local deportation defense team, which up to this day, has contributed to the stopping of over 20 deportations.

In 2014, she joined Santa Ana Boys and Men of Color (SABMoC) and launched the Santa Ana Girls and Womxn of Color (SAGWoC) project while becoming a Xinachtli Teaching Circles facilitator and while implementing restorative justice based alternatives to suspensions at Lorin Griset Academy as an RJ Implementation Specialist for the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD). In 2016, RAIZ, SABMoC and SAGWoC merged to form Resilience Orange County. That year, Claudia became the first Director of our Youth Organizing Department and Co-Coordinator of the Orange County Girls and Womxn of Color (OCGWoC) project. Claudia received her Bachelor’s in Sociology from the University of California, Irvine in 2017. She is also a key partner in the Latino-Muslim Unity partnership.

As Executive Director of Resilience O.C., Claudia will continue the organizational commitment to the vision of nurturing a transformative movement and the mission of supporting resilient youth leaders in creating a transformative youth leadership pipeline in Orange County aiming towards social-systemic transformation while promoting healing, trauma-informed and culturally relevant practices that are inclusive of all members of the community. As a team, we honor the commitment and hard work of this powerful and courageous womxn of color, throughout all these years, and look forward to growing as an organization under her leadership.

– The Resilience OC Team

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Youth in Resistance Conference

Resilience OC — Sat, 07 May 2016 17:24:13 +0000

The 5th Annual Youth in Resistance Conference was an immense success! Orange County students, teachers and parents came together to to hear and learn about our stories, our struggle, and how to build our future together. The conference came together because often times the youth voice is not taken into account and often ignored, but when we come together, we generate and create PEOPLE POWER and together can change things in our community. We believe we have to be rooted in our community and be knowledgeable about the issues that affect us in order to resist, fight for justice and create leadership amongst each other. The purpose of the youth conference is to empower and connect youth to local social movements that organize through art, cultural and popular education.

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STATEMENT: NO RAIDS VS. CENTRAL AMERICAN FAMILIES IN OC, BUT ICE REMAINS A THREAT TO COMMUNITIES EVERYWHERE

Resilience OC — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 07:10:47 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Alexis Nava Teodoro, (714) 574-6540, alexis@theiyc.org. Today, Carlos Perea, Director of Resistencia, Autonomia, Igualdad, y lideraZgo, (RAIZ) issued the following statement: We are releasing this statement to clarify rumors of ICE conducting raids in Orange County targeting Central American families. There were no raids in Orange County targeting Central American families like they occurred in other parts of the country. As a matter of fact, Virginia Kice, spokesperson for ICE, told members of RAIZ during a phone conversation on Thursday, January 7, that no arrests have been made of Central American families in the entire state of California. Nonetheless, RAIZ and the Immigrant Youth Coalition (IYC) have consistently shown via anti-deportation campaigns that all Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Orange County and across the state are not only inhumane, but a blatant disrespect to our lives and that of our families and community. Let it be clear that any form of collaboration between local law enforcement agencies and ICE breaks the trust the community has with its local government. Any presence of ICE in immigrant communities at a time in which there are outrageous efforts by President Obama’s administration to deport Central American families in other parts of the country is creating profound fear, anxiety, and pain in the community. We strongly urge Orange County cities to follow the lead of local governments that have broken ties with ICE enforcement programs, such as the City of Philadelphia, to send a clear message to its immigrant population that they care and their human rights are respected. We also would like to inform the public, that if they have confirmations of ICE raids, in any area of the state, to call the TRUST Act Coalition hotline at 1-844-878-7801. ### RAIZ is an organization composed of youth, parents, and community members who are migrants and working class. It is affiliated with The Immigrant Youth Coalition, a statewide organization led by LGBTQ-undocumented-womyn organizers and formerly incarcerated and detained individuals.

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OC SHERIFF’S REVIEWING ICE DETAINER POLICY WHILE SANTA ANA RESIDENT SAMUEL SIXTOS GOMEZ STILL FACING DEPORTATION

Resilience OC — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 07:07:56 +0000

Press Statement For Immediate Release June 6th, 2014 Media Contact: Alexis Nava Teodoro 714-574-6540 alexis@theiyc.org alexis@youthinresistance.org ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF’S REVIEWING ICE DETAINER POLICY WHILE SANTA ANA RESIDENT SAMUEL SIXTOS GOMEZ STILL REMAINS IN DETENTION FACING DEPORTATION Orange County, CA—Yesterday, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) announced effective immediately that they will no longer hold “pre-sentenced” inmates on ICE Detainers beyond any release date/time. This announcements comes following a similar statement made by the Orange County Probation Department (OCPD) and in light of an Oregon federal district court’s decision, Miranda Olivares v. Clackamas County, 2014 WL 1414305 (D. Ore. April 11, 2014), “which concluded that an ICE detainer, without a determination of probable cause, is not legally sufficient to hold an inmate beyond his or her sentence ending date.” However, OCSD and the Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) recently turned over Samuel Sixtos-Gomez, a Santa Ana father of a U.S. citizen daughter and potential candidate for Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, absent a major criminal record and in violation of the TRUST Act. As an immigrant rights organization and the only one that stops deportations in Orange County, we were deeply alarmed by the high number of ICE detainers that were issued to youth with only juvenile records in Orange County, California, where local probation officers were referring minors for deportation at rates much higher than anywhere else in the state. Although the OCPD has modified their internal procedure several times since 2012, we are still alarmed that key language in the current procedure still requires the intake probation officer (IPO) to inquire about and investigate the immigration status of a minor in custody and also requires the IPO to notify ICE if the minor is a “suspected foreign national.” Aside from the procedure in question, OCPD continues to violate state confidentiality laws by sharing the information of minors with ICE. Simultaneously, OCSD will continue to refer people to ICE prior to or the day of their release date. The Secure Communities program is still in place in Orange County, which is one way that ICE and local law enforcement agencies share information. In addition, OCSD continues to have a 287(g) and Inter-Governmental Service Agreements (IGSA’s) with ICE. These policies which create the Pol(ICE) also known as the “poli-migra” in Orange County, continue to terrorize our communities. As RAIZ, we believe that this relationship between federal immigration agencies and local law enforcement agencies is unconstitutional. This is why we will continue to organize in our communities and in the county and continue to push for an end to the Pol(ICE) and an end to deportations all over nation.

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