El Chisme 2020 continues to flip the script.
We’re showing what happens when “Latinx outreach” isn’t just a buzzword; when WE create a space to center our community and our issues; when WE write the questions that get asked and grip that mic like the reinxs we are, when WE fill the room with a sea of beautiful Brown faces and pass the mic to our gente to share their stories directly with the candidates.
What happens is candidates face us and listen to our stories. That’s when we determine for ourselves how well they respond to our issues.
During our second conversation in the series, we again uplifted issues and first-hand accounts from our community to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren.
We pulled out 5 significant moments. What were yours? Missed it? Check it out in English or en Español. We’ll see you for our next conversation with Secretary Julián Castro in San Antonio on November 21!
5. “Open to suspending deportations…”
Let’s be real. This is the first election where not one but two top Democratic candidates have revealed–first heard during our El Chisme 2020 series–that a moratorium on deportations is a possibility within their administration. Last week, Senator Warren said she was open to suspending deportations. (During our Chisme2020 with Senator Sanders, he pledged a moratorium on deportations.) Whether you agree with the position of the candidates or not, this is an important shift in how immigration is discussed at the presidential level, and it’s why spaces like El Chisme 2020 are critical in bending the arc of the moral universe towards justice.
4. Audience member shouting, “It’s a colony!”
During the discussion on whether Warren would cancel Puerto Rico’s debt, a member of the audience made a welcomed intervention. You can’t hear the audience member on the clip, but you’ll hear Warren respond, “Well, fair enough.”
3. Members and partners meeting Warren behind-the-scenes
Before the interview started, Senator Warren met with some of Mijente’s members and partners behind the scenes. She met members of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights who talked about their work against deportations, members of Siembra North Carolina, including one of their luchadoras fighting to get her husband out of immigration detention, and Mijente’s crew who worked on the Gente4Abrams campaign. (Photos courtesy of Siembra NC)
2. Warren walking in to Mexican iconic feminist anthem “Pelo Suelto”
What better way to make an entrance than to “Pelo Suelto,” the musical equivalent of the Warren-inspired rallying cry “Nevertheless, she persisted”?
1. Latinxs repping and organizing the Deep South
We have mad love for our compas from Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) who traveled 12 hours to support the event and to our co-host Siembra NC for organizing this edition of El Chisme 2020 with us. All of them do important work in their communities and have fought immigration enforcement policies locally and nationally for years. We also had the support of members and allies from throughout North Carolina. The show of force from our compañeros across the South was beautiful to see and demonstrated how the power of their organizing will extend well beyond 2020.
What about you? What moment revealed something new to you about Warren?
Hasta la próxima! Get the latest updates on our one-on-one conversations with Democratic candidates by signing up for our emails!
