My name is Laura Hopps and I am from the United States. My focus is on working with the immigrant population, and the human rights of undocumented workers. Currently I am living in Nicaragua where I work at a community centre that focuses on educating women and youth in the community.
What most Americans do not understand are the reasons why people are coming from Latin America to the US. It has a lot to do with the American foreign policy, the history of US military intervention in many Latin American countries, and also economic policy and free trade agreements, such as CAFTA and NAFTA, which have had a very negative impact on these countries. So, I am living in Nicaragua, working with the community on grass-roots development. I want to learn from this community, and also help organize youth activities and collaborate on projects such as the formation of women’s co-operatives
I hope that in my several years living and working in Nicaragua, I can also connect with people back in the US, to share with them the experiences of the people living in Nicaragua. I want to be able to learn from this community, contribute how I can, and learn about grass-roots development from them. Also, I would like to educate people back in the US about the reality facing many Central & Latin American countries.
I’m a “quaker”, which is a Christian-Protestant religion, and we are pacifists, so peace is very important to me. An essential component of peace is dialogue, and coming to realize that there is no “other” – breaking down all kinds of stereotypes that we have. This is just a phenomenal opportunity for me, as I have been able to meet people from countries that the US is at war with (now, or potentially in the future) – Palestine, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq.
For me it has been a very powerful experience, building a global network. I have met a lot of people from Central & Latin America, and we can collaborate and share ideas for projects to implement. Hopefully, with the contacts I have made, especially in the Middle East, I can maintain those and learn about what is going on over there. The US media is very skewed a lot of the time on these issues, so I cannot really find out the truth unless I talk to someone there.
I hope that we can maintain this network that we are building here. There is a quote that inspires me. It is from Oscar Romero, who was a peace activist in El Salvador who was assassinated. He said that, as activists, “We plant the seeds, that one day will grow. We water our seeds that are already planted. We may never see the end results”. That is something that is true for all of us. We are all part of movements for peace, for gender equality, for protecting the environment. We just have to realize that we may not see everything that were working towards come together in our lifetime – but to know that being part of this social justice, and positive change in the world is important for our grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Definitely just getting to know people has been the best part. For a lot of things, it is very difficult to learn about them from case studies in a book – it is totally different to connect with somebody who is living in a different situation, to hear about their reality, what they think, and their perspective on certain things. It is incredible and I feel blessed to be able to participate in Kaleidoscope 2007. I think this is what peace-building and grass-roots development is all about – bringing together people. And it is also about that personal relationship – just hanging out with people.
My favorite Learning Marketplace class was definitely Gender, Religion & Conflict, because it was an opportunity for us to all come together to share our experiences on what we thought about gender and the differences between gender and conflict and religion – and really talk about it! It was inspiring for me, because I’m a feminist and I had the opportunity to met men who are working for women’s rights, or men who would say they are feminists. It is even more inspiring to know that you have men and women who are really passionate about the same issues. And also to see that despite the fact that we come from such different situations, cultures, religions etc, that a lot of the problems we are talking about here (gender, conflict, environmental degradation, etc) have similar manifestations in different countries.
Sometimes I get really scared, as there are so many problems, like HIV/AIDS, increase in population, and we know already we are going to see increased conflicts over things like water, and it is really scary. It is scary for me, as an American, to see things that what my government is doing and the concentration of power. How can you create a totally different paradigm, or situation? It is scary.
I know for myself, and others who identify as American, it is kind of a challenge because people meet us, and think that we think certain things, or have a judgment. It is interesting to me, because I do not identify as being a person from the US – it is the country where I live, but I do not believe in that kind of nationalism. This is a good opportunity for me to also break down some other peoples perceptions of what Americans think. For example, some of the Palestinian friends I have met here do not know many Americans who support Palestine, or who are not on the side of Israel, or who do not vote for Bush. Other people have different perceptions of what Americans think, so it is good to have the opportunity to share my thoughts with them that there are a lot of young people in the US who believe in grass-roots collaboration, community work, and who are not in agreement with the US foreign policy and who desperately want a radically different world.