Fiesta DC and the Mexican Cultural Institute assisted organizers but left planning for possible Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations to The Wharf, despite concerns over mass arrests of participants by organizers of other festivals nationwide.

Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday celebrated Nov. 1 and 2 to honor deceased loved ones through altar and cemetery gatherings. Officials across the United States feared that those celebrating the holiday would be intentionally targeted by immigration enforcement.

As a result, some cities decided to cancel their Dia de los Muertos festivals, finding that the expansion of immigration enforcement could trigger mass arrests at the large gatherings.

Increased arrests recently in Long Beach, California, Decatur, Georgia and Santa Barbara, California caused officials to call off their Dia de los Muertos celebrations. Celebrations in the California cities of Senoma and Half Moon Bay were limited.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker pleaded in an October letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to pause immigration enforcement operations during Halloween weekend.

Noem, responding to Pritzker’s letter, declined.

“No, we’re absolutely not willing to put on pause any work that we will do to keep communities safe,” Noem said during a press conference.

Noem said operations would continue to bring “criminals” to justice, ensuring the safety of children during the holiday season.

The Wharf hosted the Dia de los Muertos celebration in partnership with Modelo, Fiesta DC, Giant, and the Mexican Cultural Institute. Fundación Elena and De Colores, nonprofits that work to improve the quality of life in Latino communities, also collaborated with The Wharf in organizing.

Services provided by the Mexican Cultural Institute included face painting, sugar skull decorating, and live music. Latin Celtic band La Unica, Sol y Rumba, DJ Danny, and singer Roberto Aparicio performed as residents enjoyed Mexican festivities.

Concerns over ICE attending the Saturday celebration had stemmed from extensive immigration enforcement operations in businesses, restaurants and bars across the D.C. metro area. Community churches and organizations have also had an uptick in their members or employees detained by ICE.

Organizations’ concern

In D.C., Daniela Madrid, event logistics member at the Mexican Cultural Institute, said that she did not hear any concerns about possible ICE arrests before planning the Saturday celebration.

She told 91���� the institution’s responsibilities included supplying traditional references from other Mexican festivals, highlighting that they were not the main planners for event specifics, such as security.

Madrid said that event planning was left up to The Wharf.

Wharf organizers did not respond to requests for comment.

Fiesta DC president Maria Patricia Corrales said that the structure of the event was directed by The Wharf, while her organization contributed altars and the locations of musicians. The organization also provided catrinas, the skeletal figures that have become a symbol of Día de Muertos celebrations.

Corrales told 91���� that despite public fears, the celebration was a success.

“The public might have expressed concerns,” Corrales said. “We did not come out with any issues.”

Corrales said that organizations cannot always wage the continuation of celebrations due to the presence of law enforcement.

“You can never expect something unexpected,” Corrales said. “We announce and hope people come. People want to come out and enjoy themselves.”

Participant safety

Waterfront resident Andrew Braner said that he felt safe attending the celebration as a regular. He said that he did think about the possibility of immigration enforcement coming to the event while attending.

“I live here and I feel safe all the time,” Braner said. “I was actually wondering if ICE would show up.”

Braner, who has celebrated past Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, said that though the D.C. celebration was “small beans” compared to those in the Latin country, it is still essential to curate in a diverse space.

“The world is [in D.C.] and there’s a lot of cultures here,” Braner said. “So, when you can celebrate Dia de los Muertos as a tradition, it just encourages the community to come together.”

Alex McKenna, an attendee at the Dia de Los Muertos celebration, said it’s important to continue cultural celebrations around the U.S. to avoid negative stereotyping.

He told 91���� this was his first time attending a Dia de los Muertos celebration.

“I think it shares with people something that’s important to them,” McKenna said. “And it’s important that we see other people for what’s important to them and understand that about others before we say something negative about it ourselves.”

McKenna said though he could not comment on the concerns of ICE conducting arrests at Dia de los Muertos celebrations, he felt safe when attending Saturday. He said he felt safe because of the celebration’s security presence.

“It’s amazing,” McKenna said. “I mean, the night is alive, and they’ve done such a great job, I think, of bringing everyone together and showing their culture.”

The post Organizations planned Dia de los Muertos celebration without concern for ICE first appeared on 91����.

With the House, Senate, and presidency under Republican control starting next year, President-elect Trump is positioned to follow through on campaign promises of mass deportations, leaving many in the immigrant community fearful of what’s to come.

This week, in a on Truth Social, Trump confirmed his intentions to use the United States military in some capacity to assist in the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

“It has been pretty disheartening to hear the language that the president’s team and himself have used in the past, which dehumanizes us, myself included,” said Americo Perez, son of immigrants and paralegal at the Amica Center for Human Rights.

“Individuals and communities, such as the ones we serve, are instrumental to our, well, my personal belief of what the American system–what the American dream is,” he said. “Disproportionately affecting these vulnerable communities is a great injustice.”

Perez said he grew up two miles north of the Southern Border in Texas and knew from a young age that he wanted to do this kind of work. He said he’s spent his academic and professional career organizing and advocating, and now works in the Children’s Department at Amica.

The Amica Center provides legal and social services to immigrant children and adults who are detained and at risk of deportation. Perez explained that mass deportation would lead to an increase in the numbers of individuals detained, resulting in the mass incarceration of migrants.

“The immigration process, and particularly the deportation process takes time, and in that time, you do have individuals placed in detention while they await those planes, buses, or otherwise,” he said.

To him, this is the scariest part.

“This is going to be something that is going to be long and heartfelt, and I hope that it is something that doesn’t continue to perpetrate the level of trauma that the communities will face.”

Grassroots organizing

While ultimately fearful, groups across the country like Amica are preparing to support immigrants as they await the second Trump presidency.

Ben Jaffe is the president of KAMA DC, a volunteer-led organization that provides a platform for immigrants and refugees in the DMV area to share their stories and skills.

“I don’t think anybody’s feeling wonderful right now, but we took our time to, kind of, digest, and now we’re taking the time to move forward into planning items of action,” he said.

Part of their preparation and planning has included surveying volunteers and members of the community about what they are comfortable with participating in and what they think would be most useful in this new contextual environment.

Using responses from the surveys, KAMA DC has started to brainstorm ways to support individuals and their families. Ideas Jaffe shared included circulating resource documents, working with human rights lawyers, and putting on classes for those who may have just arrived that are taught by people who immigrated years ago.

“If the policies that have been mentioned come into effect, as I think we unfortunately expect it to, the DMV community as a whole is, I think, very strong and very ready to help support our neighbors and friends and everybody who needs it,” said Jaffe.

Cross-generational threats

During his first term, Trump embraced a “zero-tolerance” policy that ultimately led an estimate of over 5,000 families being separated, sparking national backlash.

Tom Homan, former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump, was a staunch advocate for the policy during Trump’s first term. He will be joining the president-elect in the incoming administration to continue his work on border control and has not ruled out the reinstatement of zero-tolerance.

For some, these announcements from the incoming administration serve as signals and have prompted fears of family separation to creep back in.

Allison Wallen, who works in the Center of Diversity and Inclusion at American University (CDI), has met since the election with a number of students who are the children of immigrants or immigrants themselves.

Since the CDI and the wider university are still working on how to respond and best show up for their students, Wallen’s role in the weeks since the results were called has been to console students who come to her asking if she thinks they will be okay.

“It’s just that level of, like, you know, you always had a sense of protection, and now it’s like, wait a minute, I don’t really have that anymore,” said Wallen. “I think that’s the best way to describe it.”

Similar to KAMA DC, the university is working to take the temperature of its students and is trying to design systems that support the community in the ways they need. Right now, Wallen is doing what she can to support the individuals that come to her, and she anticipates a wider university response and support system once the policies begin to be implemented.

The post Organizations serving immigrants in the DMV prepare for a second Trump presidency first appeared on 91����.

Los Hermanos

Dominican

Los Hermanos Dominican restaurant in Columbia Heights has quickly risen to local and national prominence.

Raymond Compres owns and operates Los Hermanos with his brother, Aris.

The restaurant started as a bodega grocery store in 1995, and transitioned to a restaurant when Columbia Heights underwent redevelopment and a population boom in the early 2000s.

The Compres brothers say they hope to one day turn Los Hermanos into a national chain.

The Dominican cooks at Los Hermanos don’t use recipes. Instead, they cook from memory and by taste.

The Compres brothers say that customers come from as far as California for their authentic Dominican food.

Meat, rice, beans and plantains are the staples of most Dominican dishes.

Aris Compres (left) discusses the restaurant’s highest-profile clients: 91����ington Nationals and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Dominican players on the Nationals popularized Los Hermanos with their teammates.

Los Hermanos caters nearly every Washington Nationals home game.

El Tamarindo

Salvadoran

Jose Flores, owner of El Tamarindo on U Street.

Flores opened El Tamarindo in 1982, only a few years after immigrating from El Salvador.

The restaurant serves Elotes Locos, or grilled corn on the cob.

Famous Salvadoran and Mexican figures line the walls at El Tamarindo.

El Tamarindo’s enchiladas, pictured, are also popular.

Customers dig into fish tacos and yucca fries.

Keren

Eritrean / East African

Keren Restaurant, on U Street, began business in 1979.

Keren serves as a meeting place for district residents from Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

Co-owner Tekie Ghrebrekrstos says their says days at the restaurant are, “really busy. We don’t have much break. We don’t have a day off. Everyday we make sure everything’s perfected.”

Keren takes its name after a famous city in Eritrea. The restaurant’s decor features the city’s lush hillsides and stunning mountain views.

Keren’s most popular dishes feature tal, a bean dip, and injera, a spongy bread used to soak up flavorful sauces.

The post Immigrant-owned restaurants give D.C. global flavor first appeared on 91����.

Marquez was imprisoned for traveling to Portugal to collect signatures in an effort to petition against  President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s president and authoritarian ruler. Marquez belonged to the political party Voluntad Popular, or Popular Will. The progressive democratic party was founded by Leopoldo López, a prominent Venezuelan opposition leader who was imprisoned in 2014, but has since been moved to house arrest.

In a testimony before the, Marquez detailed his time in political prison. He said prison guards did just about anything to humiliate him.

“I was in a dirty dungeon, where there were mosquitos constantly. I got dengue and the food was limited,” Marquez said in Spanish. “They shaved me, forced me to sing the slogan ‘Chavez vive, la lucha sigue.’” The slogan translates to ‘Chavez lives, the fight continues.’

Marquez spent four months in prison and was released under the condition that he leave the country immediately, he told 91����. Four hours after his release, Marquez and his family were on a plane headed for the U.S.

Marquez’s story of immigration parallels the experiences of millions of other Venezuelans who fled the country due to the unfolding economic and political crisis. “Thousands have left not out of their own accord,” he said, but instead to seek opportunities elsewhere. Human rights violations have also led to their departure, Marquez said.

Since 2015, nearly 2 million people the country and nearly 2.6 million are living abroad, according to the UN. The BBC reported that the U.S., Colombia, Chile and Spain the highest number of Venezuelan migrants in 2017.

“Our history has always been a country that has received immigration, but right now we’re seeing this massive migration,” Marquez said. “It’s unprecedented in terms of its scale and impact.”

Connecting immigrants abroad

In 2012, Marquez helped found , a D.C.-based nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to integrate the Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S. with economic and social change efforts back home.

When it first launched, Visión Democrática focused on organizing the diaspora community around Venezuelan electoral issues and, at times, engaging in philanthropic and social efforts back in their country. Today, the focus has shifted, instead concentrating on promoting democracy, forming strong partnerships, and connecting the diaspora

Regardless of when they arrived in the U.S. or why, Venezuelan migrants want to remain deeply connected with their country, Marquez said. One way to ensure those connections is through face-to-face interactions.

Visión Democrática hosts events across the country to better understand the individuals who make up the Venezuelan diaspora. On November 27, it held a press conference in D.C. that examined crimes against humanity in Venezuela. Previously, it arranged a public discussion addressing the uncertainty about the country’s future and the legitimacy of Maduro’s presidency.

The group also partners with more than 120 nonprofit organizations around the country to further its mission, efforts and reach. One organization works with national and international partners to supply hospitals in Venezuela with medicine and medical supplies, another focuses on youth development programs to offer education opportunities for Venezuelan youth.

Changing the story

For Rafael Castillo, communications manager at Visión Democrática, his role at Visión Democrática enables him to contribute to his country from afar and to tell stories of the individuals who are working towards the same goal, a democratic Venezuela.

“Venezuelans around the world are very productive people,” Castillo said. Visión Democrática offers the opportunity to have a different conversation about Venezuelans, separate from discussions of hunger or crisis, he said. “We wanted to give another side to the Venezuelan community. The diaspora is productive, well educated and very entrepreneurial in spirit.”

Visión Democrática recently published a detailing the demographics of Venezuelans who applied for a permanent U.S. visa between 2009 and 2016. Fifty-two percent of Venezuelans seeking permanent residencies in the U.S. have a bachelor’s degree, according to the study.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpp9MBhHHXE/

More than 27,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. in 2017, according to a report by 91����ington Post. Despite the high numbers, Castillo said many are eager to return to Venezuela. He said it’s “amazing to see the desires” of those willing to invest their social capital, time, resources and human capabilities to reconstruct their country.

“It’s not going to be an easy task,” Castillo said, “but that articulation of the diaspora that we’re trying to create, that articulation of the [non-profits] and that promotion of democracy will be a key factor when we do go back and are able to reconstruct.”

As for Castillo and Marquez, they are eager to return. If there were a known return date, “we would already have our tickets,” Castillo said.

The post ‘We would already have our tickets’: Venezuelan nonprofit works to rebuild their country first appeared on 91����.