Causa's Advocacy Week

This week was very busy for Causa. It was our Latin@ advocacy week, we had over 300 Latin@s from all over the state come to the Capitol to advocate for the importance of a driver's license bill (SB833) to restore driver's licenses to over 80,000 undocumented people in the state. Our first day was dedicated to youth and Latin@ veterans. Our second day was our naturalization day where aspiring residents filled out their applications to become naturalized US citizens and were joined in their advocacy efforts by immigration attorneys. Our third day was dedicated to LGBT advocacy. Our fourth day was women's advocacy, and our fifth day was children and Latin@ business leaders advocacy.

All five days were dedicated to advocate for SB833 and to make sure we left the Capitol with a lasting impact. The advocates we brought from the community were able to meet with legislators and their chief-of-staff or legislative aides to discuss the importance of this bill. Parents, kids, and allies shared their concerns about not having access to driver's licenses for all persons and offered their solution to this problem. For those who had never been to the Capitol, this was a great and scary experience. I could relate with them about this a lot because that is how I felt at first when I began doing legislative visits with Causa.

Most of them had good first-time experiences during the visits but some of them were also exposed to the hostility we Latin@s sometimes face with legislators. Although I wish they wouldn't have had negative reactions to their messages, it was also beneficial because it allowed them to see first-hand that the work of a lobbyist/advocate is sometimes hard and disappointing. You won't always receive the reactions and answers you hope to hear or you might be told flat out that you are wrong and the legislator will never support you. At Causa we sometimes get impatient reactions from the community because they have not yet seen results with the driver's licenses bill. I think being at the Capitol and seeing that it isn't as easy and fast as one thinks allowed them to understand that as much as we might work hard and dedicate years to this struggle, we can't change the laws over night. It takes a lot of perseverance and collaboration among different actors to have success for such a controversial issue.