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The Research Group of Immigrant Workers in Minnesota (RGIWM) organized a presentation on immigration at 2 p.m. Friday at the Atwood Theater.

“We don’t come here to take things from you,” presenter Nelly Ortiz said.

Professor Stephen Philion, director of the Research Group of Immigrant Workers, said they anticipated about 100-125 attendants but were pleasantly surprised at the turnout, which was more than 200 people.

During the question-andanswer session, there were still approximately 100 people remaining in their seats.

“We don’t come here to take things from you,” Nelly Ortiz said.

Ortiz, an immigrant worker from Chicago that came to the U.S. about 15 years ago, gave a presentation titled “Why We Leave.”

Her presentation was translated by Tony Nelson. Ortiz, originally from Ecuador, spoke about her past life experiences and explained the hardships that\ she went through in order to come to the United States.

Oritz said at the age of 18, she decided to move to the U.S. due to the lack of opportunities in her own country.

She worked for Coca-Cola for a year, but said she decided to leave the job as she was psychologically and sexually harassed.

She went door-to-door promoting Coca-Cola to people.

Ortiz said she accumulated a debt of $9,000 when she attempted to enter the U.S.

She said she had to pay smugglers, called “coyotes,” to sneak through the borders.

Her journey took her from Ecuador, to Guatemala to Mexico and from there she snuck across the border to the U.S.

“We love this country. We do the right things, we pay our taxes,” Ortiz said.

“We just need to be legal,” Ortiz said she wants people to see immigrants from a different perspective.

She wants people to have a better understanding of immigrants.

She said immigrants working in the U.S. face many forms of discrimination, and even though she holds the position of a supervisor of packing construction tools, her pay does not reflect that.

“Because I’m illegal, I’m given the heaviest and hardest work.”

Because of her illegal status, Oritz said she faces even more forms of discrimination.

After 13 years of working at her job, she said she gets one week of break time a year and she makes $10 per hour.

Ortiz said because of her status, people make many unfair assumptions about her.

“They look at me like I’m ignorant,” Ortiz said. Ortiz said she decided to embark on this presentation trip at the risk of losing her job, as she had lie to her superior to take leave from her job, and even then her employer threatened that she might lose her job if she does so.

“What I ask from you, is to respect us,” Ortiz said. “Respect us as we would respect you.”

Nelson said one of the biggest myths about immigrants is that they don’t pay taxes.

He said that in fact, immigrants pay taxes just as everyone else, but they don’t get the benefits.

Nelson said it is an insult to say that immigrant workers send all their money back and that they steal jobs.

“Our entire economy rests on the backs of immigrant workers, exploited workers,” Nelson said.

Ortiz and Nelson are part of the Mexico Solidarity Network, which runs the Centro Autonomo in Chicago for immigrants to share experiences with the community there.

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In 2003, SCSU was reported to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as sexist and racist. In 2007 swastikas were used as hate-speech on campus. And in early 2009 a poster of Dorothy Irene Height was vandalized.

Following the vandalizing of Height’s poster, a group of students defiantly stood up against racism and started an anti-racist movement called the “We Are One” SCSU Student Resistance Movement.

“I think it all stemmed from just wanting to be on the fight against racism and not the racist action,” social work junior Sara Schoborg said “kind of spin it positively as a fight against these things.”

Schoborg was one of the students in the class involved in setting up the poster that was later vandalized.

The class had found out about the act prior to their class, and after pooling their ideas together they started the “We Are One” movement.

As part of their push for anti-racism, they started a bulletin board for students to post their comments, a free dinner for students to intermingle with different cultures and presentations on anti-racism.

The movement also received support from the Student Government Association (SGA).

Ernest Langston, the Chairperson of the Cultural Diversity Committee, wrote a resolution condemning and denouncing the act.

Langston also attempted to invite Height to SCSU but the attempts did not work out.

“One act of violence or one act of hate, created many acts of kindness and goodness,” Langston said.

The “We Are One” movement had a short-lived run as most of the student organizers were brought together because they were classmates.

With the end of the Spring 2009 semester, the scheduling conflicts and time restrictions have slowed down the activities of the movement.

Even though the organization lacks a formal structure, students are still in talks of holding different activities to keep it alive.

There are talks of having the issue presented during freshmen orientation, getting Height onto campus and setting up a scholarship.

Schoborg said the experience gave her the feeling of being empowered to stand up for what she believes in.

Andrea Dohmen, another student organizer of the event, said she still thinks about what she could have done better with the movement every day.

“It was just a very positive, community building experience for a lot of people,” Langston said.

“Although it was short lived, a lot of people jumped on board and a lot of people were in the affirmative of it.”

The “We Are One” movement is currently accepting scholarship donations through www.stcloudstate.edu/foundation/waystogive.

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A group of professors from the various departments have grouped together to form the Research Group on Immigrant Workers in Minnesota (RGIWM).

Directed by Stephen Philion, a SCSU Sociology professor, the academic research group is currently being sponsored by the College of Social Sciences.

Philion said the research group also aims to have some of the research done to be in response to the needs of the community.

“Because I think that’s what we have to offer to the community,” Philion said.

“On the one hand we’re producing is knowledge about immigrant workers’ situation and conditions to the faculty,” Philion said. “We’re also producing knowledge or data that’s useful for them.”

Philion said the group does not narrow the definition of immigrant workers to a specific group, but encompasses all immigrants that are seeking employment in the United States with a broad definition.

“If you want to understand the situation of immigrants,” Philion said “one of the best ways is to talk to them about their work experiences.”

Instead of focusing mainly on the cultural realm of immigrant workers and what they face there, Philion said the group will go beyond it to look at how their citizenship/immigrant status and their struggles to achieve citizenship shape their experience in the U.S.

The faculty research group aims to have itself established as an official Center for Research on Immigrant Workers in Minnestoa (CRIWM), to be funded by SCSU.

Currently they are working to achieve that status in the span of about two years, in order to be a center or hub that can both collect and provide information to the academic world and the community.

Some of the long term goals of the group includes organizing conferences to further discuss and share collected data on immigrant workers, the ability to financially encourage SCSU faculty field projects and also to develop an internship program that would give students the opportunity to be involved.

“The very possibility that immigrants might be the source of what could potentially be the second civil rights movement in this country should be very much of interest,” Philion said.

Currently, Professors Ajay Panicker and Paul Greider are both collaborating with Catholic Charities to do interviews with new immigrants in the St. Cloud area.

They’re trying to find out why immigrants left, what they are experiencing now and to try to compare the experiences of earlier immigrants and new immigrants.

Students can seek more information or to get involved with this research by contacting either Panicker or Greider.

The research group plans on organizing a presentation by Nelly Ortiz on immigration on Dec. 4 at 2 p.m. in the Atwood Theatre.

Following that, they plan to organize a public conference as well as another speaker presentation in the following Spring semester.