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January 2023 Newsletter
Issue #71
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The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was created in 2012 to protect people who were brought to this country as children (known as "Dreamers") -- by providing a temporary stay of deportation and work authorization. To date more than 825,000 Dreamers have been able to access more stability in their lives through this program. But these protections are not permanent: They could be stripped away at any moment.
Here are some facts & figures about
DACA recipients or "Dreamers":
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The average Dreamer is 28 years old and has spent more than 14 years in the United States.
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The average age of a Dreamer when he or she was brought to this country is 7. 33% arrived before the age of 5.
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More than 1.3 million other people live with Dreamers.
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Dreamers are parents to nearly to 256,000 U.S. citizen children, and nearly every Dreamer is part of a mixed–immigration status family. Ending DACA would rip apart hundreds of thousands of families.
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89% of Dreamers are employed.
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343,000 Dreamer were employed in essential jobs during the pandemic.
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22,000 jobs would be lost each month if DACA ends.
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Dreamers and their households pay $5.7 billion in federal taxes and $3.1 billion in state and local taxes each year.
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Dreamers pay $2.3 billion in rent to their landlords each year.
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32% of Dreamers are in school. 68%—of whom are pursuing a bachelor’s degree or higher. 45% already have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
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92% of Dreamers are concerned about either their or their family’s physical safety, ability to access health care or education, food security, or risk of homelessness if they were deported to their respective countries of birth.
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74% of Americans favor a law that would provide permanent legal status to immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children.
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Meet The Dreamers
Caught in the DACA Fight
A documentary featuring the stories of people who were brought to the U.S. as children and now face the prospect of deportation because of the possible end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Watch now.
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Living With Fear of Deportation
Part of a PBS documentary series, this episode tells the stories of Steve whose parents were forced to live in China after an ICE raid, and is threatened with deportation himself. Also: despite the risks involved, Dilan decides to go to Mexico to see his father for the first time in 14 years, leaving the U.S. while crossing fingers he's allowed to cross back to America.
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Los Hermanos-The Brothers
A PBS documentary about two virtuoso Cuban-born brothers living on opposite sides of a geopolitical chasm a half century wide. Tracking their parallel lives, reunion, and first performances together, offers a nuanced, often startling view of estranged nations through the lens of music and family.
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Under the Skin:
The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation
By Linda Villarosa. Tells the story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation. Lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. Reveals how Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government and how today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Read more.
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On Critical Race Theory:
Why It Matters and Why You Should Care
By Victor Ray. Explains the centrality of race in American history and politics, and how the often mischaracterized intellectual movement became a political necessity. Draws upon the radical thinking of Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., etc. to trace the foundations of critical race theory in the Black intellectual traditions of emancipation and the civil rights movement. From these foundations, explores the many facets of society that critical race theory interrogates, from deeply embedded structural racism to the historical connection between whiteness and property, ownership, and more. Presents, analyzes, and breaks down the scholarship and concepts that constitute this often misconstrued term and explores how the conversation on critical race theory has expanded into the contemporary popular conscience.
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Wealth, Virtue and Moral Luck:
Christian Ethics in an Age of Inequality
By Kate Ward. Addresses the issue of inequality from the perspective of Christian virtue ethics, arguing that moral luck ― our individual life circumstances ― affects our ability to pursue virtue. Economic status functions as moral luck and impedes the ability of both the wealthy and the poor to pursue virtues such as prudence, justice, and temperance, and extreme inequality exacerbates the impact of wealth and poverty on virtue. Argues that we must work to change the structures that perpetuate extreme inequality ― and through spiritual practices, including contentment, conversion, encountering others, and reminding ourselves of our ultimate dependence on God. Read more.
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Center on Poverty & Social Policy
A resource of Columbia University; produces cutting-edge research, data and publications, to advance our understanding of poverty and the role of social policy in reducing poverty and promoting opportunity, economic security, and individual and family wellbeing in New York City and the United States. Learn more.
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Creating Cultures of Belonging: Cultivating Organizations Where Women and Men Thrive
By Beth Birmingham & Eeva Sallinen Simard. Argues that many organizations still lack the ability to embody a belonging culture where all employees are secure and recognized, where leaders seek productivity and connectivity, and where the organization is committed to supporting a diverse community of employees. Offers solutions for leadership teams, board members, and managers that reshape organizational culture in ways that invite and celebrate gender equity. With practical steps to enhance mentorship opportunities, human resources practices, and management tactics, points a way forward by identifying the changes that need to be made to create a belonging culture. Read more.
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The Only Woman
By Immy Humes. A photo gallery of women who made their way into a man's world, shown through group portraits each featuring a lone woman. An original approach to gender equality, this pictorial statement brings to light the phenomenon of 'the only woman': across time and cultures, groups of artists, activists, scientists, servants, movie stars, or metal workers have often included exactly and only one woman. Covering examples from nearly 20 countries, A unique focus on women and men in public life from 1860 to the present day, reveals and reframes how women and men have related socially in surprising and poignant ways. Features both unknown and well-known women from a diverse range of backgrounds including writers, conductors, civil-rights leaders, domestic workers, sportswomen, and lawyers as well as princesses, railway workers, boxing promoters, and astronauts. Read more.
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An Action Plan for Solving the Climate Crisis
A TED Talk featuring engineer and investor John Doerr, Countdown cofounder Lindsay Levin, and systems innovator Ryan Panchadsaram, who discuss six big objectives that -- if pursued with speed and scale -- could transform society and get us to net-zero emissions by 2050. An action plan to solve the world's climate crisis, backed up by a proven system for setting goals for success. Watch now.
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A Creative Approach to
Community Climate Action
A TED Talk featuring eco-artist Xavier Cortada, who founded a movement around beautifully designed elevation markers highlighting the risk of flood damage when he learned of the threat that rising sea levels posed to his coastal hometown of Miami, Florida. The collaborative art project quickly mobilized action -- and excited some controversy. Offers a creative vision of community organizing inspired by art that engages, educates and empowers. Watch now.
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What on Earth? Considering the Social Implications of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount
By Barney Wiget. Focuses on Jesus' most famous sermon -- where he announces a Kingdom that includes both a revolutionary personal piety as well as a radical social possibility -- challenging his followers to make the earth as it is in Heaven -- by engaging with contemporary culture morally, socially, and even politically. Read more.
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People Get Ready:
Twelve Jesus-Haunted Misfits, Malcontents, and Dreamers in Pursuit of Justice
Edited by Peter Slade, Shea Tuttle and Jacqueline A. Bussie. In a political climate where Christianity is increasingly seen as reactionary, offers a revolutionary alternative. Narrated by some of the most galvanizing voices of the current moment, this collection of succinct and evocative biographies tells the stories of twelve modern apostles who lived the gospel mission and unsettles what we may think we know about Christianity’s role in American politics.
As the spiritual successor to Can I Get a Witness?, presents a diverse cast of twentieth-century “saints” who bore witness to their faith with unapologetic advocacy for the marginalized -- from novelists to musicians to scientists, these courageous men and women rose to the challenges of their times.
Hardcover available: January 10, 2023
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Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund
Provides grants to students actively working for peace and justice. These need-based scholarships are awarded to those able to do academic work at the university level and who are part of the progressive movement on the campus and in the community. Early recipients worked for civil rights, against McCarthyism, and for peace in Vietnam. Recent grantees have been active in the struggle against racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression; building the movement for economic justice; and creating peace through international anti-imperialist solidarity. Learn more.
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United Nations
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Established in 1945 as one of the six main organs of the United Nations, ECOSOC is at the heart of the United Nations system to advance the three dimensions of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental. It is the central platform for fostering debate and innovative thinking, forging consensus on ways forward, and coordinating efforts to achieve internationally agreed goals. It is also responsible for the follow-up to major UN conferences and summits. Learn more.
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Prayer for Dreamers
O God of our dreaming, who calls us to live by the law of love, the governance of grace, and the command of compassion, show us the way...
Embolden our hearts as never before that we may urgently embrace and persistently seek you in the eyes of the dreamer, the heart of the hopeful, and in the hand of the neighbor, whose prayer is protection, prosperity and purpose.
Amen
Pope Francis
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Important Dates This Month
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Individuals Honored This Month
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January 6th
At stake are two different visions of faith, the Church of Caesar, powerful and rich; and the Church of Christ - loving, poor and spiritually rich.
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January 7th
This is our cry, this is our prayer:
peace in the world.
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January 14th
The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.
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Janaury 14th
For politicians truth and falsehood are unimportant. So I never could become a politician - not even a church politician.
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January 15th
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
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January 24th
Jesus didn't say, 'Blessed are those who care for the poor.' He said, 'Blessed are we where we are poor, where we are broken.' It is there that God loves us deeply and pulls us into deeper communion with himself.
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January 31st
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.
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Since 2017, there have been more than 335,000 visitors to our Social Justice Resource Center website. We provide a wide variety of facts and figures on specific social issues as well as thousands of free resources including films, publications, links to other organizations, prayers, quotes, principles of social justice, key dates throughout the year, action ideas, Diocesan office contact information and biographies of famous people who have worked for social justice.
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