First in a series of posts about the January 2010 UUA Board meeting
It’s the first time in recent memory that the UUA Board has ventured outside of Boston for its meetings, other than June’s General Assemblies. San Antonio, 9th largest city in the United States, with 61% Latino/Latina or Hispanic inhabitants, was a conscious choice. At 15% of the US population, Hispanics are now the largest ethnic "minority" in the United States. About a day and a half of the 4 day meeting was devoted to a deeper dive into Hispanic and San Antonio culture, and the complex issues of undocumented immigrants. We spent most of Friday with Julio and Elsa Noboa, faculty members from the University of Texas – El Paso, and Nina Perales, head of the Southwest Regional Office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) (all Unitarian Universalists). Saturday included a meeting with two San Antonio interfaith organizations who were working on comprehensive immigration reform – and the heartbreaking stories of three people impacted by its lack. I will be blogging on these experiences – plus the report of the Fifth Principle Task Force, election proceedings, Excellence in Ministry, monitoring reports, Youth Leadership, Section XV of our by-laws, and the continued reshaping of the governance of our Association – over the next few weeks.
Next post: Revoking the Fifth Principle
1 comment:
Looking forward to your future posts, Linda, especially the ones on immigration reform. I've been discouraged and ashamed by the amount of anti-immigrant sentiment I've heard among UUs---perhaps the UUA taking on this issue more visibly will help us all to be more educated and aware.
And I love your reflections on the decision to move the meeting out of Boston. I've already noticed a huge difference being a UU here than when I lived in CA, and while it's nice, I think it does illustrate that there's a problem with our denomination's reach outside the area.
Miss you!
Karin L.
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