wfn.org | UCC Youth are still speaking about Sacred Conversations

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Youth are still speaking about Sacred Conversations

> Written by Rebecca Bowman Woods
> June 29, 2009

Although new immigrants arrive in Chicago every day, Demetrious
Gonzalez and Brandon Felfle, of Chicago's First Congregational Church,
admit they spend more time talking about shoes and electronics than
about immigration and race.

But they said they were fascinated when they heard, during Sunday
morning's Sacred Conversations on Race, that undocumented immigrants
in certain parts of the country can get an identification card that
allows them to set up a bank account to deposit and withdraw funds.
The ID card doubles as an ATM card, they explained.

Before the card program was implemented in Las Vegas, undocumented
immigrants "would walk around holding their money," Gonzalez and
Felfle learned. This made them easy targets for robbers, who knew they
wouldn't call police out of fear of being deported.

Gonzalez and Felfle were among the dozens of teens who participated in
the Sacred Conversations. Some felt more comfortable just listening.
Others shared insights of their own.

Bethel Congregational UCC in Beaverton, Ore., has been discussing race
for several months. Hannah Lindsey, the church's youth leader, spoke
in advance with Synod-going teens about Sunday's conversations. At the
Race and the New Generation discussion, they heard people talking
about news-making events in their lives, such as World War II, John F.
Kennedy's assassination, and Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon.

For this group from the Central Pacific Conference, even Barack
Obama's election as the nation's first black president isn't as
significant as some might assume. After all, they said, they've only
known two presidents: Bush and Obama.

Larkin Miers thought the conversation was valuable, but was "mostly
taken from a black and white perspective." Miers, who is
Asian-American, has studied the Chinese Exclusion Act and said her
social studies teacher once asked how many students had been searched
by airport security. Those who had ? including Miers, whose bag was
searched ? were all people of color, except one.

Kayla Hultquist of Mayflower UCC in Sioux City, Iowa chose the
conversation on Race and the Environment. Hultquist said she "got
chills" when Sheila Holt-Orsted told of living next to a landfill in
Dickson County, Tenn. The landfill was polluting the drinking water,
but the Holts ? an African-American family ? were assured by
environmental officials that the water had been tested and was safe.

Meanwhile, white families were being told by the government not to
drink the water because it was contaminated, Hultquist said,
recounting Holt's story.

Holt-Orsted developed cancer. So did her father, an aunt and a neighbor.

The Holt family filed a lawsuit. The county's lawyer, asked by the New
York Times how the landfill came to be located in the Holt's
community, denied that race had anything to do with it.

Hultquist was inspired by Holt-Orsted's courage. "She's like Erin
Brockovich, but I think it's worse. Erin Brockovich didn't have
racism" to deal with.