Mujeres Unidas is a group of Latina immigrant women with the dual mission of personal transformation and building community power. Among our core values are Compassion, Learning and Solidarity. We call upon those core values to guide us in our work and to drive how we want to be in relationship to other communities seeking justice…. We recognize the importance of standing with our Black brothers and sisters in this crucial moment as well as long term in our shared fight for liberation.
As immigrants to this country we understand that our acts of solidarity must go beyond simply proclaiming Black Lives Matter. We must take a hard look at ourselves and motivate ourselves to learn about the history of the place we have come to live. We must study and deeply understand not only the history and legacy of racism but also specifically anti-black racism and the ways in which we as immigrants both benefit from and are harmed by it. We must recognize the ways in which we are impacted by systematic racism as immigrants but also the ways it uniquely attacks Black people and communities.
Our understanding must also extend back to our home countries — to the history and legacy of slavery and racism there and the ways in which we deny, erase and disparage blackness and our own black heritage in our families, communities and societies. We must understand how anti-blackness is embedded into our language and our social structures and how detrimental that is to all of us.
It is our responsibility to share what we have learned with our friends and our families, with our children and our neighbors, to have conversations that may be difficult but are necessary if we are truly committed to creating a just world.
With humility and love we recognize that we have a big learning curve as we lift up Black struggle. We understand that our silence is complicit and that complicity is deadly. There is an urgent need for us to join our voice to the millions of other voices screaming for justice. We commit to centering Black Latinx voices, experience and leadership.
To our Black brothers and sisters; We see you. We love you. Your lives matter.
With love,
MUA