Week 2: Update from Sonia

My Name is Sonia Lauer. I am from Eugene, OR and go to school at Lewis and Clark in Portland, OR. This is the first time that Lewis and Clark has joined Earlham on a study abroad program. I think that we all agreed this was a wonderful opportunity.
In Tucson, I am living with the Dominguez family. We are seven total, five girls, Isa the mom and Sergio the dad. As a family they are extremely gracious and a really fun family. I have really enjoyed them so far. This is my first time in Tucson, and it is a lot warmer and sunnier than I am used to for January. This is the second week of classes so for the most part we have been reading a lot of theory. In our class called the Roots and Routes of Migration we are currently studying the “roots” portion. We are studying a lot of economic history in Latin America, discussing the topic of development and rethinking the paradigms through which we look at the world.
On Monday morning, I met with the woman in charge at my field study site. I will be working at the Southside Day Labor Center. The Southside Presbyterian Church started the Day Labor Center, which was also an active part of the sanctuary movement during the 1980s. The Day Labor Center takes the same idea that the Church can be used as a sanctuary and a safe predetermined area for workers and employers to meet. It will be very interesting to better know the organization.
Wednesday some of the girls on the trip and I went to a meeting put on by community members about the e-varify law that has been affecting many in Arizona. The law requires employers to check the papers of all employees hired after January 2008. A year later the confusion, misunderstandings and fear of the law have left a lot of different people hurt. There have been many abuses of the law and frequent racial profiling. There is a lot to learn about Arizonan politics. Today we already started talking about our Altar trip. This semester is going to go by so fast.