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LOCAL 1B THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL » SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2017 COMMERCIALAPPEAL.COM/LOCAL This art speaks to immigrant rights COLUMNIST TONYAA WEATHERSBEE The impressions that Latinos have made in Memphis are hard to miss. There’s the stately homes in its sprawling suburban communities that Latino immigrants labored to build almost overnight. There’s the Mexican restaurants that seem to be popping up at every inter- section, and the taco trucks parked at service stations for people craving authenticity over quickness. And there’s the work done by people like Aylen Mercado’s mother, an Argen- tinian immigrant who works as a house- YALONDA M. JAMES, THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL keeper, guided by the dream that her (Left to right) Gaston Gators basketball teammates Kyler Jones, 13, Zenterius Wilson, 12, and Puncho Jefferies, 14, have fun tossing leaves at labor would pay off in great rewards each other as they participate in the "We Love Gaston" Community Clean Up Project for the MLK Days of Service at the Gaston Community for her family. Center on Saturday. The event was sponsored by the Gaston Community Center, Knowledge Quest Family Stability Initiative, the Memphis Her mother’s dreams, as well as the Department of Park Services and the Memphis City Beautiful Commission. dreams and hard work of other im- migrants, is what inspired Mercado, a 19-year-old Rhodes College student, to create a charcoal rendering for the L. Ross Gallery exhibit, “Art of Resil- ience,” which depicts a Latino worker massaging her temples at the end of the day. BOYS RAKE LEAVES, “I based this on my mother,” Merca- do told me. “I feel resilience in my family and through all the laborers because they’ve been doing a lot. “I always see them getting up early, LEARN LIFE LESSONS working hours and hours. My mother, she’s a housekeeper, so I would find moments when she would come home, Gaston Community Center marks stressed and tired…I wanted to capture Ex-NBA stars that.” MLK Days of Service by cleaning up Capturing that is especially impor- applaud athletes tant now. DANIEL CONNOLLY The exhibit opened this weekend — [email protected] “Today, what we’re in support of one in which Jan. 14th was proclaimed #HeretoStay National Day of Action. Most of the people who came to a trying to show them MLK’s dream Immigrants and their allies had plans to cleanup at Gaston Community Center rally, march and to declare their resis- on Saturday were boys under the age is one, take pride in JOHN VARLAS tance to President-elect Donald of 14, and some took time out from leaf- [email protected] Trump’s anti-immigration plans. raking to jump into the piles they had the community.” As they should. just made. Grant Hill, meet Grant Hill. Trump rode to victory by wrongly And some of the boys weren’t clear JASON MANNING The younger Hill — an all-state characterizing Latino immigrants as on the whole “volunteer work” con- THE FAMILY STABILITY INITIATIVE PROGRAM golfer from Harding Academy — people more predisposed to criminality cept. One complained he was bored. ASSISTANT was on hand Saturday at the Na- than to industriousness. Unlike Merca- “‘Cause we ain’t getting paid!” tional Civil Rights Museum to meet do and others, who bear witness to, and But under the guidance of a group of his namesake, the former NBA all- respect the labors and contributions of adults, they managed to build an im- the leaves into bags, 38-year-old bas- star was honored as one of this immigrants, during his campaign pressive stack of bagged leaves. ketball coach Jason Manning showed year’s Sports Legacy Award recip- Trump vowed to deport millions of The cleanup at the South Memphis them how to push down the leaves into ients. them — even youths who were brought community center was one of many the bags and tie them shut. “Where the “It was a great experience,” said here by their parents. volunteer events taking place in the other bag man at?” he asked a moment the senior who has visited the mu- So now, scores of Latinos are grap- Memphis area for Martin Luther King later, which prompted one of the boys seum regularly over the years pling with the specter of having to fight Day weekend. The events were orga- to sing, “I’m the bag man! The bag along with his parents. “It moves to stay in a country that they helped to nized by Leadership Memphis and oth- man!” me (to visit). It kind of scares me build and their presence is helping to er groups under the name MLK Days The cleanup project aimed to teach and kind of makes me emotional to shape. of Service. the boys some key lessons, said Man- see what’s in people’s hearts. Peo- But they’re counting on the same Most of the boys who came to help ning, who’s also a program assistant ple need to get informed.” spirit of resiliency that led them here with the Gaston cleanup are players on for the Family Stability Initiative, an It’s the next generation of —and helped them to survive here — the Gaston Gators basketball team. (A effort associated with the Knowledge youngsters like the golfer who car- to help them fight to stay here. few girls went to work in another area.) Quest social services organization. ry the hopes of old-timers like Hill And proceeds from the exhibit, The adults handed out rakes, shovels “Today, what we’re trying to show and Saturday’s other honoree, for- which can be viewed through Jan. 28., and other tools. “Do not use them to hit them is one, take pride in the communi- mer NBA star Steve Smith. Both will help them do exactly that. each other with, OK?” one of the men ty,” he said. The second thing is to players are in their late 40s and are The exhibit will benefit Community said. teach them hard work, something that Legal Center, Mid-South Immigration Several of the boys and men moved men have to do. “It’s really manhood See ATHLETES, Page 2B Advocates and Latino Memphis. Those to a chain link fence where the wind agencies work to help immigrants had piled up leaves. Once they had put See CLEANUP, Page 6B faced with deportation and other is- sues. Help for the legal center is especial- ly important, because Memphis has the only immigration court that covers a Angela Davis attacks capitalism, Trump in speech four-state area. “A high percentage of unaccompa- DANIEL CONNOLLY Davis told a crowd at First many people feel at the rise of Trump. nied (immigrant) children, for example, [email protected] Congregational Church, "Our Though he won the Electoral College are returned without a hearing,” Ann goal is to guarantee that and overwhelmingly won Tennessee, he Mathes, executive director of the cen- Longtime radical activist Angela Da- Donald Trump will not be lost the national popular vote and is en- ter, said. “But we have many lawyers in vis stood before a crowd of hundreds at able to govern comfortably.” tering the presidency with 51percent of the community, and we want those First Congregational Church in Mid- Americans disapproving of how he’s lawyers to help.” town on Saturday night. She attacked handling the transition, according to a On top of that, Tennessee has one of capitalism, praised communism and though she has said she’s no longer a Gallup poll. the fastest growing Latino populations criticized Donald Trump. member of the party, she still expressed The organizer of the event, the Mid- in the nation, said Stephanie Teatro, “Our goal is to guarantee that Donald sympathy for communism. At one South Peace & Justice Center, billed the co-executive director of Tennessee Trump will not be able to govern com- point, she said she sometimes misses annual fundraising banquet as a kickoff Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coali- fortably. ... If you think you’ve been to a her days working with an African- to years of struggle against Trump’s tion. lot of demonstrations in the past, well, American communist group in the policies. In an email before the event, “Moving forward, we will be orga- multiply that by a hundred. Or a thou- 1960s. the staff wrote, “We will, with every re- nizing communities and organizing sand over the next period,” she said, and “Sometimes I feel really nostalgic source at our disposal, stand against an committees to battle legislation harm- the audience cheered. about that era because it meant we were agenda that denies the dignity and hu- ful to immigrants at all levels,” Teatro Earlier, she said Trump embodied connected with people all over the manity of people of color, undocument- said. the worst elements of oppression and world, because there were communist ed families, women, people with disabil- Although the Art of Resilience ex- capitalism. “He represents precisely parties all over the world,” she said. ities, and those of the Muslim faith. hibit wasn’t necessarily timed to aug- those forces of capitalism that have im- “And so we felt as if we were a part of a These values are non-negotiable.” ment the activism of the National Day poverished so many of the people who global struggle. The Cuban revolution Banquet attendees filled not just the of Action, its message was, nonetheless, decided to vote for him, because they was our victory. And we don’t have that seats at the round dinner tables but the fitting.

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