Training open to up to 70 participants, requires reserved meal ticket by Dec. 4

Community members seeking to educate themselves about issues surrounding the immigrant community have the option of attending the event Know Your Roles.

Held Dec. 9 at Albany First Christian Church, Know Your Roles is a two-hour-long training which intends to educate up to 70 allies of immigrants, according to Yazmin Brambila, Executive Director of Casa Latinos Unidos in Benton County.

“The Know Your Roles is for people who want to know more about what they can do for the immigrant community,” Brambila said. “There’s usually people coming in here and asking, ‘We want to help, how can we do that?’”

The event is a joint effort between Albany First Christian Church, Casa Latinos Unidos de Benton County, Community Action for Racial Equity, Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center, Corvallis-area NAACP. Linn County Democrats, Linn Benton Health Equity Alliance and Showing Up For Racial Justice.

The event will kick off at noon with a lunch prepared by Taqueria Alonzo of beans, rice and chile verde. Although the lunch is free, participants need to obtain a ticket by 10 a.m. Dec. 4.

After lunch, Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson will speak in Spanish with English interpretation. The event will then transition into the training portion at 1 p.m., presented by the Rural Organizing Project.

According to Brambila, attendees will be provided with information to better equip them to support the immigrant community. The inspiration for hosting the event came from community members wanting to educate themselves on the needs and rights of the immigrant community.

“These types of workshops give you more information if you want to help out what things you can do and understanding more of the immigrant community: what’s happening, how the immigration laws are affecting them and what can you do if you want to support,” Brambila said.

Stemming from the election, Brambila has noticed a change in the community through her work with Casa Latinos Unidos.

“People are just feeling unsafe and afraid. We’ve seen an increase of people at first coming to us for help and getting documentation for their kids to travel,” Brambila said. “There’s been an increase in getting their American passports, their birth certificates and everything for their children because they don’t know what might happen.”

“And then it died down,” Brambila added. “It’s not because they don’t have the need anymore, but I feel like there’s more fear of identifying yourself and since most of the families have mixed statuses, you can’t really say because this person is undocumented, their whole family is undocumented. It’s just hard.”

Casa Latinos Unidos, commonly referred to as Casa, is an organization located in the Multicultural Literacy Center in Corvallis on 9th Street. According to Brambila, Casa works to facilitate the integration of Latinos into the broader community and provide education.

“Our main goal is to help the Latino community learn and empower them so they can advocate for their needs and rights, whether it be for education or health,” Brambila said.

Casa Latinos Unidos and other organizations hope to partner for more community engagement events in the future, according to Brambila.

More information about the event can be provided by Graham Kislingbury at 541-974-2075.