{"id":41423,"date":"2021-10-23T18:57:23","date_gmt":"2021-10-24T01:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=41423"},"modified":"2021-10-23T18:57:23","modified_gmt":"2021-10-24T01:57:23","slug":"georgias-immigrant-communities-see-redistricting-as-a-path-to-parity-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=41423","title":{"rendered":"GEORGIA\u2019S IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES SEE REDISTRICTING AS A PATH TO PARITY"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

by\u00a0Khalil Abdullah<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Oct 19, 2021<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Voting Rights<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\n

From left to right: Anh Nguyen, Data Dissemination Specialist, U.S. Census Bureau; Karuna Ramachandran, Director of Statewide Partnerships, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta; Victoria Huynh, Vice President, Center for Pan Asian Community Services; Glory A. Kilanko, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Women Watch Afrika; Maria Rosario Palacios, Founder, Georgia Familias Unidas<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Also available in\u00a0Spanish<\/a>,\u00a0Chinese<\/a>, and\u00a0Korean<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By Khalil Abdullah, Ethnic Media Services\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Maria\u00a0del\u00a0Rosario Palacios\u2019 community, if sidewalks were present, they would enable adults \u2014 often with children in tow \u2014 to safely\u00a0traverse\u00a0the busy highways in their Gainesville, GA neighborhood northeast of Atlanta. Sidewalks would be a gift of physical security many other communities take for granted. Humble concrete squares, enabling residents to\u00a0easily access\u00a0grocery stores and services other businesses provide.<\/p>\n

The absence of sidewalks, Palacios points out, is a day-to-day\u00a0travesty,\u00a0a constant threat to life and limb. \u201cSmall businesses there depend on pedestrian traffic. They have pedestrian customers and months do not go by without news reporting that someone who was walking to the grocery store was run over,\u201d Palacios explained. She said the incumbent politicians who could direct the funding necessary to build sidewalks in her community are not dependent on the votes of people who\u00a0reside\u00a0there.<\/p>\n

Palacios is emphatic that the lack of social services for Gainesville\u2019s poultry workforce should have been addressed decades ago when\u00a0predominantly Spanish-speaking\u00a0immigrants first began making their way North to Georgia from Mexico and Central and South America. Those generations became the larger percentage of workers in chicken processing plants that still afford Gainsville bragging rights as \u201cThe Poultry Capital of the World\u201d \u2013 and, Palacios added, \u201cfeeds the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palacios addressed her observations to a media forum on redistricting organized by the Georgia Immigrant Rights Alliance\u00a0(GIRA)\u00a0and Ethnic Media Services in anticipation of Georgia\u2019s upcoming special legislative session\u00a0on\u00a0redistricting called by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp\u00a0for Nov. 3. Observers estimate that legislators will take at least two weeks to draw and then vote to approve new maps of the state\u2019s congressional and state legislative districts.<\/p>\n

Map drawing is necessary following the release of each decennial census data. Historically, reconfiguring district boundaries is a contentious task because typically, as in Georgia, it is executed by a committee of legislators selected by the dominant political party. The Republican Party in Georgia controls the state legislature and though a Georgia governor can veto the legislature\u2019s approved maps, that would be unlikely. Kemp also is a Republican.<\/p>\n

Luke Anh Nguyen, a Data Dissemination Specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau, provided forum attendees with a review of Georgia\u2019s population shifts. The Peach State was America\u2019s fifth highest state in population gains, with its now 10.7 million population boosted by the growth of ethnic communities. However, in the formulas used to apportion the 435 U.S. House seats mandated by law, Georgia did not gain a new seat. It merely retained its 14-member delegation.<\/p>\n

The media forum featured spokespersons from the state\u2019s\u00a0largest immigrant\u00a0communities. They are concerned about\u00a0the\u00a0Georgia legislature\u2019s\u00a0lack of transparency in selecting the criteria to\u00a0determine\u00a0how the lines for congressional and state districts will be drawn. They\u00a0worry\u00a0about whether their communities of interest will\u00a0retain\u00a0geographic integrity or be either dissected or enveloped to\u00a0benefit\u00a0incumbent legislators from districts with quite different policy priorities and agendas.<\/p>\n

To Palacios, the absence of a sidewalk exemplifies why residents need to be able\u00a0to\u00a0elect\u00a0decision-makers who understand a community\u2019s needs \u2013a sentiment that was shared by her co-panelists.<\/p>\n

Karuna Ramachandran, the Director of Statewide Partnerships with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, asked the essential, pragmatic question: \u201cHow can we assure that our communities are not gerrymandered?\u201d She was referring to the terminology used to describe misshapen districts whose lines, in but one example, are redrawn to split communities in two, assigning each part to a neighboring district. In those new districts, for voting purposes, those residents have been consigned to being a perpetual minority.<\/p>\n

Ramachandran explained that the Georgia Immigrant Rights Alliance was inspired by AAAJ\u2019s recognition that immigrant communities share the same quest for representation.\u00a0\u00a0From its launch in 2018, she said GIRA was\u00a0very concerned\u00a0about redistricting. She has harsh words for the current Georgia legislature\u2019s refusal to respond to inquiries about the criteria it will use,\u00a0how the process will be conducted and its failure to promote language access that could\u00a0assist\u00a0Georgia\u2019s diverse communities in gaining a better understanding of redistricting and its impact on their lives.<\/p>\n

Victoria Huynh, Vice President of the Center for Pan Asian Community Service, Inc., concurred that language access is desperately needed. \u201cWe serve immigrants and refugees in over 25 different languages, 70,000 people\u00a0a year. When we look at redistricting, we see it as a public health issue. We\u2019re looking at transportation issues, immigration issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

She described driving\u00a0along Buford Highway north of Atlanta, past\u00a0the exceedingly\u00a0diverse and densely populated\u00a0International Village, a\u00a0residential community that organically arose to inhabit the landscape and infrastructure there after the city\u2019s 1966 hosting of the Olympic Games. \u201cYou see the multi-lingual signage and you know these communities co-exist and thrive. And you think, are there resources coming into this area to support the businesses; to support the kids and families who attend these schools?\u201d<\/p>\n

Huyn described redistricting gone awry, as International Village spans four different districts prompting confusion among its residents of who to call when in need of services or\u00a0assistance\u00a0from local\u00a0government.<\/p>\n

She also\u00a0recalled her 20-minute bus rides to her high school when the closest high school, only five minutes from her home, offered a magnet program she really wanted to attend but was in a different school district.<\/p>\n

Glory Kilanko, Founder and CEO of Women Watch Afrika, Inc., also knows about communities being fractured. Unlike Palacios\u2019 community where absent sidewalks are evidence of political neglect,\u00a0Kilanko\u00a0remembers \u201cwhen a bridge was built that divided our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said her organization interacts with Africans from 23 countries, many\u00a0of whom work\u00a0in poultry production plants but \u201cwere the first to be laid off when Covid struck.\u201d As with other panelists, she\u00a0emphasizes the need to\u00a0increase language access\u00a0\u2013 \u201cthere is\u00a0literally no word for redistricting in the languages\u00a0used by our\u00a0communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most importantly, Kilanko advocates for action and uses the same approach to demanding access to the\u00a0redistricting\u00a0process that she used to promote participation in the\u00a0census. \u201cIf we don\u2019t come out to be counted, we will allow ourselves to be referred to as \u2018the hard to be counted\u2019 population. Instead, we should be known as the \u2018hard to be ignored.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n