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Inside the Album:

LYRICS

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Day Day and Mu Kaw – “You Paint the Evening Sky With Wonders”

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Audrey Lopez – Poet

 Originally from Peru, Audrey Lopez moved to the U.S. in 2001. She was undocumented for 18 years and found her voice in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She now contributes to making host communities more welcoming towards migrants across Latin America and the Caribbean.

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 Growing up as a former refugee, I always thought of the many immigrant and refugee children around the world who did not have the opportunities I had to find a new home. I thought of the young tech student from Nigeria, yearning for a quality education, the refugee widow from Yemen, escaping famine, and the Salvadoran family, 

fleeing gang violence and crime. 

I often found myself wondering what I could do to help those around the world who have had the same beginnings as my story, but much different endings. It was then that I realized I must be an active leader in the refugee community. 

The need for leadership and community engagement in the refugee and immigrant community has never been more crucial. Our community needs us to stand up for our shared values and shared goals of ensuring other 

immigrant and refugee families have the same chances we as new Americans were afforded. 

We as refugee and immigrants have so much to offer our communities. We have proven to be humble leaders, peaceful neighbors, and pillars of our society. We must get active in our communities, we must vote in our local and national elections, and we must promote engagement and leadership in our communities. This means advocating for refugee and immigrant rights, ensuring access to education and career development and helping new arrivals get acclimated to their new surroundings. We must share our stories and engage in our communities to bring the change we would like to see and ensure our new homes remain welcoming beacons of hope. 

 Whether we came here as refugees, Dreamers, immigrants or asylum seekers we must work together, with our new community members from different backgrounds and homelands. To ensure that immigrants are treated with dignity and fairness and to ensure our stories can continued to be shared, we must act on the following:

• Dreamers must be given permanent legal status. Those immigrants who were brought here as children aren’t responsible for that decision and have never known another country. They must be given a pathway to legal residency.
• We must advocate for the return to our historic levels of welcoming refugees after ignoring our responsibility to help during the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
• We must prioritize safe, humane policies for asylum seekers looking to escape unimaginable horrors in their home countries. That means, no more unsafe detention, family separation and resources for deciding asylum cases quickly.
• We must end the demonization of immigrants as a means to popular political support.
• We must create a pathway to citizenship for the many undocumented members of our communities.

We as refugee and immigrant leaders and community members, must take action. Our newest neighbors are counting on us.

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MFE is proud to partner with local community benefit organizations who are doing exceptional social justice work. In this volume of Songs for Justice we highlight Lancaster Bail Fund.

Church World Service Lancaster

 Community Benefit Organization

Church World Service

Church World Service Lancaster is committed to showing welcome to refugees, immigrants, asylum-seekers and other uprooted people within the United States who are seeking safety and the opportunity to rebuild their lives.

For more than 30 years, Church World Service Lancaster has welcomed thousands of new neighbors from around the world to our beautiful country. Through partnerships with faith groups, organizations and individuals, we empower our newest neighbors to build new lives in peace and security, providing up to 5 years of service and support.

Learn More on Lancaster Bail Fund’s Website

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Why This Issue?

A note from the Church World Service Staff

Over the course of its history, United States immigration policy has shifted between radical acts of welcome and cruel indifference toward those seeking refuge and a better life on its shores. We created and passed the Refugee Act of 1980 with unanimous support in both houses of Congress, creating a formal structure for welcoming refugees to the US. And as a nation, we have also enacted discriminatory racial immigration quotas and used increasingly hateful rhetoric to describe our newest neighbors, leading to policies that have enshrined discrimination into law and turned away the most vulnerable. 

Over the past decade, hateful rhetoric and discriminatory policies have become more common. The U.S. refugee 

resettlement program, historically the subject of bipartisan support, was decimated. In 2019, the refugee admissions ceiling (setting the total number of refugees who can be resettled into the United States) was reduced by nearly 80% to a historic low of only 12,000. Commonsense immigration policies—supported by large majorities of Americans– have been become toxic and politically untouchable. 

We are seeing a rise in hate speech across Pennsylvania and the United States as a whole, with this dangerous rhetoric leading to trauma and violence. Immigrants have been blamed for crime, disease, and economic woes, despite study after study confirming the disproportionate role immigrants play in keeping Americans safe, fed, healthy and vibrant. 

We know that Lancaster County residents understand the deeply held moral and humanitarian reasons to welcome immigrants as well as the invaluable contributions immigrants make to our community. Together, we recognize that our newest neighbors bring fresh ideas and introduce us to new traditions while helping us carry on cherished ones. New neighbors become old friends as they join our faith communities in worship, share meals in our neighborhoods, and work alongside us in our jobs. 

 We must continue to advocate for a robust refugee resettlement program, humane access to protection for people seeking asylum and ending unjust and inequitable immigration policies that discriminate against Black and Brown migrants seeking safety. For the cultural, economic, and spiritual health of the United States, we must demand justice for our newest neighbors. Whoever. Wherever. Whenever. Everyone deserves the right to seek safety.