What do you know about the immigrants who are facing historic level deportations and incarceration in the United States today? Would you like to learn more and grow your understanding along with other mindfulness practitioners?

After this call, we will embark upon a 6-session mini-sangha will include meditation, dharma sharing, speakers, and videos and readings that will help us look deeply into the challenges facing immigrants, better understand our own internal biases, and learn ways to contribute to healing.

Hispanic people are the largest minority in the United States, and fully one in six people in the U.S. are Latinx, and one in ten are of Mexican heritage. Only Mexico has a larger Hispanic population than the United States.The Census Bureau describes Hispanic or Latino ethnicity as "a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race." 

Sessions will be in English, accessible, and co-led by Adriana Arizpe and Annie Mahon.  if you need Spanish translation or physical accommodations, please let us know.

Adriana is a Mexican woman who has lived in the DC area for 8 years. She has degrees in Communications and Gastronomy and is an executive in media, research, marketing and communication. Adriana has been practicing mindfulness since 2014 and has extensive knowledge of relationships and cultural contrasts and a special interest in how Latin-American culture contributes to US culture as a whole.

Annie is a white, Armenian-American, ordained (lay) in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, founder of Circle Yoga Cooperative, DC Yoga Week, and Opening Heart Mindfulness community, and founder and treasurer of the Pink House Foundation, a grant making organization supporting the development political and social capital for marginalized groups in the US. She has been a student of mindfulness since the early 1990's.

IN PREPARATION for our call, consider reading or watching the following:

• Chapter 1 (Foreigners in Their Own Land) & 2 (Peril and Promise) of the PBS series Latino Americans, accessible here.

• The Americans Our Government won't Count, by Alex Wagner, New York Times

• Chapter 3 of Mexicans in the Making of America by Neil Foley, Becoming Good Neighbors. (will be emailed to you when you register for the call)

• Introduction to The Land of Open Graves, Living and Dying in the Migrant Trail, by Jason de León. (will be emailed to you when you register for the call)

• The exhibit Carne y Arena at Atlas Theater in DC, info here.