By Antonio Rufin, WNPF Board Member
Our chartered bus came in early on the rainy Sunday September morning at our meeting point on South Jackson Street in Seattle. Over fifty excited passengers boarded for an adventure that would take many of them to a National Park for the very first time. Our destination: Mount Rainier National Park.
This was the culmination of months of planning and waiting. For the workers at Casa Latina and their families, the staff and volunteers, it was a long-awaited day trip to a place that they had so often admired from Casa Latina, from their homes or where they worked, but always thought remote and unreachable. No more. Thanks to Washington’s National Park Fund, Mount Rainier National Park and Casa Latina volunteers and staff, they would finally visit it.
Casa Latina is a vibrant, immigrant worker rights organization whose primary goal is to empower low-wage Latino immigrants to move from economic insecurity to economic prosperity, and to lift their voices and take action around public policy issues that affect them. Casa Latina provides a range of impactful programs — including day labor dispatch, English-as-a-second-language (ESL) classes, job skills and safety trainings, and community organizing for almost 750 worker-members — out of a small, three-building campus in Seattle’s Central District.
The people who use Casa Latina’s services work long hours for low pay, often under difficult conditions and, for them and for their families, making the long drive to one of our state’s national parks is not an easy or inexpensive undertaking. Language is another major barrier.
Earlier in the year, while getting ready to teach my ESL class in an upstairs classroom at Casa Latina, I noticed the sun beginning to shine on the glacier-studded slopes of Mount Rainier. The students (all Casa Latina workers) and I admired in awe the beautiful view and started a conversation about “our mountain” and national parks. None of my dozen or so students had ever been to any national parks, let alone Mount Rainier, and they all expressed a keen interest in visiting one, if only they could…
I am a person of many passions (hey, it’s in my sangre latina –my Latin blood). Casa Latina and Washington’s National Park Fund are definitely two of them (?). So, I thought, perhaps I can be a matchmaker? WNPF might be able to offer a small grant to Casa Latina to allow a group of their workers and their families to spend the day at Mount Rainier National Park...? Both organizations seem like such a perfect complement for each other! After bouncing the idea with my dear friend and past WNPF Board Chair Bret Wirta, then with Laurie Ward, WNPF CEO, and Araceli Hernandez, Casa Latina Day Worker Center Director (and receiving their enthusiastic support!), we set out to plan the event. We obtained estimates, wrote a simple Memorandum of Agreement and got the wonderful staff at Mount Rainier National Park engaged. Annie Runde, Park Education Ranger, became our contact and collaborator there. Laurie secured WNPF Board approval for the grant and we hit the ground running.
On Sunday, September 8, a bus full of people left for Mount Rainier National Park. Casa Latina had no problem filling the 56-person bus. More guests would have come, in fact, if there had been more places available, but that is all we could take this time. Despite the not-so-great weather forecast, people came — adults, families, all excited at the prospect of this little adventure. As we entered the Park, passing under the impressive log arch on our way to El Paraíso (Paradise), a huge cheer went up. My heart beamed with joy. At our destination, we were warmly greeted in Spanish by Park rangers Julie Gonzalez, Brenda Romero-Ramirez and Ben Garcia. We also met our WNPF friend, Elizabeth Gonzalez, Administrative Manager at WNPF. The rangers had already set up tables and a small tent next to the Visitors’ Center so we could have a delicious picnic lunch together, consisting of tacos and hotdogs and lots of other goodies that had been prepared in advance by Casa Latina’s dedicated volunteers.
The weather was a bit blustery and wet at first, but by the time we finished lunch, the skies cleared a little and we could see some patches of blue (alas, mighty Tahoma remained veiled in mist through our trip). Our group set out on a walk guided by our engaging, expert rangers to nearby Myrtle Falls, thinking that it would be as far as we would go. But, the weather seemed to stabilize a little further on and, to my surprise and delight, after a brief stop at the Falls we all simply continued on the trail. We walked for close to two hours– adults, young and old, and children. It didn’t seem anywhere near that long. We admired the rugged outline of the Tatoosh Range, the steep mountainsides covered in tiny blueberries and huckleberries (some of which were, ahem, sampled), flowers and evergreens.
The children were awestruck at the groups of curious marmots who warily spied on the long lines of visitors on the trail. We saw mountain goats in the distance. And as we walked, I kept hearing over and over the admiring comments of our first-time visitors marveling at the sights and smells of the misty landscapes. ¡Todo esto es precioso! I was moved beyond words. That is what I had so wished for my Casa Latina family… and it had come true. I hope we can do it again. No, we will do it again.
An update on Casa Latina (March 30, 2020): Casa Latina has temporarily suspended most of its operations. Many in Casa Latina’s fine community provide for their families through day labor jobs and domestic work. They seldom have other resources or any sort of safety net. Casa Latina’s Workers Relief Fund provides cash assistance to existing Casa Latina members who need funds right now for food and rent. Please consider this as you think about others in need and how you can help.
Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Gonzalez