The training was modeled off one of the most useful trainings I have attended this year, No Wrong Door, except this one was specifically focused on Latino services and cultural sensitivity training.
No Wrong Door is the idea that every local service agency will be familiar with what every other agency does, so that when someone calls looking for help, even if it's the wrong number for a particular service, the person can be pointed in the correct direction rather than told no and sent away with nothing and no idea where to turn next.
The event opened with a skit meant to demonstrate how misunderstandings can arise between two people who speak different languages, whether a language like Spanish or English, or the hidden languages of different classes or systems (ie between a JFS caseworker spouting acronyms and a low-income client who doesn't understand the system).
An English speaker was having a conversation in Spanish with a Spanish speaker. The English speaker was able to keep up fairly well, but slowly the conversation got too difficult for him to follow. But even after losing the flow of the conversation, he kept nodding and agreeing to the questions and statements spoken by the Spanish speaker -- unknowingly agreeing to get a pie smashed in his face, which brought chuckles from the group.
The best part was watching part of "Which Way Home," a 2010 nominee for Best Feature Documentary. The film follows several unaccompanied child migrants -- some as young as 9 -- as they journey alone from Central America and Mexico en route to the US, largely by freight train. They are all looking for a better life or hope to somehow meet up with family who are already living there.
It's a long, dangerous journey. Many die, and many get caught and deported back home. According to the film, around 100,000 children are caught trying to cross the US border and sent back every year. Who knows how many actually make it.
We didn't get to watch the end of the film, so I don't know what happened to the main characters, but the presenter said most were caught...
They served delicious-smelling Mexican food for lunch, but tragicaly we didn't know there would be food and had eaten just before...Such a waste.
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