The time is now to create a campaign for immigration reform that includes the needs of disabled immigrants!

Last August, Access Living hosted an event showcasing a project Jeff Kelly Lowenstein had done for The Chicago Reporter and Chicago Matters, which aimed to better document the experience of undocumented Latino workers who become disabled on the job, with particular attention to the difficulties these workers encounter in accessing the workers’ compensation benefits to which they are entitled.  That coverage can be explored here, and a multi-media audio slideshow created as part of this project that blends workers’ telling their own stories with beautiful pictures can also been seen, created as part of Shadow Lives USA.

Now Access Living is taking part in an effort to bring people together from the disability, labor and immigrant movements to talk about possible areas of collaboration/intra-movement building.  Preliminary conversations that initially have focused on the workers’ compensation system, but are very open to incorporating other elements and ideas both of subjects and of ways to work together began with this event: “Exposing a Hidden Community: The Crossroads Between Work, Immigration and Disability”.


Hosted by The Immigrants with Disabilities Rights Project. Co-sponsors: Committee for the Integration of Latinos with Disabilities (CILD), Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital, Progress Center, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Disability Council #5427, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), Chicago Workers Collaborative, Chicago Interfaith Committee on Workers Issues, and Chicago Jobs with Justice.

Recorded Tuesday, December 09, 2008 at Access Living.