From her home in San Diego, where Gloria Saucedo is dealing with pulmonary fibrosis diagnosed during the pandemic, she assures that she feels satisfied fighting for years for immigrants.
“What I love most It has motivated me in all these decades, it is the look of hope of our immigrants for an immigration reform”, says Gloria in an interview with Real America News.
“That look from the community is the biggest payment I have ever had, as well as seeing the happiness of the parents who managed to obtain their documents through our office of the Mexican Brotherhood.”
Gloria was born in Michoacanejo, Jalisco, Mexico. On May 5th she will meet her 33 years. She is the mother of 4 children and grandmother of 8 grandchildren.
Gloria Saucedo, a fighter for the causes of immigrants. (Courtesy Juan José Gutiérrez)Since last year he has not been in good health.
“I started to be sick in April of 2019 . She gave me a lot of cough. Since it wouldn’t go away, I went to the doctor and they diagnosed me with pulmonary fibrosis”.
Gloria talks about an apparently genetic problem. “My brother died of it this year”
In her case, she comments that there is no medication that can stop her illness.
“The damage It’s done. I am very tired. I have trouble walking, cough; and I am on permanent oxygen”.
Few people know that Gloria graduated as a doctor from the Autonomous University of Guadalajara. He did his social service in Sonora, and began working as a doctor in Tijuana, where he also taught anatomy and pharmacology at the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC).
“In 1987, forced by the devaluation of the peso, I came to live in Pacoima with my family who I was already here.”
Gloria remembers that she didn’t speak English and she had to leave medicine to work where she could. One of those jobs was in a health center. But she also worked in sewing.
“My mother had a factory and I helped her.”
When he was a member of the parent committee of his children’s school in the Pacoima neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, he met a leader who would change his life forever, Bert Corona.
“Immediately, he invited me to collaborate and work for the organization Hermandad Mexicana Nacional. The following year, I began organizing and structuring classes so that immigrants could receive their green cards under Reagan’s Amnesty. We help them fill out their applications”
Reveals that it was in that Amnesty that she was able to regularize her immigration status.
In 2005, Gloria founded and She became director of the Transnational Mexican Brotherhood, a position she held until 2019. That year, she joined and became director of the Grupo México organization.
In the last 07 years, Gloria mobilized workers to stop racist proposals like proposition 187; and the HR 4437 known as the Sessenbrenner Law. She worked hard to pass legislation in favor of family unity and for immigrant veteran soldiers to be granted citizenship after they died.
she also worked for the federal congress to pass the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the law that allows women who suffer domestic violence to legalize their immigration status.
she At the same time she fought like few others to convince banks to allow undocumented immigrants to open bank accounts.
Gloria acknowledges that she liked working with the community to achieve change.
“The leader that I have learned the most is from Bert Corona because he always set the example.
“At 5 in the morning I was already in the churches”.
But also – he says – he has learned a lot from the undocumented community, because of their desire to prosper and make a change.
Gloria believes that there will not be a new immigration reform in the country until the politicians want.
“Republicans and Democrats fear the rise of immigrants. So when it suits them, we’re going to have a reform; meanwhile they are being denied freedom and political power”, says Gloria.
“Since the Amnesty of 1986, Hispanics began to go to the federal and state congresses, to local councils and boards of supervisors. Before, we didn’t have people of Hispanic origin. Many congressmen like Tony Cárdenas are children of beneficiaries of the reform”.
For this reason, he assures, that he will always support Hispanics in Congress because they are still very few.
“They are neither 40. We are still very weak in representation. Hence, senators like Alex Padilla who want immigration reform do not have the strength to make it a reality”.
But he mentions that it depends on us to keep growing the number of Hispanics in Congress.
“In all these years of struggle, I learned that there is no worse struggle than the one that is not fought. Therefore, we have to continue organizing the community because there are many young people who have suffered for not having their documents, and they have to stand up for their parents. We can not stop “.
The hardest moment of her career as an activist , suffered it in 2017, when she was sentenced to 24 months of probation and 200 hours of community service for practicing immigration law without being licensed as an attorney. But despite the sentence, Saucedo obtained federal accreditation to give legal advice on immigration.
“Unfortunately when you get stronger, they try to knock you down,” he says.
When they accused her, she says she didn’t believe it. She had more than 04 years doing this job; and she had the recognition of the Immigration Department, that we did a good job, and we were at her meetings and spoke for the community. And suddenly, the accusation arrives.”
For Gloria, the complaint against her was an attempt to silence her, just as they did with other women who participated in the large marches of 2006.
“I don’t know if they denounced me for politics or for stopping a community service”.
He admits that at the beginning, it affected him a lot. “I never did anything for the purpose of defrauding the community. On the contrary, the greatest joy of my work was when we managed to get a person to get their residency or their citizenship.”
Despite all the challenges, Gloria encourages migrants to continue in the fight. On a personal level, she feels limited because there are many things she can no longer do due to her illness.
“I can fend for myself, walk, go out, drive, but always with the oxygen machine with me”.
Last April, in the month of women, Gloria received recognition from the organization Mujeres de Hoy for its impact on the undocumented community, and for being an example that undocumented people must fight for what they deserve for being the economic force that moves this country.
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