By Olga Imbaquingo – Special for El Tiempo Latino
Her name is Laura Gutiérrez and she only points upwards for the benefit of those below. He did this in poor neighborhoods in Argentina and today in Annapolis. The homeless, single mothers and immigrants are the reason for his endless hours at work and the inexhaustible source of his ideas. When you believe in something, you go straight into action, by dint of phone calls, written proposals, assembling coalitions, and stakes of perseverance.
Gutiérrez was born in Argentina, but his childhood and youth were spent between the north and the south. The school and college were made in affluent neighborhoods of the DC area, where his American mother lived; and, the vacations were spent between hovels inhabited by adolescent single mothers in Quilmes, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires where his father is still.
With a degree from the University of Pennsylvania, he aimed to expose the reality of Mexican workers recruited to work in the United States. Then the train of her convictions took her to the south: Argentina.
He stayed at the Ministry of Social Development for eight years.
He discovered that he liked working with families more, organized 400 thousand cooperative members, created training workshops, prevention against domestic violence and conspired in strategies to shorten the bridge of inequalities.
The same thing she has done since May 2020 from her position as Community Liaison Officer for the Annapolis Mayor’s Office and as director of the Take Care Annapolis program.
He got there after a laminated journey in defense of the most vulnerable and with added value: he speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Like father Like Son
He has someone to go out to: Francisco Gutiérrez is his father, imprisoned and tortured for seven years by the Argentine military dictatorship. His crime? His political and unionist ideas; and his mother, Patricia Pitman, a professor at Georgetown University, who traveled to the south to denounce the atrocities committed by the military to the world.
Gutiérrez, the umpteenth Argentine crisis, in August 2019, pushed her to embark again north and this time she did not return alone. She was accompanied by her husband Emanuel Fernández and her daughter, Juana. “With a girl and living in a little house in a poor neighborhood, we couldn’t make ends meet.” And here he is, organizing vaccination brigades, health promoters, food distribution posts, aid to those affected by Hurricane Ida, and coalitions like The Mid-Atlantic Latinx Vaccine Equity Coalition (MALVEC).
MALVEC was created to achieve the vaccination of Latinos, but it will remain long alerting and denouncing about the health disparities of Hispanics. “He is my baby,” says Gutiérrez, “and he was born when we saw that each of us did what we could and it was necessary to get together so that our voice is heard. Here we shaped it and put it together ”. There is already an achievement in sight, the Foundation of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave them $ 500 thousand to achieve those goals.
Take care Annapolis
“I am passionate about working for my community, because they are my roots and because by pushing for change from the local level, a real impact can be achieved.” He landed in that position in the midst of a pandemic and was undaunted. “Argentina gave me the training, there I lived in permanent emergency, with women calling me at dawn in terrible situations. In Annapolis we are 23% of the population and 70% of those infected were Latino, you had to act quickly and learn as you go ”.
In August 2020, the Cuídate Annapolis program was already in place to bring Hispanic health promoters to neighborhoods, homes, markets and street corners. Do you have children? Do they have internet? Do they lack food? Do you know where there are masks? They were questions they asked ad nauseam. Thus, they found that about 200 families did not have Wi-Fi and in less than two months they were given the service.
“That is Laura, since she was a girl she has a deep vocation for social justice, perhaps my personal history and her work in the popular neighborhoods of Quilmes influenced her. She is smart, creative and has the charisma to lead and organize. She is a great planner and a teacher at developing projects. There I know that she is dedicated to working for the Latino community, ”says her father.
“Think and dream big”
With the emergency plan in place – information in Spanish, masks, food, Internet – it was necessary for federal funds to reach everyone, with or without documents. Then came the time of vaccination, registration, clinics and brigades.
By that time, health promoters and a group of Hispanic volunteers had collected hundreds of phone numbers, and the bombardment of text messages in Spanish finally unclogged the lack of information. With a new feature: residents can send messages and someone will reply to them. It has not done it alone, but it is in the front row so that Hispanics do not stay for last.
This girl determined to defend the rights of the poor, her passion for bossa nova has parked and she has not known what a good book is for more than a year. From being seduced by the first verse, she knows that, with a job without a schedule, a summit of issues to be resolved and a little girl, she will not come out unscathed at the end of the day.
“Laura when she gets to work for the people is indefatigable.
On a day of action in favor of workers with temporary visas, he told me: ‘Sulma, I’ll take care of it.’ Suddenly I had pressure teams formed with students from various universities, so we managed to get them to listen to us.
He is an activist, thinks and dreams big, ”says Sulma Guzmán, policy director of the Center for Immigrant Rights.
These days his office is also planning to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, with the launch of the book De Donde Vengo, written by young people from the south and from the rest of the planet. The flags of Latin American countries – including Brazil – will fly on Main Street in Annapolis. “We seek to attract Hispanics to the center of the city and make them feel that they also belong to them.” That’s Laura, always pointing up to help those below.
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