410 Milagros Pe ̃na
The research reveals a rich relationship between a number of women’s religious groups
and the grassroots organizations with which they work.
For example, Sister Kathleen Erickson came to the border because her own back-
ground drew her to work in an organization that addressed border women’s concerns.
As a Sister of Mercy whose religious order made a formal commitment to work with
women and children, particularly the poor and marginalized, coming to the border
was a calling. That is how Sister Kathleen came to Anthony, New Mexico (a town that
is partly in the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, and partly in New Mexico). In 1991, she
and several other Sisters of Mercy helped to form what is now known as the Women’s
Intercultural Center. After several years, a spinoff organization, Mujeres Unidas, was
founded to teach women business skills and to provide training that would help them
find jobs. It is through these faith-based organizational networks that Latinas’ political
consciousness has expanded and the resources provided for their successful mobiliza-
tion (cf. Cohen and Arato 1992).
Among the NGOs in the greater El Paso-Ju ́arez communities, the YWCA and Casa
Peregrina serve women by providing transition housing; the Battered Women’s Shelter
was started with support from the El Paso Jewish Women’s Council; La Posada, founded
by a group of Catholic Sisters, also provides shelter for women who are victims of
domestic violence and for their children; La Mujer Obrera, although not a faith-based
NGO but important to the El Paso/Juarez women’s NGO network, provides political ́
space for women to organize around labor issues; and other organizations disseminate
educational materials on a number of issues important to women. Across the range
of NGOs, the goals and objectives center on local activism and while the focus is on
women’s issues, these are often framed within broader community struggles. It is this
local activism that enhances mobilization and empowers the women involved.
Imelda Garcia, a Chicana and cofounder of a spinoff organization of El Centro,
emphasized that the basic objectives of her organization were “to give a voice to the
community and to work with them, with the community, to better their health and
health as not just related to blood pressure and whatever...butbasically to empower
community.” Across the river from El Paso, in Ju ́arez, a Mexican Catholic sister saw
concerns over women’s issues as central to her activism on the border, stating:
I believe that among the most oppressed people, the most needy are women, espe-
cially among the poor, the marginal ones, the mistreated, the humiliated. I feel a
great calling to work with women. We are working to recover our dignity, our place
in society, families, and churches [translated from Spanish].Sister Mar ́ıa’s calling to work with border women reflects the spiritual journey that
characterizes many of the women who work in faith-based NGOs. One Dominican
sister who works at a faith based NGO in Juarez presented a relatively similar narrative: ́
I think I would trace...my interest to our congregational meetings that we had...
from the seventies on. We made as a congregation a deliberate choice to work for
justice and peace and that was really based on what was happening in the church and
what was happening, especially in our consciousness of women’s position and the
injustice through which they are treated in our country and worldwide. We came to
El Paso, we crossed over the bridge, saw what was happening in Juarez in the ́ colonias
there and...I decided to ask to come here and join Donna [another Dominican
sister] who was already in this area to see what we could do together.