[Series] On The Ground: LUCHA

Abril Gallardo, Communications Director, LUCHA

Post by Lorrie Goldin

Arizona has been turning from deep red to shades of purple and blue. The state is increasingly seen as part of a viable path to the White House for Democrats in 2020, even more so after the blue wall of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania crumbled in 2016. Voter turnout skyrocketed in the 2018 mid-terms, especially among women, young people, and people of color. Also key to Arizona’s rise in national politics is its role in the U.S. Senate: Democrat Krysten Sinema won in 2018, and there’s a good chance another Democrat will join her there in 2020. There have been increasing progressive gains in local elections as well, including the first Latina mayor of Tucson.

A big reason for these victories has been the hard work of grassroots organizations such as Living United for Change in Arizona, proudly funded by Airlift. LUCHA—which means struggle in Spanish, organizes low- and moderate-income families and immigrant communities in the fight for a $15 minimum wage and other workers’ rights, better education and healthcare, criminal justice reform, and immigrant, economic, social, housing, and climate justice.

LUCHA was founded in 2009, right before Arizona’s legislature passed SB 1070, better known as “Show Me Your Papers.” Alex Gomez, LUCHA’S co-director, notes how this notorious law (later declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court) sparked the massive grassroots organizations that have worked tirelessly to reach and empower Latinos in both metropolitan and rural communities via massive voter registration and participation campaigns. “When SB 1070 happened, our communities came together and decided, with the little investment we had, to start doing voter registration,” Gomez says. “Those children that were experiencing their parents being detained and deported are actually 18 years old or older now and are ready to vote.”

Those not eligible to vote have also joined the fight. One such person is Dreamer Abril Gallardo Cervera, one of the founding volunteers of LUCHA. With the group since 2010, Gallardo is currently the Communications Director of LUCHA and its sister organization, Arizona Center for Empowerment (ACE). In 2016, she helped the Bazta Arpaio Campaign unseat the infamous Sheriff Arpaio. 

Gallardo first came to LUCHA because she wanted to learn her rights to protect her family and herself from SB 1070. “I came feeling alone and scared, and ten years later I would’ve never thought that I was going to find my village and chosen family in LUCHA,” she says.

That village has done amazing work. In addition to registering 20,000 new voters last year, with plans to add an additional 30,000 in 2020, LUCHA was instrumental in passing a much higher minimum wage and paid time off bill in 2016, then halting recent attempts to sabotage the new law. This past year LUCHA Listens was launched—a community engagement program to learn about and advocate for issues mattering most to people in their everyday lives. This will culminate in a Peoples’ Budget, reflecting the values and priorities of Arizonans who have been historically overlooked. Economic justice is central to everything LUCHA does. The organization also promotes democracy, supporting an Automatic Voter Registration ballot initiative and beating back the Arizona’s conservative-dominated Legislature’s attacks on voting rights.

It’s one thing to register new voters, quite another to ensure they turn out. That’s why year-round, issue-oriented engagement by local activists who are part of their communities is so important. LUCHA makes sure people get not only to the polls, but to town halls and the halls and offices of state legislators.  The organization builds neighborhood teams, offers leadership training, Lobby Days, political education, and civic engagement, and teaches young people how to share their personal stories through its #VOTEriaAZ Campaign. Noting that stories are “the antidote to apathy,” Gallardo explains that “when young leaders go to supermarkets, laundromats or parking lots at churches to register people to vote, they focus on having intentional conversations with those individuals to make sure they remember their stories on Election Day.” 

LUCHA has a robust program for engaging high-school and college students. They also know how to have FUN! Earlier this month, Posada 2019: A Night of Pride and Joy celebrated all their recent accomplishments and plans for the work ahead. 

Gallardo’s energy and dedication are contagious, and vital in overcoming the constant chipping away of progress by Arizona’s traditional and conservative power brokers. What inspires and motivates her is “witnessing year after year the spirit of persistence, joy, and pride that our members show no matter the circumstances.” That’s how you build People Power, with true co-governance between the community, legislature, and those mobilizing in the streets. Seeing progressive people from the community get elected to office and disrupting systems of oppression make it all worthwhile. 

Our hats are off to Abril and everyone else at LUCHA. They are the vital heart of our democracy and our future. On to 2020!

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Your generosity makes a difference. Please support LUCHA and all the other great grassroots organizations Airlift funds by donating at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/airlift. Thank you!