The challenge

Maryland, especially Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, is home to many low-wage Latino workers, mainly immigrants and refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala. “This population is family-oriented, hard working and for the most part lacking in formal education,” says Gustavo Torres. “They bring positive experiences from their countries of origin, of struggling collectively for justice, but they also bring horrible experiences of abuse from police and military authorities.” Thousands of day laborers, largely Latino immigrants, congregate in parking lots in Maryland suburbs. These laborers are often paid in cash, have no insurance benefits or job security, no assurance that employers will pay what they promise – or at all. Many are still living in poverty, earning well below a living wage.

Seeds of commitment

“Gustavo has a keen understanding of the immigrant community, for he is an immigrant himself,” says Tomás Pérez, former director of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights. “Having grown up in a family of 14 children in Colombia and arriving on his own in the United States in 1991, he understands the hopes and fears of newly arrived immigrants and is keenly aware of the obstacles impeding self-sufficiency.” In Gustavo Torres’s own words, he is motivated by three factors: “understanding, anger and appreciation.” He knows “the limited options and the seemingly endless restrictions that immigrants face.” Torres adds that he understands “the culture that Latinos bring to the United States and the subsequent struggle over the issue of assimilation.” He is angry at United States government intervention in Central and South American countries and at government repression within those countries. “In Colombia, I suffered political persecution as a result of my involvement with unions and the student movement. Just two months after I fled Colombia in 1987, my brother was murdered by the paramilitary forces.” Torres is also angered by what he considers the uneven playing field for immigrants. But despite his anger, he is also motivated “by an appreciation of all that I have been offered in this country... I appreciate the assistance people gave me when I first arrived in the United States. I see it as my duty and view it as a labor of love to assist others up the ladder.”


Accomplishments

In 16 years, CASA of Maryland has grown from a small operation headquartered in a Takoma Park church serving 2,500 Central American immigrants into what the Washington Post calls “the state's largest organization serving Latinos.” Over the years, CASA’s focus has grown from providing direct services such as food and clothes, “to focusing on empowering the community," according to Torres, who has worked for CASA since 1991, first as an organizer and from 1993 to the present as executive director. In the early 1990’s, CASA launched the Day Labor Assistance Project to organize daily hiring activity of the immigrants and to help ensure that they would be paid. CASA worked with 20 organizations to create the Center for Employment and Training, the largest such center in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. From several sites across the state, it now helps workers find both temporary and permanent jobs and operates programs in job training, language and literacy, tenant support, health education, legal assistance, community organizing and leadership training. Among the organization’s other achievements: • CASA sponsors an employment center for day workers where employers are required to sign contracts that include the job descriptions and wages; CASA’s legal office presses charges against abusive employers. Last year it recovered almost $250,000 in unpaid wages on behalf of 350 low-wage laborers. • CASA’s Leadership and Organizing Program established a partnership with the Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland which enabled the development of a Community Leadership and Organizing Initiative, training more than 80 leaders from low-income Latino communities in Maryland. • CASA’s health program trained 28 people to become health “promotores” who spread the message of H.I.V./AIDS prevention and provide other preventative health information in their communities. • CASA entered into a partnership with one of the nation’s largest construction companies which resulted in the creation of 450 full-time, full-benefits jobs and 6,000 temporary jobs for clients.


His leadership style

CASA’s rapid expansion “required not only vision, but also remarkable energy, technical expertise, passion and political savvy. Gustavo Torres has the entire package,” says Tomás Pérez. Indeed, Torres has created an impressive range of alliances with organizations and communities. “Since the beginning,” says Torres, “I have worked with community members of all races, socioeconomic levels and political agendas to bring about long term change.” He has also forged relationships with key government figures. Partly as a consequence of this alliance building, CASA receives a steady stream of government funding. “Equally importantly, the political leadership in Maryland looks to Gustavo for advice on critical issues confronting the Latino community,” observes Pérez. For example, when a study documented a high incidence of discrimination against Latinos in the housing market in Montgomery County, the county’s political leadership implemented Torres’s recommendation to bring a wide array of interests to the table. The organization assembled landlords, businesses and the African American, Anglo and Latino communities, who are now working on solutions. Torres underscores the importance of building ties with business. “I believe such collaboration can be vital to the well being of our community.” He also lays groundwork for the future, through CASA’s leadership training program. Last year, CASA worked with a diverse spectrum of 40 other Montgomery County organizations to push for a living wage, through a county government resolution. Although the proposal was not passed, he continues this work in hopes the county or state will adopt it in the future. “We did succeed in two other significant ways,” he says. “First, the County Executive allocated $10 million in service provision and tax credits to the low-income community; secondly, we generated a public discussion about poverty in Montgomery County, one of the richest in the United States.” Torres adds, “Without CASA’s 23 staff members and 12 board members, it would be impossible to do any of this,” he says. “They are the stars, the heroes, the leaders.”


The future

CASA is putting into action a 5-year strategic plan designed “to ensure that CASA is in the best position to anticipate, identify, and tackle the emerging and existing challenges confronting the low income Latino community,” says Torres. He believes that it is vitally important for CASA to be in a position to effect policy at all levels of government. Torres also serves as the founding President of the Maryland Latino Coalition for Justice, (M.L.C.F.J.). Similar in function to the N.A.A.C.P., the M.L.C.F.J. advocates for change at the state level. “Our current focus is on addressing injustice in the legal system, and CASA has spearheaded the effort to make the legal system far more accessible to people with limited English skills,” he says. “We have involved a substantial number of our low income workers in this effort.” For the last two years, the M.L.C.F.J. has sponsored La Noche Latina, an annual conference that brings 350 Latino and Latina leaders and community members to the state capital. “This year, we will hold regional meetings in six counties, invite delegates and state senators to each of these meetings, prepare the local agenda there, and then go to Annapolis with a finely tuned agenda. We will present it to state senators and other public officials, and ask for their pledge of support.” Torres has worked with other groups to create the National Day Labor Coalition, which held its first national conference in July, 2001 in Los Angeles. More than 150 day laborers and organizers represented 20 nonprofit organizations, establishing a committee to explore ways to advocate for day laborers in the future, including a potential National Day Laborers Union that set wage standards, provide health care and organize the immigrants who still wait at street corners and parking lots for a shot at the American dream.


More about Gustavo Torres

“Although Torres' union proposal is still in its infancy, one of his models is United Farm Workers, a mostly Hispanic group that in the 1960’s forced grape growers to accept union contracts. ‘A union could establish a national minimum wage of $10 per hour, offer job training and English classes, assist workers with immigration issues and help them acquire permanent employment,’ Torres said. That means structuring what has been one of the most informal work arrangements possible.”
– AP Online, July 25, 2001

“I think he's the man who wakes up thinking about justice, what's fair, what's right. ‘ What can I do today that would contribute to making the world a more just place?’"
– Wanda Resto Torres, Hispanic Liaison for the Montgomery County Executive

“I learned early on that the only way to effect lasting change is through collaboration.”
– Gustavo Torres