click this button for pictures and stories from CARECEN's 15 year history in LA

||| COMMUNITY PROFILE ||| - Pico Union/Westlake is home to 119,350 residents, with 95% living in rented dwellings. - Over 75% of the population are Latino with 95% reporting that Spanish is spoken at home. - Compared to 18.8% city-wide, 35% of the Pico Union/Westlake population lives in poverty. - Approximately half of Salvadorans and Guatemalans have less than an eighth grade education. - The Latino dropout rate for Belmont High School 82%, compared with Belmont's overall dropout rate of 22%

     By the end of the 1980s, with asylum claims rejected for nearly 98% of applicants, it was clear that Salvadorans and Guatemalans seeking political asylum suffered discrimination by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). CARECEN was one of many plaintiffs in the class action suit, American Baptist Church (ABC) vs. Thornburgh, which in 1991 was successful in securing the right to new and more fair hearings for Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing civil war. The beneficiaries, referred to as ABC class members, were granted temporary legal status until which time the INS scheduled them for asylum and suspension of deportation hearings. CARECEN registered over 8,000 ABC members – the largest number registered by any support agency in the U.S. – and has assisted thousands more with annual work permit renewals as the community has waited to be called by the INS for their interviews.
     CARECEN also initiated programs designed to assist the poverty-burdened community of Pico Union, an area west of downtown Los Angeles which serves as the portal for Central American and Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles and where CARECEN is located.
     Following the signing of the El Salvador peace accords in 1992, and in light of the civil unrest in Los Angeles that same year, CARECEN adjusted its programmatic priorities to reflect the need to address the need for permanent residency status for the refugees of the war. It also recognized the importance of working with younger immigrant and U.S.-born youth whose lives were now tied to U.S. culture.
      Nueva Generacion, a youth leadership program for high school students, began in 1992. Within six years, over 175 students had graduated with enhanced literacy and leadership skills.
     The Northridge earthquake of 1994 left the Pico Union devastated. CARECEN responded to the immediate need for food, health and counseling services and lasting needs for civic participation and community economic integration programs.
      In late 1996, the community faced new threats. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act surgically removed legal remedies granted by the 1991 ABC settlement. CARECEN mounted a media campaign through which it educated the community about new legal requirements as it also worked with civil and immigrant rights organizations on a national level to change the punitive law.
      The work paid off with the 1997 passage of the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA). However, NACARA gives blanket permanent residency to Nicaraguans and Cubans and demands individual proof of "extreme hardship" for Salvadorans and Guatemalans.
      Through its legal advocacy and civic participation programs, CARECEN works with the community to mobilize efforts to educate the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government about the need for a blanket presumption of "hardship" in order to make immigration law fair and equitable.
      By 1998, the education program had expanded to serve over 350 students per year and to address the technology and educational needs of youth from elementary to college level and their families. The department now offers: CARECEN Kids Camp; After School and Family Integration; Youth Leadership Internship (an evolved form of Nueva Generacion); Visiting Artists/Architects; and College/University Internship programs.
      In November 1998, following the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch, CARECEN was a leader in the relief effort. Working with the Central American Coalition of L.A., it helped to send 31 cargo shipments of food and medicine, including over $100,000 worth of medicine to the affected countries.
      CARECEN has now identified three programmatic blocks that form an empowerment pyramid for Central Americans and Latinos: Immigration Legal Services and Advocacy; Youth and Family Technology and Education; and Civic Participation and Economic Integration.