Erin Tamayo Begins Great Work with CLUE LA!

As many of you know, I have recently graduated from San Francisco Theological Seminary and have gone on to an organizing position with CLUE LA. But, perhaps you’ll find it interesting in learning just how I got to this stage in my life and how I have tried my best to follow God’s call and remain diligent to this discernment process.

First of all, let me mention that when my husband Andres and I decided that I was being called to attend seminary and leave my job as a First Grade teacher in Phoenix, Arizona, we really had a very limited understanding of what would follow. Quite frankly, it was through witnessing the struggles that my students’ families were going through, being recent immigrants to this country, most coming from Mexico, and the difficulties that they had to endure, that I became convicted that my faith was calling me to investigate how the church should respond. Often I became angered by the ways that the church even sometimes exacerbated the problems, believing that they were attempting to do the right thing.

I came to seminary with a strong desire to “stand with” and “learn from” those on the margins of society. I must explain that as an educator, the pedagogy that inspired me the most was that of Paulo Freire which seeks to meet people where they are and does not involve one person acting on another, but rather people working with each other. Included in this theory is the understanding that the educator, the teacher, has a mutual responsibility to both teach but also learn from her students in a more organic model of education. I don’t want to get too theoretical here but these pedagogical leanings led me to feel great inspiration when coupled with the theological writings of Liberation Theologians and Hispanic Theologians such as Gustavo Gutierrez and Virgilio Elizondo. It was through reading these authors that I found courage to continue asking how the church is to respond to those who are so beloved by God but often find themselves rejected by society as a whole.

It was through my pastoral internship at Immanuel Presbyterian Church that I gained an understanding of how the church and the community can work together to promote healthy social change in the midst of so much complexity. I found myself motivated to explore the way that we should respond to Jesus’ commission to “go and make disciples of all nations” coupled with his own mission “to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free…” Many churches take part in charitable outreach to the poor, needy and outcast but as someone who has lived, learned and worshiped with people who needed real social change to be able to live the life that God set before them with dignity, I struggled to find other paths to fulfill these needs.

Through the ministry of Immanuel Presbyterian Church, I came into communication with a Faith Rooted Organization called CLUE-LA. CLUE stands for Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. There are many things that drew me to CLUE specifically. First of all, I found great inspiration in knowing that CLUE draws from our faith traditions as a basis for their work and is deeply committed to journeying with low wage workers in their daily struggles for fair wages and safe working conditions. As Los Angeles is a place with a wide variety of cultures and people have varying levels of societal power, this area is especially fertile for the involvement of our faith communities in standing against the exploitation of many for the benefit of a few. CLUE is committed not only to supporting low-wage workers in their struggles but also in speaking truth to power as our clergy and faith leaders can speak from positions of moral authority that are supported by their integrity and compassion.

Through my work at CLUE-LA, I have come to hear the heartbreaking stories of workers throughout a variety of industries. A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet Greg Fletcher, a warehouse worker at an international corporation, as he illustrated the lack of human dignity and care he receives at this workplace. “They treat us like paperclips,” he said, “useful tools but when it’s bent too much it breaks. And nobody cries for it. Nobody cries for a broken paperclip. They just throw it away and go get another one.” Through stories such as Greg’s, I began to connect it to the difficulties that immigrant families go through in Phoenix. I began to understand that as people of faith, we must respond together, partnered with those in these struggles. If we are to believe in the inherent worth that each individual has in being created in the image of God, we cannot remain motionless when workers are made to labor until their bodies wear out, working for poverty wages that don’t allow them to care for their families.

At CLUE-LA, people from various religious traditions are brought together under the belief that “All Religions Believe in Justice.” As an interfaith organization, I always find it interesting to learn how different faiths draw from their own traditions to support the call for a more just society. One thing that I have learned while working in a place where the Executive Director is a Jewish Rabbi, The Program Director is a Methodist Pastor and the Board President is an Muslim Imam, it is that you have to know your own tradition before you can even attempt to draw from someone else’s. For example, did you know that employment, working conditions and labor relations are all subjects that have merited attention at a variety of Presbyterian General Assemblies? I’m proud to say that concern for human dignity in the workplace and at home has consistently been upheld by our church and our governing bodies for at least half of a century. In closing, I’d like to share with you a statement from the 1971 General Assembly which inspires and supports me in the work I now do:

“Since God has created life and material resources to sustain life, humanity does not have the right to deny life by withholding the means of existence to some…justice demands that everyone have the material conditions necessary for their physical and social existence…a guarantee to every American for income…large enough to provide for basic needs and to sustain every person’s participation with dignity, in society.” General Assembly 1971.

-Written by Erin Tamayo