Emerging Gateways: Immigrants Increasingly Call Western States Home
The scope of last spring's immigrant rights rallies shocked progressive activists and anti-immigrant forces in near equal measures. March organizers across the country were overwhelmed and overjoyed by the turnout, and national media outlets covered May Day demonstrations nonstop. But while news anchors speculated about the size of the marches in Los Angeles and Chicago, Western States Center was paying attention to a few subtler, but no less relevant trends in our region. Read about the trends in our special immigration issue of West Ways.

From the Director: The Dangers of Playing Defense
Faced with the kinds of highly charged and emotional attacks we see when an issue like immigration emerges as a political football, we often tend to respond at the point of attack itself: we feel compelled to reply to arguments and charges in ways that draw us into debates that have been framed precisely to draw us in, and on terms not of our choosing. We’re thrown on the defensive, fighting a high stakes battle that’s not necessarily the battle we want to be fighting. The current political debates on immigration are a perfect example. In this article, Executive Director Dan Petegorsky discusses the dangers of playing defense.

Immigrant and Refugee Organizing: Western States Center Gets WILDIR!
For thirteen years, the Western Institute for Organizing and Leadership Development (WILD) has been a key component of Western States Center's strategy to grow the progressive movement in the West. Building off the institute’s success, the Center has launched WILDIR — a WILD program designed for first generation immigrants and refugees — to meet the needs of these diverse community leaders. WILDIR aims to graduate a cadre of immigrant and refugee leaders and organizers who share a broad progressive analysis and have the skills to strengthen, lead and staff organizations in the Western States region.

Getting the Green Card Blues: Thoughts on States and Statelessness
The current debate on immigration ignores the realities of many people’s lives and often fails to recognize the structural issues at the heart of the matter. Trainer/Organizer Kayse Jama reflects on his refugee experience and on being stateless.

VOTE Project Update - Building Power During Election Season
Western States Center structures its work with progressive organizations to take advantage of the organizing opportunities that arise during election cycles. With the frequent use of ballot initiatives in many Western states, there are numerous opportunities for groups to take action on their values, especially for groups so often targeted in right wing wedge campaigns — immigrants, low income women and LGBTQ folks.

The Radical Sabbatical Turns Fifteen
For 15 years, the Community Strategic Training Initiative (CSTI) has been a place where progressives can truly feel our collective strength, recharge our batteries, meet new allies and celebrate the common humanity that brings us to our work. To mark the occasion, we have created this special anniversary issue of West Ways celebrating the movement-building mainstay of the Center and its many grassroots community partners.

Common Dreams: Opportunities and Challenges for Cross-Cultural Organizing
Western States Center has begun a new immigrant and refugee organizing project designed to bring these diverse communities together, develop a common language, and build allies among and across cultural lines.

Gender Justice: It's a Family Affair
For Decades, the right has codified in legislation its vision of morality as viewed through a warped conservative marriage and family lens. 2005 heralds a new multi-year Western States Center program that aims to name, frame and combat the right's so-called "family values" agenda. The Family, Community and Sexuality Project will touch on complex personal, political and community issues, and how they are related to systemic oppression.

Organizers Index: Welcome New Staff
Western States Center is thrilled to have hired two dynamic new staff in April and June, 2005. Stephanie D. Stephens joined the Center as our new Development & Communications Manager. Kayse Jama received a competitive two-year New Voices Fellowship to augment our immigrant and refugee organizing work.

Voter Education: Moving Beyond Preaching to the Choir
Organizers around the region are gearing up to counter the effects of voter disenfranchisement and disillusionment. Western States Center’s Voter Organizing, Training and Empowerment (VOTE) Project is working with eleven community-based groups that are reaching out to voters typically shut out of power.

Racial Justice Organizing: Where We've Been, Where We're Going
Western States Center' Research and Action for Change and Equity (RACE) Program aims to increase the breadth and depth of racial justice organizing in the region. The work focuses on two distinct constituencies. The Center works to strengthen the voice and the power of organizations and leaders of color. At the same time, Western States engages predominantly white institutions and leaders so that they become strong advocates for racial equity.

Working the Wedge: A Resource Guide for Taking on Tough Issues
West Ways offers a few sample talking points and web sites that provide more background on each of these wedge issues. These resources are a starting point for organizations to develop their own approach to conversations with voters that build support for issues that could divide us.

Gender Justice: Making the Connection
Recently the Center talked with over 50 community-based organizations working on gender issues to get a handle on the full range of threats and organizing opportunities in the region. By understanding these in the broad context of gender justice, the Center can strengthen relationships among organizations and promote a shared analysis and response.

Gearing Up for 2004: Training Curriculum Ready for Critical Electoral Cycle
After a year of field-testing, Building Grassroots Power: An Introduction To Electoral Politics, will be ready this fall to help community-based organizations advance their mission through strategic participation in the coming electoral season.

The Dismantling Racism Project: Moving a Racial Justice Agenda
Now five years old, Western States Center’s Dismantling Racism Project made its name doing trainings and offering a full package of anti-racist organizational development tools to groups around the region. With the creation of the larger RACE Program at the Center (Research and Action for Change and Equity), the DR Project is now strategically focused on working with organizers who are committed to moving racial justice organizing forward.

West Ways Organizers Index
West Ways introduces the two newest members of Western State Center's board of directors.

"A Sight to Give Pat Buchanan a Coronary"
CSTI se presenta Mexotica: A Living Diorama
Attendees to CSTI 2002 experience Guillermo Gómez-Peña's "Mexotica," an interactive "living diorama" that confronts cultural conceptions of race, culture and sexuality in the U.S.

"Lack of money is the root of all evil."
— George Bernard Shaw
A year after the economic recession was finally acknowledged, its effects are still hammering the country, making our work harder — and even more urgent — at the same time as funding has become dramatically tighter.

Regional Snapshot: Western States Center's Board Sees Hope in Cross-Issue Organizing
Western States Center’s Board of Directors is composed of seasoned organizers and activists representing a range of issues and constituencies across the Pacific Northwest, Northern Rockies and Great Basin states. Recently, seven members of the Board shared their thoughts about their greatest cause for concern and their greatest reason for hope in the work facing the progressive movement in the region.

Progressive Coalitions: A Vision of What is Possible
Over the last ten years, Western States Center has worked with leaders in four intermountain states — Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming — to put together permanent, multiissue, multi-constituency coalitions that aggregate the power of groups with common interests or common threats.

Organizing the Organizers: Supporting State Coalitions
For over a decade, Western States Center has dedicated resources towards developing coalitions in four intermountain states. As many of the key national struggles over political, social and economic justice devolve to the states, the people of Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, and Idaho are now better positioned to secure progressive outcomes.

CSTI: "I left feeling ready to take on the world"
Now entering its second decade, CSTI is the summer event of choice for organizations and organizers both new and old. Scores of community-based groups from states throughout the West use CSTI as a training ground for new staff and leaders, and as a place for veterans to recharge their batteries.

What Works & What Matters: Deb Ross on her 8 years with Western States Center
Ask organizers in the region about Western States Center, and they might tell you about the great conferences and training programs, the funds the Center helps to leverage, or maybe the reliable research and useful publications. But for many, their connection to Western States Center can be summed up in two small but powerful words: Deb Ross.

Western States Racial Justice Program
RACE in the Region
Many folks — including some social justice activists — think that race is "less of an issue" in the Northwest due to proportionately small communities of color in the region. Recent trends confirm just the opposite. While the focus is often on “fringe” hate groups, vicious attacks against communities of color are increasingly conducted through mainstream channels. Race in the Western States Center region is indeed "an issue," not just in public consciousness but in the voting booth.

CSTI 2000: The Art of Uniting Forces
As anyone who’s attended the Community Strategic Training Initiative knows, it’s a swirling tornado of training and tactics that can shake organizations loose of their old way of doing things. Beyond the teachings of any particular workshop, CSTI makes change by making connections. At this year’s 10th anniversary CSTI, the connections were tighter, and more deliberate, than ever before.

Western States Center Welcomes Paul Lindberg
Western States Center welcomes Paul Lindberg as our new Development Director. Paul served most recently as Development Associate with Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance in Minneapolis.

With enemies like these, who needs friends?
Western States Center Glorified in Congressional Record
Earlier this year the U. S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Resources heard testimony about a vast left-wing conspiracy featuring your friends at Western States Center.

Where There’s a Will: Western States Center Helps Idaho Activists Find a Way
In an increasingly conservative climate, Idaho activists have been holding the line, winning incremental gains, and building for the day when power will fundamentally shift. Idaho’s roller coaster ride of exhilarating wins and stomach turning set-backs is a case study of politics in the West. With the help of Jen Ray and Roger Sherman, both Western States Board members, West Ways traces the role the Center has played in building a progressive movement in Idaho.

The Way We Were: 1999 at the Western States Center
1999 was a watershed year for the Center, one in which years of work came to fruition in important ways. At the same time, we began several new areas of work, and maintained the quality and level of training and other programs which organizers and leaders across the region have come to expect of us.

The Western Institute for Organizing and Leadership Development
The Western Institute for Organizing and Leadership Development is Western States Center’s intensive, year-long organizing and leadership development training program. Since its birth in 1993 as the Advanced Leadership/Mentorship Program, the program has graduated sixty-five emerging staff and leaders. Through intensive training sessions and field work, participants improve their skills, have fun together, and form lifelong relationships.

New Staff and Board Members Lead the Way
Western States Center welcomes: RuthAlice Anderson, Amalia Guerra-Lerma, Selena Mason,
Julie Quiroz-Martínez, Brigette Sarabi, Leah Slaney, and Taneisha White.