Reversing the Missionary Position: Learning Solidarity on Mayan Time – A Film discussion/fundraiser for GR Rapid Response to ICE

In 2006, I produced a documentary film about my experience of doing accompaniment work in Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico between 1988 and 2005. I had worked with Peace Brigades International in Guatemala and Enlace Civil in Chiapas on numerous solidarity trips I took in those years.

The film I made, Reversing the Missionary Position: Learning Solidarity on Mayan Time, was really based on my own development and understanding about what solidarity really means. I was not in those countries to tell people what to do, to help them build houses, to preach any message, but to walk with them in their struggle for justice and liberation.

Most of the time I spent doing accompaniment work, meant that I was just present with local organizers, leveraging my privilege as a white male from the United States. As an organizer with Grupo Apoyo de Mutual told me years after my first solidarity trip to Guatemala, “your presence provided us some emotional and physical space to do the work we needed to do. It didn’t eliminate the death threats we faced on a daily basis, but it did provide us with more room to maneuver in the midst of the threats.”

GR Rapid Response is hosting a discussion of the film, Reversing the Missionary Position: Learning Solidarity on Mayan Time, on Monday, September 21st. at 7pm in an online forum. You can watch the film anytime, since it is online here:

Once you have watched the film,  GR Rapid Response to ICE is inviting people to be part of a discussion about the content of the documentary and the importance of doing accompaniment work, which is part of work of GR Rapid Response to ICE. To join the discussion go to this link  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87485219485 by 7pm on Monday the 21st.

This event is also a fundraiser for GR Rapid Response to ICE, which provides funds for families impacted by ICE violence, which includes arrest, detention and deportation. You can contribute to GR Rapid Response to ICE b y going to this link bit.ly/RR-mutualaid.

Please help GR Rapid Response to ICE by contributing to their Mutual Aid Fund and by help them to spread the work about this event, which you can find on Facebook at this link.