EPICA History

History of EPICA: Solidarity with the Poor of the Americas

EPICA was founded in 1968 as an organization in solidarity with the poor of Latin America in their struggle to build more just societies and to challenge the unjust political, economic and military policies of the United States with respect to Latin American and Caribbean countries. Over the years, within the context of US support for oppressive structures and repressive dictators in the region, EPICA worked to project the perspectives of the Latin American poor and to educate North American people about the need to defend human rights, support movements for justice, and change U.S. policies.

EPICA has worked in coalition with other national organizations to advocate for the Latin American and Caribbean poor and has helped to create a number of grassroots networks in solidarity with the oppressed people of the Americas. In the 1980s, EPICA narrowed its geographical focus to Central America and the Caribbean and played a leadership role in the Sanctuary Movement in Washington D.C. In the 1990s, EPICA expanded its geographical focus to include Mexico.

EPICA has developed a number of strong programs to carry out its mission. EPICA has a publications department that produces books and reports in English and Spanish for church groups, university classrooms and peace and justice organizations on social analysis, globalization, women, the church, fiction and poetry. EPICA also has study tours that develop people-to-people connections through delegations to the region, enabling hundreds of people from the US to travel to Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean hear first hand the experiences of the organized poor before returning to educate others and change US policy.

Recent Transitions: Alternatives to Corporate Globalization and Militarization

In the last decade, the political realities in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean have radically changed. A change of government in Nicaragua and negotiated solutions to the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala have brought a formal peace to Central America. Formal democracy was also reinstated in Haiti. But the fundamental economic issues underlying the political conflicts in the region have not been resolved as manifested in 1994 by the Zapatista uprising in southern Mexico on the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed.

For the past decade, EPICA has focused on post-war issues of truth, justice and reconciliation, as well as the challenge of building civil society in nascent democracies. But as the realities of Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean changed, EPICA also has changed to respond to the needs of the times by addressing the economic roots of the violence and supporting just alternatives that empower the poor.

The biggest obstacle to peace today is the negative impact of neoliberal economic policies on the lives of the poor. Whether the poor eat or starve, whether they work the land or end up working for slave wages in the sweatshops that are springing up all over the region, is determined more by the World Bank, the IMF, "free trade" agreements, and transnational corporations than by their own governments and local communities. Survival, rather than development, characterizes the situation of the poor in the region. In order to struggle for a more just world, then, not only US political policies, but also the economic policies of corporate globalization must be confronted.

During the past three years, EPICA played a leadership role the formation of the Convergence of Movements of the Peoples of the Americas (COMPA), a continental network of grassroots organizations from 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries seeking to build just alternatives to corporate globalization and militarization in the Americas. At the same time, EPICA developed a new popular education workshop series aimed at training Latino immigrant youth in leadership skills that will enable them to critically analyze their social reality, affirm their cultural identity, and effectively organize to transform their local communities.

Like Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, the immigrant reality of the United States and Washington D.C. has also changed over the past decade. EPICA is located at the border of Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights, two neighborhood that have seen an explosion of its Latin American and Caribbean immigrant population in the last fifteen years. These neighbors have experienced racial discrimination, economic hardships, and enormous obstacles to acquiring legal residence. As exploited people in the United States, they are also part of the Global South—the poor who are marginalized and excluded from the dominant economic system. As second generation immigrants in our neighborhood begin to develop their own leadership and ask questions about their social reality and cultural identity, EPICA is dedicated to finding new ways to be a resource for them in their diverse communities.

EPICA in the Post-September 11 Period

At the October 2001 EPICA Board Meeting, EPICA adopted a three-year strategic plan to support alternatives to globalization and militarization, and to work closely with the Latin American and Caribbean immigrant community in Washington D.C. These reflections took place following the September 11 tragedy. Board and staff members are unanimous in denouncing the unjustifiable and horrific violence of September 11, while at the same time expressing deep disagreement with the U.S. decision to respond militarily to the attacks. We believe that a military solution is doomed to cause the death of many, many more innocent civilians, increase the hatred against the United States, and plunge the world into an ever-increasing cycle of violence, all the while failing to address just alternatives to the deepening poverty and exclusion caused by corporate globalization.

Since its inception, EPICA has worked to educate people about the economic, political and social roots of violence and alternatives for peace based in justice. In the post-September 11 environment, it is more important than ever that EPICA continue this work. We pledge to use the resources and the experience gained in the Americas to produce resources and to open forums for discussion and debate in this new context.