Baltimore Community FellowshipsGuidelines | Fellows | Fellows Profiles
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Baltimore, Maryland
2007
Irene Muñiz, 24, grew up in the border town of El Paso. While at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, she ran the student chapter of Amnesty International and worked to bring visibility to human right issues, specifically around the murders and abductions of hundreds of women who worked in maquiladoras—factories owned by U.S companies—in Juarez.
But it wasn’t until Muñiz moved to Baltimore to earn a master’s degree in social work at the University of Maryland that she really began thinking about factors that separated communities from each other. "Coming here, I was taken aback by divisions between communities of color," she says. With a background in community organizing and social action, Muñiz hopes to create a safe space where people can share their stories about racism in order to work together to bring about social change. She believes this will help heal and bring change within individuals and communities.
Spurred also by the divisive national immigration debate, Muñiz plans to use her fellowship to bring together low-wage workers of diverse backgrounds and facilitate a conversation across cultural differences toward improved working conditions and economic stability for all low-wage workers. She is planning cross-cultural, anti-racism and leadership trainings for workers in Baltimore. She envisions organizing workers who use CASA of Maryland’s Worker Center on policy issues affecting low-wage workers and hopes to make the center more inclusive to all communities. "We live in a world that continues to divide us and only focuses on our differences," Muñiz says. "We need to move toward uniting communities of color and establishing a sense of solidarity with one another."
