by Molly Vincent |
In 2006, Alice Gates found herself going door to door in neighborhoods and apartment buildings near the worker center in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Gates was reaching out to immigrant families, looking to understand the pressures and problems they faced, and inviting them to monthly meetings and workshops. These were the beginnings of the Washtenaw County Workers' Center (WCWC), which she co-founded in 2006.
Flash forward nine years: Gates, a professor of sociology and social work, has received the Marie O. Weil Outstanding Scholarship Award for an article rooted in her experiences at WCWC.
Her article, “Integrating Social Services and Social Change: Lessons from an Immigrant Worker Center” was published in the Journal of Community Practice. The Association for Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA), an organization for community builders, activists and educators, pulls from the journal to determine the recipient of the Marie O. Weil award.
“What’s exciting about this award is it’s about social work that’s kind of overlooked, but it’s very connected to our origins as a profession,” Gates said.
And not only did the Immigrant Worker Center shape Gates’ social work career, it provided services and support to exploited workers desperate for a change.
The center provided aid to immigrants through aid services such as Spanish-English translation and by fighting for basic rights such as bathroom breaks. Gates worked through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) campaign that resulted in the detainment and deportation of numerous immigrant families from 2006-2009.
She first cultivated her love for social work during her education at Grinnell College in Iowa, where she majored in Sociology and Women’s Studies.
“The combination of sociology and social work allowed me to both do research about social phenomena but also how we address human suffering,” Gates said.
Her “labor of love” article, which included two and a half years of field work, took place while Gates completed her doctorate in social work and sociology at the University of Michigan.
Prior to graduate school, Gates worked for a variety of community organizations, including the Farm Workers Union in Oregon, which helps farm workers defend their rights and receive better wages and working conditions.
Though her efforts were sometimes frustrating, they paid off.
“My experiences there taught me about the power of ordinary people coming together around a particular cause — in this case, defending the rights of all people to earn decent wages and be respected at work,” Gates said.
Gates, who has just begun her fifth year at UP, is hoping to pass this sentiment on to students in and out of the classroom through involvement in the Social Work Club and as a student adviser.
Junior Dorian Pacheco, who has had several classes with Gates, feels at ease to express thoughts and opinions in the safe space that Gates’ class cultivates.
“This class, more than any other one, at least for me ... is the most relevant because it covers aspects of life or society that are inescapable,” Pacheco said. “I’ve started to look at the world through systems of power and oppression. And rather than being a downer, I think it’s really fed into my understanding of the way things are and how they need to be changed.”
And this, Gates says, is her goal as a teacher: to spread understanding about what social workers really do.
“Social workers are often … characterized as being focused on helping solve individual problems … but we’re also involved in changing the social conditions and … problems of poverty and inequality and racism and exploitation,” Gates said.
Up next, Gates is writing another article exploring “Know Your Rights” workshops, which involve law students and faculty presenting on multiple issues of interest to immigrants such as labor rights and ICE laws.
She is also currently working on an article on complications in getting students to understand the gap between the laws written in textbooks and how these laws are executed in reality.
Away from UP, Gates enjoys cooking and exploring the outdoors, but she feels at home on The Bluff.
“Students grapple with important social justice issues, and I often feel as if I'm learning right along with them,” Gates said.
Molly Vincent is a news reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at vincentm17@up.edu.
