On January 2024 The Student-Parents Organization and the Dominican Studies Group teamed up with Maya Hernández and Sofia Stafford, doulas from the collective Doulas en Español, to organize a series of workshops for newly arrived pregnant migrants. The initiative emerged out of the realization that pregnant migrants have had little access to crucial information related to navigating the hospital system and other related institutions, culturally navigating the city and accessing resources that are crucial in this stage in their lives to carry a safe and healthy pregnancy.

The workshops also aim to connect pregnant women with doulas in their areas, to raise funds for those who are located in zip codes where doula programs are not available (through this fundraiser) and to collect community donations for essential maternity, post-partum and baby items.

After initial outreach via established mutual aid networks with newly arrived migrants, putting out multilingual calls (in Spanish, Portuguese and French), we hosted our first workshop on March 1st, kicking off Women’s History Month.

16 expecting women and mothers with newborns from West Africa, Central and South America attended the workshop. Insurance navigators from The LGBT Center were also present to enroll participants in insurance plans and to answer questions. During this first session we also introduced participants to what doula services entail and documented the most crucial needs of these families.

The families enjoyed a warm nutritious meal courtesy of La Morada Mutual Aid Kitchen thanks to financial support by The Center for the Humanities.

As donations continued pouring in throughout the following weeks, we organized a second workshop on March 15. There were 20 pregnant women and 5 new mamitas in attendance along with 15+ children and spouses. That day we distributed tons of baby and maternity clothes, 4 breast pumps, 4 car seats, a toddler stroller, baby bathtubs, bassinet, bottles, baby formula, baby wipes, and infinite amount of toys and other very needed items. The families also enjoyed a prenatal stretching and Zumba session with a professional instructor courtesy of a donor.

In maintaing our mutual aid praxis, for lunch we had Venezuelan arepas by Ana’s Arepas, made with love by another migrant mother that lives in the migrant shelter system. The arepas were a hit, a culturally relevant meal that many mothers missed eating.

For this second session, that focused on lactation information and support, we set-up an information table with free community resources and materials with information on lactation and perinatal care.

Many left with tears of joy, feeling grateful for having had a space to get together and get to know others in similar situation. Here they have a safe place to talk and be heard, a space to get organized politically and for their children to run around and play joyfully. In this sense, these workshops and its spaces have become third places. Distinctly from first spaces (homes) and second spaces (work place), third spaces serve as sites of respite to gather and interact and where people find relaxation (Oldenburg, 1989).

We would like to thank all who have contributed with donations, funds, and colleagues from the GC community that helped sorting clothes, setting up for the event and cleaning up after.

Form the Spring of 2022, New York City has received close to 130,000 immigrants, with about 600 arriving daily. Around 64,000 migrants are still living in city managed makeshift shelters called “respite centers” and HERRC sites (“Humanitarian” Emergency Response and Relief Center) and on DHS (Department of Homeless Services) managed shelters.

In order to combat the portrayal of migrants as a burden, the discourses that pit us against each other and promote the manufactured notion of a so called “migrant crisis,” and in order to contest capitalist and neoliberal contradictory discourses on “scarcity” of resources (when, at the same time, consumerism is promoted): we are calling for SOLIDARITY, MUTUAL AID and DIRECT ACTION. 

On November 3rd, 2023 the DGSC Student-parent Organization and the Dominican Studies Group hosted the event Solidarity with Migrant Families. We set up a free store with winter clothes, toys, books, school supplies, toiletries and hygiene products, and warm food at the CUNY Graduate Center. Over 100 people from Latin America and West Africa of all ages, from infants to grandparents, came from at least 6 different migrant family shelters from around NYC and the majority from hotels-turned-shelters on midtown Manhattan, just blocks away from the Grad Center.

This distro was a community effort: The South Bronx Mutual Aid brought clothes, shoes, toys, books and household items. We received a monetary donation from The People’s Pantry of the CUNY Reclaim the Commons Campaign to buy sanitary pads and Halloween goodie bags, snacks and drinks for the children. There were hundreds of multilingual books provided by the Brooklyn Book Bodega and by Recirculation, and warm meals prepared by La Morada Mutual Aid Kitchen (venmo @lamoradanyc and Gofundme) with financial support by NYU’s Abolition Lab class. Plus, we have counted with the helping hands from many classmates, union comrades, GC community students and staff, and the broader NYC mutual aid colectiva (you can also donate here).

We have been receiving donations from the GC community and beyond through the drive we’ve been hosting since September and continue to distribute clothes, shoes and other items out of the DSG office, through impromptu distros, as we receive information of newly arrived migrant families.

Thank you to all the friends who have donated, helped sort clothes, helped drive things, with logistics, and in many other ways!

Below are a short video and images that document a lovely afternoon of making connections, getting to know our new neighbors, of sharing joy and play, but also of important political work and multilingual conversations where multiple current struggles that converge took the center stage.

The Doctoral and Graduate Students’ Council (DGSC) Student-Parents Organization is an interdisciplinary group of students at the CUNY Graduate Center, who are also parents. We welcome students and faculty from all departments to share interests, ideas, and information about parenting, parenting while being a graduate student, topics on reproductive justice, child rearing, childhood education and other related topics.