Dallas Peace Center’s 2007 Peacemaker of the Year Award goes to Farmers Branch immigration activist Elizabeth Villafranca

by Minnie Payne

FARMERS BRANCH — Anyone familiar with the Farmers Branch immigration battle knows that 44-year-old activist/volunteer Elizabeth Villafranca fought tirelessly to preserve the civil rights of immigrants. Her reward – the 2007 Peacemaker of the Year Award which will be presented at the 21st annual Dallas Peace Center’s annual Peacemaker Awards Dinner Nov. 29 at the Double Tree Hotel at Midway and LBJ.

“Elizabeth’s talents for coalition building, grace, composure and peaceful spirit in the face of overwhelming vitriol have inspired the Dallas Peace Center to name her 2007 Peacemaker of the Year,” said Lon Burnam, Peace Center Director.

The Dallas Peace Center was founded in 1981 by Peace Mennonite Church as a means for their religious community to carry out peace and justice in the world. It soon became an ecumenical community that welcomed secular activists and became a non-profit organization in 1983.

“Our focus is on resisting war and promoting peace and justice in our communities here in North Texas,” said Burnam. “We’re frequently involved with various demonstrations in opposition to war and in support of human rights.”

According to Villafranca, she was born and grew up in a Mexican community in East Los Angeles.

“My third-grade educated parents emigrated from Mexico before I was born,” she said. “But boy, are they [parents] smart!”

Villafranca said that she went to a private Catholic grammar and junior high school, graduating from public Woodrow Wilson High school in 1981. Among other honors she was student body president her senior year and earned the Principal’s Award for Unselfish Service and Citizenship. She continued her studies as a psychology/biology major for two and a half years at UCLA.

“I had to go to work full time, and it [school] was too overwhelming,” she said.

Growing up in a Mexican community she didn’t think of herself as being poor because everyone else was in the same situation, she said.

“My mother still lives in the two bedrooms, one bath house,” she said. “When I visit, I wonder how three children and two adults fit into that small house.”

She said that her father was an electrician and when she was nine years old her mother and father divorced.

“My mother had never worked in her life,” Villafranca said. “She started cleaning offices at night.”

Villafranca and her daughter, Natalie, made a trip to Jerusalem in June, 2006 that was a life changing experience, she said.

“I remember when I visited the Wailing Wall, my prayer was ‘Please God use my mouth and use my hands and use my feet,’” she said. “In August everything started happening in Farmers Branch.

“It was no longer enough to show up for mass on Sunday; it was no longer enough to read the Bible; it was no longer enough to remain politically inactive.”

She said that she was always for the underdog and fighting against Ordinance 2903, which requires apartment owners and managers to obtain proof of citizenship or proof of legal residence from people who want to rent apartments or renew leases, changed her and her family’s life drastically.

Ordinance 2903 passed, but according to attorney William A. Brewer, III of Bickel & Brewer Storefront, Federal Judge Sam Lindsay issued an injunction and it can’t go into effect until a trial is held to resolve the matter.

“Nobody has to show proof of citizenship to rent an apartment and there are no fines,” he said. “Our work clearly had an impact, as there have been no other communities following the lead of Farmers Branch.”

Villafranca said that the United States has an immigration problem, but different municipalities attempting to control it by passing various hodgepodge laws is not going to solve the problem.

“The immigration problem belongs to the Federal Government,” she said. “The majority of immigrants are contributing; the majority of people are deserving of a pathway to citizenship.”

Jim Manning, a senior citizen in Farmers Branch, said that he has known Villafranca since August 2006 when both became deeply involved in opposing the rising tide of discrimination against illegal immigrants.

“She has had the courage to take a stand to find a way for our community to work together to show how everyone can live together in freedom, justice, goodwill and dignity,” he said. “Elizabeth, her husband and daughter are a shining example of how a Hispanic family has achieved the great American dream.”