On Saturday, Aug. 31, from 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. the next day, Kings will be hosting its No Borders, No Masters benefit concert for El Pueblo and Siembra NC. Both El Pueblo and Siembra NC work closely with Latinx and immigrant communities.
The event will feature five bands: WVRM, Needle, Vacant Company, Huffer and Control Group. Vacant Company, Huffer and Control Group are all local bands from Raleigh.
Siembra NC is a Greensboro-based U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) watch group. Kelly Morales, a dispatch volunteer for Siembra NC, said the group works to protect the Latinx and immigrant communities from ICE, police and abuse.
“Our organization is a group of Latinx or immigrant leaders in our communities, and we dedicate our time to organizing ourselves and our communities with the purpose of defending the community from ICE, police, abusive and oppressive structures,” Morales said. “We also try to keep our children in our schools safe. All the work that we do is mostly organizing ourselves and working in conjunction with other community groups who are fighting to live their lives with dignity and in peace.”
According to Morales, Siembra NC is currently working in Forsythe, Randolph, Alamance and Guilford counties and has recently expanded to Durham County. Morales said proceeds from the event will help with this expansion and continue to support the work Latinx and immigrant community leaders are doing.
According to its website, El Pueblo is a Raleigh-based nonprofit organization that works to advocate, celebrate and collaborate with the Latinx community. The group works to organize and direct the Latinx community and other marginalized communities to fight for social justice.
Some may think that immigrant rights do not apply to them because they are not an immigrant or do not closely associate with immigrant groups, but immigrant rights do affect students at NC State. Yesenia Jones, former communications co-chair for Students for Immigrant Rights, said that immigrant rights should be important to NC State students because there may be immigrant students in their classes.
“A lot of students don’t realize how many students are immigrants or have DACA status,” Jones said. “There was a student on campus last year who was driving on I believe Hillsborough Street, driving around campus, and an NC State police officer stopped them and asked them for proof of citizenship or some proof of identification. It ended up being a big deal because it seemed somewhat racially profiled, and we looked into it and that’s when we started doing the Know Your Rights campaign.”
Morales said proceeds from the concert will be split 50-50 between El Pueblo and Siembra NC.
“These are our neighbors and people we’re going to school with,” Morales said. “When something is happening right here in Durham or right here in Guilford County, all of our counties and our schools, I would argue that this most certainly impacts all of us and this is a really neat way to step up and be able to help and not lead the movement for our Latinx and immigrant folks, but to be able to say ‘Hey, I see what you’re doing, and im here to support that work.’”
Tickets for the No Borders, No Masters benefit concert are $10. To purchase tickets for the event, visit Kings’ website.
To learn more about Siembra NC, visit their Facebook page.
To learn more about El Pueblo, visit their website.
