By Alysen Boston | FāVS News Reporter
Most people in the Great Room of Moscow’s 1912 Center raised their hands when asked if they, their parents or their grandparents were born in another country.
That’s how Joann Muneta, chair of the Latah County Human Rights Task Force, opened Saturday’s talk, “Immigration: An American Experience,” at the group’s 33rd annual human rights breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
The event, which filled to capacity with attendees joining both in-person and via Zoom, also featured the presentation of the 2026 Rosa Parks Achievement Awards and music by Gefilte Trout.
But Raquel Reyes, the event’s keynote speaker and director of programs and operations for PODER of Idaho, a Latinx advocacy group, posed her own question.
“Is it your experience, or are you finally being exposed to what we live with on a daily basis?” Reyes asked the majority-white crowd. “For the allies trying to save us, trying to deter the enforcement of these unlawful policies, I appreciate that. But it’s not your experience.”
Reyes recounted heart-wrenching stories: her father helping his mother and younger siblings cross the Rio Grande on inflatable tubes; the border barring her Apache grandfather from freely visiting ancestral lands; the father of her children seized and sentenced to three years detention; the daily blessing she gives her undocumented husband with the hope he comes home safe every night.
“The border crossed our family, we didn’t cross the border,” Reyes said. “We have to fight the propaganda that convinces communities that immigrants are dangerous and must be deported.”
Just minutes before the breakfast began, news broke that Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, died after being shot by a U.S. Border Patrol officer. Pretti was the third person shot, and second killed, by federal officers in 17 days as anti-immigration enforcement protests continue in Minneapolis.
The shootings have enhanced fears that legal residents and citizens are not safe from President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
For Reyes, who was born in Los Angeles and whose family has always been a mix of citizens, legal residents and undocumented immigrants, this fear is nothing new.
“We have people doing it the right way, but they’re still being detained and deported and arrested and held in detention centers,” Reyes said. “We have to fight back.”
To change the climate in our country, Reyes said, voting in every single election is critical.
“We can register voters endlessly, but the real difference is made when they actually go to the polls,” Reyes said. “Start a carpool. Get people to vote. Educate and inform them. It’s not political, it’s humanity. Being humane – we’ve lost that in America.”
Reyes also called on the crowd to make their voices heard.
“I need you to call our legislators, to write letters, to email them. Everything you can do to let them know their constituents are not happy. Until we really push back, nothing is going to change in Idaho,” Reyes said. “I’m brown. They don’t want to hear me, but they will listen to you.”
The Human Rights Task Force will post a recording of the event on its website at humanrightslatah.org. A related celebration of King’s teachings, “A Testament of Hope,” will be held Sunday at 4 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church in Pullman, followed by a light meal.
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