Column: A quarter century later, inside scoop on Centro Presente

One of the questions we routinely hear at Centro Presente — from Spanish speakers and non-Spanish speakers alike — is what exactly does the name “Centro Presente” means? Literally translated, “Present Center” is next to nonsense, but the many guesses we’ve heard capture our 25-year history and who we are today.

Those who know very little about Centro Presente often wonder if “Centro” has something to do with the fact that our offices are located in Central Square. While the name was not meant to reflect that, we have indeed been based in the Central Square area of Cambridge since being founded in 1981 by Sister Rose Marie Cummins, who was working as an outreach worker to the Latino community in St. Mary’s Parish. She founded Centro Presente together with Salvadoran immigrants and the legal community, two sectors who had already begun to organize to support and defend this very new immigrant community. At the time, much of the community lived in the Central Square area or attended St. Mary’s Church. Twenty-five years later, however, we have a much wider reach, with our members living throughout the state. Our youth program, Pintamos Nuestro Mundo, meets in East Somerville. Our campaign, Echando Raíces: A Community Sets Down Roots, for the purchase and renovation of a building in East Somerville, will place us back into the heart of the Latino immigrant community.

Many others mistakenly assume that the word “Centro” implies that we work exclusively with Central Americans. Indeed, we were founded as a direct response to the needs of the sudden influx of Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing U.S.-sponsored civil wars, repression and violence in their home countries. Much of our history has been shaped by the struggle of that community to gain legal permanent residence in the U.S. Centro Presente was in the forefront of the organizations supporting Salvadorans and Guatemalans who were being overwhelmingly denied political asylum in the 1980s. After the settlement of a class-action lawsuit against the INS, the group that became known as the “ABC asylum class” — Salvadorans and Guatemalans who had been here since 1990 and filed asylum claims — and after years of constant community advocacy, we achieved passage of legislation to allow Salvadorans and Guatemalans the opportunity to apply for legal permanent residency.

Today, Centro Presente has grown to become an organization of the broader Latino immigrant community. A member of ours, Martha Martinez, from Colombia, once beautifully described Centro Presente’s composition as that of a tree, with Salvadoran roots, a Central American trunk and Latin American branches that continue to grow and flourish.

A closer guess as to the origin of our name is one that captures the spirit of the social movements in Central America in the 1970s and ’80s. In the massive mobilizations demanding social justice and an end to violent repression, “roll call” would be taken of the sectors of the social movement — nurses, campesinos, teachers, Christian base communities — who were, quite literally, “present” in demanding a more just, democratic society. This spirit is reflected in the historical moment we are living as an immigrant community today. As seen in the upswell of peaceful demonstrations that captivated the nation this past spring, immigrants across the U.S. took to the streets to courageously state with their very presence that they were, indeed, “presente” and deserving of recognition of their rights and dignity.

For the definitive word on our name, we look to our founder, Sister Rose Marie Cummins, who shared the following reflection a couple of years ago:

“I had heard the story about when people were gathered together for prayer, and they would say the name of a person who had been very instrumental and showing a lot of courage and leading people forward, and when they said the person’s name then everybody would answer ‘Presente’ which meant that the spirit of that person was there, present, with them and giving them courage to keep on and so it felt like a very apt name. I wanted the spirit of the people, like the three American women who had died and Romero, to be present with us.”

From this, we can draw hope, inspiration and strength. The immigrant community is certainly facing a challenging environment, but we know that those who came before us are still with us in spirit as we strive to create a better future — those who lost their lives for speaking out for truth and justice in El Salvador, those who stood in solidarity with undocumented immigrants in the 1980s, those who challenged a discriminatory immigration system, and so many more.

And not only are they with us in spirit, but each of them live on as part of Centro Presente in the form of the myriad contributions each has made over the past 25 years to the organization and to the broader movement for social justice. The fact that so many people have said “presente” over the past 25 years has allowed us to achieve our many victories and build strength to continue on. To use yet another Spanish phrase that has no literal translation to English, each has put in his or her “granito de arena” — their little grain of sand, a contribution to the whole that today continues to provide a vehicle for the Latino immigrant community to proudly say, for the next 25 years and beyond, that we are here, ¡PRESENTE!

Patricia Montes is a community organizer with Cambridge-based Centro Presente.