In February 2026, Jonathan Peraza Campos, the program specialist for Teaching Central America, visited Springdale, Arkansas, to facilitate a day-long workshop on immigration and Latinx/Central American history for the Alliance for Immigrant Respect and Education (AIRE).
AIRE has been leading know your rights sessions, growing a base of allies, and providing support to the immigrant community of Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley throughout the anti-immigrant regime targeting residents of the region. Peraza Campos, who has roots in Northwest Arkansas, offered his historical and pedagogical expertise to help develop the historical and political analysis of AIRE’s membership.
After welcome and community agreements, Peraza Campos began the day with an immigration history 101 workshop using the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights’ BRIDGE popular education resources. Participants built an immigration history timeline and then contributed their own family and community migration histories to the timeline to contextualize their own migrations. Eventually, using Mapping Deportations, participants came to understand the anti-immigrant regime of the U.S. as one of racial control and racial removal. Later participants developed definitions and examples of ethnic studies concepts, including border imperialism, racial capitalism, white supremacy, mestizaje, and settler colonialism.
Peraza Campos shared about Teaching Central America’s work to bring Central American studies into U.S. classrooms, especially to help Central American students reconnect with their history and identities. He taught the Introduction to Central America mixer lesson, and Salvadoran and Maya Guatemalan participants shared their stories of leaving Central America to come to Arkansas during the war and genocide eras. Other participants discussed how their Salvadoran and Panamanian partners and loved ones have shared experiences with the wars and U.S. intervention, such as Operation Just Cause in Panama.
To close the day, Peraza Campos facilitated activities where AIRE members learned from the organizing traditions and tactics of historical and contemporary immigrant rights movements, including the sanctuary movement of the 1980s, Detention Watch Network, Union del Barrio, and Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR). Participants developed expertise on an assigned social movement group and then shared their expertise with other groups through a jigsaw. They concluded the workshop by discussing what AIRE can learn from other groups and what AIRE can teach other groups. Finally, the history of Northwest Arkansas was put in conversation with the current ICE regime in the region.
Peraza Campos looks forward to returning back to the region where he spent part of his childhood to build relationships with Central Americans, educators, and immigrant justice organizers.
Teaching Central America for Immigrant Justice in Northwest Arkansas
AIRE has been leading know your rights sessions, growing a base of allies, and providing support to the immigrant community of Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley throughout the anti-immigrant regime targeting residents of the region. Peraza Campos, who has roots in Northwest Arkansas, offered his historical and pedagogical expertise to help develop the historical and political analysis of AIRE’s membership.
After welcome and community agreements, Peraza Campos began the day with an immigration history 101 workshop using the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights’ BRIDGE popular education resources. Participants built an immigration history timeline and then contributed their own family and community migration histories to the timeline to contextualize their own migrations. Eventually, using Mapping Deportations, participants came to understand the anti-immigrant regime of the U.S. as one of racial control and racial removal. Later participants developed definitions and examples of ethnic studies concepts, including border imperialism, racial capitalism, white supremacy, mestizaje, and settler colonialism.
To close the day, Peraza Campos facilitated activities where AIRE members learned from the organizing traditions and tactics of historical and contemporary immigrant rights movements, including the sanctuary movement of the 1980s, Detention Watch Network, Union del Barrio, and Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR). Participants developed expertise on an assigned social movement group and then shared their expertise with other groups through a jigsaw. They concluded the workshop by discussing what AIRE can learn from other groups and what AIRE can teach other groups. Finally, the history of Northwest Arkansas was put in conversation with the current ICE regime in the region.
Peraza Campos looks forward to returning back to the region where he spent part of his childhood to build relationships with Central Americans, educators, and immigrant justice organizers.
Posted: February 20, 2026