Angela’s Address to the Community, One Year Later

The following is Angela’s address to the community on November 19, 2015, the one-year anniversary of her entrance into sanctuary.

One year ago I was here with you all, but it made me feel very different emotions. I give thanks to God for you, who are always there to support. If it hadn’t been for that day that I decided to enter into this place, my life would have been the same.

My life, however, took a different path. Honestly, it’s a completely different life. It’s a new life, and now I don’t have fear anymore. I can be free in my work. And this is the achievement of many people, but also of all you.

Before last year, I might have been someone to my family, but to the world I was really nobody—because I was hidden. I know there are many that continue that way. And it’s difficult to feel completely free when there are so many that are suffering. I would have never been able fight this fight, to have acheived this, if it were not for you.

But thanks to this fight that we all took up, my life is different. Now I have a license, we bought a house, I have my own job. I had the opportunity to sing in the Mass when the Pope came, and without this fight I wouldn’t have been able to.

With good changes, good laws, we have different opportunities, and we deserve this. We all deserve this because we are all human beings. I’m so thankful for you, who support us all.

I’m going to finish with a song that a friend wrote for the little boy that they found washed up on the beach, who was from Syria. And it’s not only this little boy that is on his knees, there are many kids, many people who are on their knees. So I’m going to sing this song, and I hope that with this song, we can pray what it says.

Que mas tiene que pasar para que hagan algo ya? El mundo yo sé caye en pedazos, y poco mas.Ya, no hay humanidad, al dolores de los demás el matando me hace daño, una vez mas. Y la brisa de este niño, no llegó a la tierra viva, él son los sufraje que muere por atrapado su rompita Y esto no es llegar el primero, solo miren sus manitas, que sus fuerzas se perdieron, entre el mar de la justicia. Y este no es solo una foto, hay astilla que habia, en el mundo atras su metos, un niño llegó sin vida Pero qué estamos haciendo, aquí sentados todavia? Nos veremos que el silencio, no sopriende, nunca brilla. Nos veremos que el silencio, no sopriende, nunca brilla.

What more must happen so that they will do something? The world, I know, is falling to pieces, and little more.There is no humanity anymore, the pains of the “others”, the killing pains me, once again. And the breeze of this child, did not arrive on land alive, he is the suffering [people] who die, for being trapped in brokenness. And this is not the first, just look at his hands, he lost all his strength, in the sea of justice. And this is not just a photo, there is a splintering, in the world with all its goals, a child arrives without life. But what are we doing, still seated here? We see that silence doesn’t surprise, never shines. We see that silence doesn’t surprise, never shines.

Watch the recording of this address here.