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Mission Statement
The Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action (TIGRA) provides financial education and transition services to immigrants and their families. Our work provides a suite of ethical responsible products - remittances, bank accounts with local credit unions, credit-building tools, small loans and savings programs - tailored to individuals who are embarking on "new beginnings".
About This Cause
With immigration reform at a standstill, there are more than 11 million undocumented people in this country with an uncertain path to a coveted citizenship. Joined by millions of other legal permanent residents (LPRs) who have yet to meet the requirements for applying for citizenship, these immigrants (estimated to be 25 million individuals) are marginalized and scapegoated by the tenor of the current immigration discourse. But even with this fight going on around them, immigrants in this state of limbo have not given up. They continue to move forward and do what they came to this country to do: build better lives. They continue to strive in hopes of one day, in the near future, to be able to become citizens of this country. Though the frame of a pathway to citizenship that has been proposed by immigrant rights advocates all over the country has been less then fruitful, there is another way that immigrant and non-immigrant alike can participate--a new frame on citizenship. Citizenship is being active in your community and helping it to become better. Those seen as active participants vote during electoral races, both on the national and local scale, they know the needs of their community and strive to help their communities grow. This same idea of citizenship can be used to describe how someone can be active through the economy since all of these ideals can be described through the economy and conscious spending. Over the last decade, studies done nationally have all highlighted that when individuals opt to shop at local, smaller businesses instead of larger national chains, more revenue stays in local communities. According to amiba.net, an economic studies aggregator, "Multiple studies show locally-owned independent restaurants return twice as much per dollar of revenue to our local economy than chain restaurants. And independent retailers return more than three times as much money per dollar of sales than chain competitors.” For every $100 spent in a restaurant, for example, a locally owned business circulates $45 while a chain only reinvests $13. Economic Citizenship: A Strategic Response An economic citizen makes economic decisions every day with their community in mind. They spend at local shops, buy local produce and bank at credit unions or community banks in order to create the community that they envision through what they spend every day. They put worker wages and benefits, environmental impacts and more city revenue for public services before convenience and some times even a good deal because they know that their dollar will go further than just getting what they paid for. If people from an average sized American city just switch 10% of their spending to more local, small businesses it would, but not limited to: • Put over $200 million back into the local city economy • Expand more public services like afterschool programs for youth, more parks and recreation, and • Increase employment opportunity because of local hiring practices. TIGRA wants to promote this kind of conscious spending; spending with community and beliefs in mind. TIGRA believes that every person, no matter their status, contributes to the betterment of their community. They pay taxes, work to provide, ride public transit, eat in local restaurants, buy groceries, drink coffee at local shops; the list goes on and on. And all of these actions have an impact on the local economy and the local community. TIGRA wants people to continue doing these actions but now knowing that consequences of those actions and making conscious decisions around how community members handle their money. You don’t have to be a traditional citizen to participate and when making these decisions with your community in mind, then you are contributing to the betterment of the community. One is actively participating and is therefore doing your civic duty as an Economic Citizen.