When Edgar Lara moved to Charlottesville 10 years ago, he soon learned two things. One, the Latinx community was isolated. Two, a tiny, brand new local organization, Sin Barreras, was on a mission to change that.
Lara, now the organization’s executive director, first connected with Sin Barreras and founder Fanny Smedile at its flagship event, Cville Sabroso. There, he discovered the like-minded Latin American community members he’d been seeking.
“In getting to know Charlottesville, I didn’t see the community I came from,” Lara says. “The people I would meet, they didn’t understand me. The microaggressions—it was constant, and it made me feel like, ‘Wow, you have no idea.’”
Smedile herself moved to Charlottesville in 2000 and felt much as Lara did 12 years later. An immigrant from Ecuador, she had taken it upon herself to make changes in her first U.S. home of New Jersey. She brought the same outlook to C’ville. Working mostly through her church at the time, she frequently gave out her cell phone number to Latin American people new to the area and others who she thought she could personally help make their way.
Smedile founded Sin Barreras officially in 2012. It was a 100 percent volunteer agency for roughly its first four years. Smedile and her small group of volunteers built on the work she had done connecting folks with resources—be it food, interpretation, or legal support—for more than a decade.
The organization grew in response to need. Sin Barreras applied for and obtained its first grant in 2015. The group’s volunteers built their budget further through grassroots fundraising and hired their first employee in 2016.
According to Lara, the first Sin Barreras hire didn’t work out. That’s when he decided he would pause his own career and take the position himself. The 2016 election only accelerated his plans to push the organization forward. The 2017 Unite the Right Rally pushed everyone even harder.
Today, Sin Barreras provides more comprehensive services to Spanish speakers and the immigrant community than it ever has before: social, legal, and health support; adult education programs; events like the annual Cville Sabroso; and community engagement. The education component is significant—Sin Barreras assists with primary and secondary schooling and helps folks obtain GEDs and complete leadership and tech training. The group doesn’t have lawyers on staff, but the organization can help those in need through its network of affiliated attorneys. Most recently, Sin Barreras began advocating for immigrant rights on a national level.
“We are there for people’s urgent needs first of all,” Lara says. “Our community has all kinds of different needs…every challenge you can imagine.”
Sin Barreras offers office hours Monday to Thursday from 2-7:30pm, and the organization still takes calls at the same phone number Smedile gave out as her personal cell years ago.
“This is a community that is taken advantage of. It happens constantly,” Lara says. “Everything we do is advocacy, raising voices, and empowering people.”