Women. Immigration. Media.

By Cristina DC Pastor

These are the core components that comprise the not-for-profit organization WICCAFE or the Women’s Immigration and Communications Café, a conversation and media platform for women immigrants founded by journalist Marivir Montebon.

“There are cookies to bake and stories to tell by immigrant women on a media platform, not just in kitchens or dining rooms,” was Montebon’s guiding light in creating her school project needed to complete her master’s degree at the HJ International Graduate Studies for Peace and Public Leadership in 2020.

WICCAFE was formally launched on September 6, 2019, but diligently conceptualized years earlier by New York journalist Montebon who was then studying for her master’s degree in religious studies with a focus on nonprofit leadership.

She was the chief idea generator of WICCAFE with the guidance of Dr. Andrew Wilson as her advisor. The gestation period was two years, she recalled, at the time when immigration education was sought by many. 

“This was in 2017 when Trump was still in office and demand for immigration info was really high,” she said. “We were responding through all these forums and educating people on their rights.”

She would be joined later by graduate school classmates Vanette Colmenares, who is the vice president, and Methodist pastor Roeline Ramirez is the secretary-treasurer.  Because all three women are immigrants from the Philippines and have connections either professionally or academically with writing and media, WICCAFE came to life. 

A pre-launch forum was held in Elizabeth, N.J. on Know Your Immigration Rights with immigration lawyer Lara Gregory in partnership with the Filipino International Community in America.

The launch event in September 2019 at HJI in mid-Manhattan was an immigration rights forum with immigration consultant from Washington D.C. Susan Pineda speaking on human trafficking.

It did not take long for WICCAFE to take root and grow despite its unusual birthing during the time of the pandemic when people were mostly hunkered down in their homes waiting to see where the COVID-19 coronavirus would take the country.

Montebon finished her master’s degree during lockdown and graduated with honors. She was conferred a distinguished award of “Public Leadership in the Community” by HJI. In 2024, she finished her doctoral degree on Peace and Public Leadership with a dissertation on “Bridging the Political Divide of U.S. Immigration Reporting through Transformative Journalism.” Throughout the pandemic, conversations on immigration rights and issues have taken front and center in Montebon’s podcasts.

For a young non-profit of five years, WICCAFE continues to evolve. In June 2024, it launched the Women & Media (WAM) podcast, a platform for dialogue and action.

In this project, Montebon is joined by Cristina DC Pastor, founding editor of The FilAm newspaper and co-founder of Makilala TV, the longest running television talk show for Filipino Americans in the New York metro area. The two journalists engage in cozy and chummy conversations with women in the community about issues in politics as well as their private lives. The topics are varied (beauty contests, the outcome of the 2024 elections, family vs career, etc.).

WAM made its debut at the Philippine Center on June 21 attended by nearly a hundred members of the community. It introduced a unique format where singer Carla Mongado provided a musical interlude in between speeches. The speakers are notable women in city affairs and media:  New York arts editor Cielo Buenaventura, environmental journalist Justine Calma of Vox Media, and lawyer Anne del Castillo of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

“WAM is not a reinvention, but a continuity of the program envisioned by WICCAFE,” said Montebon.

In the latter part of 2024, WICCAFE partnered with nonprofit organizations for a series of Know Your Rights forums led by the Filipino American Legal Defense and Education Fund (FALDEF).

The debut forum was held in Woodside and another in Levittown in Hicksville together with the Nepalese Society of New York.

Another forum about employment-based immigration is currently being organized also with FALDEF and other lawyers’ groups. WICCAFE is one of the implementation partners.

WICCAFE looks toward the coming years as potentially a busy period, especially since immigration has been touted as a priority concern of the new administration. Threats of mass deportation have caused anxiety within the immigrant community. WICCAFE will be sure to continue to advocate for more dialogue and education on immigrant rights so that facts, not fear, will prevail over the rhetoric of threats and intimidation.

Montebon continues to inspire conversations and action. She said, “With our baby steps right now, the cookies to bake and stories to tell are beginning to unfold, not just in the kitchens of anxious immigrant women, but out in the open through our media platform.”