Due to increased concern over ICE enforcement in Washington County, the Tualatin Pili Group has seen less than half of its members present at recent meetings.
“Before we had around 30 or something like that,” facilitator, organizer and president Marilu Serrano said at the group’s Jan. 24 meeting. “But now it’s around 10 or 12.”
The Pili Group, which has been active in Tualatin for 10 years and meets weekly at the Juanita Pohl Center, is focused on providing a place for Spanish-speaking women to discuss struggles with mental health and anxiety. Serrano said that recently, their conversations have focused more and more on ramped-up immigration enforcement.
Group member Lwany Diaz explained to Tualatin Life and translator, Tualatin’s Community Engagement Coordinator Betsy Ruef, that the presence of ICE “generates insecurities” within the group and interferes with work the group has done to strengthen self-esteem.
“Like a community, we are dedicated to helping and supporting each other through the situation,” Diaz said. “That’s the point of the group, it’s a support group, and we work on our self-esteem and things like that, and this is interfering with us.”
The group’s name, “Pili,” is a commemoration of group founder Pilar Alcantar Corella, who died of cancer in 2020. Corella and group volunteer therapist Fernando Sanjines founded the group in 2016.
Many of the women during the morning of their Jan. 24 meeting expressed similar sentiment to Diaz, emphasizing that the support group had helped quell a lot of initial fears about ICE in the community and, in turn, allowed them to coax others’ anxieties, like those felt by their family members.
“Simply having a community space where you can come and air your grievances is huge for what we’re going through right now,” member Angeles Salazar said. “It provides peace for us, and then we are able to be calm with our family as housewives and as mothers.”
Salazar said that being able to “air her grievances” gave her confidence and was important for her well-being, saying, “It gives me confidence to be able to continue on with my other activities and my life without having too much anxiety.”
“My theory is that as a mother, if I’m okay, my family is okay,” said another member, Ana Cuabert. “This is a group that helps provide that safety.”
Pili Group members said that so far, none of them had had personal encounters with ICE agents in the area, but multiple members noted that they knew people who had been deported. In December 2025, 91 Washington County immigration arrests were reported to the Portland Immigration Rights Coalition (pircoregon.org/data-and-updates). For comparison, 78 were reported in Multnomah County.
Serrano and members emphasized that the group was “a safe place” for community members currently feeling fear surrounding increased ICE activity in surrounding communities.
“We want to express to our community, especially our Spanish-speaking community, that this is a safe place,” group member Yessica Serrano said. “This is the place where we were all at one point broken, and now we’ve become whole…I want everybody out there to know that Pili is a safe place to be.”
Serrano said that, as group president, she would like to see increased promotion for the group so that more people in the community are aware of it as a resource.
“We need more support, especially right now when a lot of the community is facing anxiety and issues due to the fear,” Serrano said.
The Pili Group was recently awarded a $2,000 grant from Tualatin’s Outside Agency Grant Program, which Serrano said will go towards increased group promotion efforts and also fund expenses like hosting group speakers.
“We would love to be able to get more, maybe next year, because it would help our group grow,” Serrano said. “It would only enhance the group and be more of a service to the community.”
The group is also currently working on a recipe book, which will feature contributions from members.
Pili Group sessions are open to the public. More information about the Pili Group is available on their Facebook page (facebook.com/groups/836664501354562). They also host Zumba classes on Thursdays and Saturdays.
