ARTICLES

New Hispanic office director used to diversity

By Steve Neill
Of The Catholic Virginian

Erik Giblin, who takes over the reins of the diocesan Office for the Hispanic Apostolate, will come with experience which includes working with the Latino community as well as non-profit programs in which he was able to promote the social teachings of the Catholic Church.

In his new job, which he will begin July 21, he will first seek to meet with the local parishes, the diocese’s Hispanic Commission and with other ministries of the diocesan offices.

In working with the various offices, Mr. Giblin said he will seek to “bring out our collective gifts.”

“Church teaching is a good compass to help orient us as a body,” he explained. “It’s very clear in acknowledging gifts and contributions of the Latino community.

“As church, we’re called to celebrate its teachings because they’re ultimately life-affirming,” he continued. “They proclaim our dignity as the Body of Christ.

“That’s fundamental in a society increasingly grappling with fear and despair.”

Mr. Giblin most recently has been teaching Spanish at Annandale High School and prior to that taught Spanish to 7th graders at Langston Hughes Middle School in Reston.

He described Annandale High School with its 1,200 students as “one of the most diverse schools in Fairfax County.”

Likewise, he says that the middle school in Reston was multi-cultural and socio-economically diverse.

“Teaching is one place where one can have a direct impact on one’s students as well as their parents and family,” Mr. Giblin said.

“For the past two years I feel I have really lived what the Church would call the Jubilee spirit of many people in God’s house,” he continued.

“By working with colleagues and students, we collaborated on specific projects which would bring out the very best of their gifts.”

Born in Torrance, Calif., and raised in Orange County, east of Los Angeles, Mr. Giblin, 36, points out that his name is somewhat of a misnomer. His late father was Irish-American and born in Minnesota. His mother, who now lives in Orange County, is originally from El Salvador in the department (state) of Ahuachapan.

“It is a rural area well known for its delicious coffee,” Mr. Giblin said of his mother’s birthplace.

He and his younger brother, Stephen, were raised in a bilingual home where both English and Spanish were spoken.

He attended St. Barbara School in Santa Ana, a parish which influenced him to be part of a multi-cultural world.

“St. Barbara’s was the first resettlement parish of the Vietnamese community in the mid to late ‘70s,” Mr. Giblin said. “It’s a beautiful tri-lingual and multi-cultural community.”

After graduating from high school, he went to Oberlin College in Ohio and graduated in 1994 with a B.S. in Spanish.

Even though he had lived among both Hispanics and Anglos, he then decided he wanted a different experience. This led to his first full-time job.

“I chose to go to Japan,” Mr. Giblin said, adding that he taught English and Spanish in public junior high schools during the 1994-1995 academic year.

“I was in the southernmost part of Japan on an island called Amukusa,” he said, explaining that this was the area where the first Christian evangelization in Japan took place.

“Growing up in St. Barbara parish, I wanted to learn more about the Asian Pacific Islander culture and the people,” he said.

When he returned to the U.S. after a year in Japan, he was volunteer coordinator with the AmeriCorps National Service of Catholic Charities of Orange County. In this job he designed citizenship curricula and co-directed an after-school learning center for elementary school students, recruiting mentors and building parent leadership.

Mr. Giblin was director of the Office of Justice and Peace and director of Community Social Action with the Diocese of Orange from 1998 to 2002. He became involved in legislative advocacy work and represented the bishop as a mediator in a labor dispute. This effort resulted in the eventual agreement of a major national company to pay migrant farmworkers a living wage. Prior to teaching in Fairfax County, Mr. Giblin was a program officer with the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights in Washington. In this role, from 2004 to 2006, he was responsible for developing, coordinating and implementing human rights campaigns and projects in the United States, Colombia, Guatemala and Vietnam.

“I’ve always used Spanish in virtually all of my work since college,” Mr. Giblin said.

He helped organize bilingual Congressional briefings, commemorative celebrations, speaking tours and other events to focus attention on human rights in Colombia, Liberia, Haiti, Vietnam and what he considers modern-day slavery in the U.S. agricultural industry.

Mr. Giblin and his wife, Linda, currently live in Annandale until they establish a residence in the Richmond area. He is a member of St. Charles Borromeo parish in Arlington which he said has about 5,000 registered families, of which 20 to 25 percent are Hispanic.

“I have an interest in building relationships and networks for the purpose of building communities and furthering God’s kingdom,” he told The Catholic Virginian.

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