(STORY IMAGE:KHQ.COM)
SPOKANE, Wash. -Democratic Candidate Lisa Brown was giving a videotaped speech to a WSU Latino student group called the Camaradas. Brown touched on her time in Central America spent teaching a college-level economics course in Nicaragua in 1990
In the video Brown stated "I started on the activist side of politics. I worked in opposition to U.S. policy in Central America, which I felt was supporting governments that were not supporting the human rights of the people in the countries and creating war and refugees."
During that time brown was teaching at the university of central America Managua. Nicaragua was one of the hot spots in the cold war between the u-s and communism. American policy during the Reagan and Bush administrations against the Marxist Sandinista government had turned the country into a war zone, causing 50,000 deaths, and sending countless more running for their lives.
To explain that statement, Brown drew a comparison to today's refugees coming south of our border, who are fleeing the same kind of violence she saw in Nicaragua:
“Well, I went to WSU to meet with Dreamers and of course we were talking about US policies today because they have been held as bargaining chips for about a year now without a path forward and really think congress should take action to give them that safety and security they need to continue their education. So what came up was the opposition I had to US policies in the 1980's as well during the Reagan Administration.”
Democratic candidate Lisa Brown was speaking Thursday afternoon in Spokane at the Inland Northwest State Reform Health Policy Conference.