A new road for binational couples: Marta Donayre joined a band of immigrants on a cross-country bus tour and discovered a community with a broad vision of justice.

When Marta Donayre first heard about the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, she saw a golden opportunity to educate people about the plight of binational same-sex couples. Donayre, a Brazilian native, and her U.S.-born partner, Leslie Bulbuk, are one of the thousands of gay and lesbian couples who must live with the threat of separation through deportation because they cannot get married. The couple founded the gay immigration advocacy group Love Sees No Borders in 2001.

Inspired by the freedom rides of the 1960s, the immigrant ride was started this year by a group of workers who want to build support for legislation to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. The event included roughly 900 riders who boarded 18 buses leaving from 10 different cities beginning September 20, making over 100 stops on their way to Washington, D.C., for a series of rallies and meetings with members of Congress. The riders then traveled to Queens, N.Y., where over 100,000 people gathered at a final rally on October 4.

Donayre spoke to The Advocate from her San Francisco home just before departing on the ride.

What was the motivation behind the ride?

The idea is that this nation was built by immigrants and is still being built by immigrants, and yet, especially after September 11, immigrants are getting a very bad rap, and many are being abused. So there was this impetus to get the entire community together and say. "It's time to shed light onto our stories and show how the system can be very cruel and affect the lives of the people who make this country great."

How did you get involved with the ride?

In working for the Permanent Partners Immigration Act [which would allow the foreign-born partners of U.S. gay men and lesbians the same immigration rights as married spouses] and immigration for LGBT people in general, one of the things that I have personally taken upon myself to do is to reach out to non-LGBT groups. Right away I realized this was the perfect opportunity to let the immigrant community know that LGBT immigration is an issue, and we should be part of the immigrant agenda.

How have you been received by other people involved with the ride?

I have come to the sad realization that it's 10 times easier to talk about LGBT issues with the immigrant community than it is to talk about immigration issues with the LGBT community. They are much more receptive to our problem. They have a much broader vision of social justice than we do as a community.

In what ways will your participation in the ride help lesbian and gay binational couples?

I am hoping that this will help on three levels. First, on the buses themselves, I am committed to try to gain more support from the actual riders. I hope to bring the heterosexuals more on board and have them be as irritated by the injustices committed against us as I am about the injustices committed against them. Second, I want to be able to distribute my story in all sorts of towns across the country that are harder for me--or anybody--to reach. And finally, during the lobby days in D.C., I have a suspicion that we're going to meet a lot of politicians who, if I came knocking as a lesbian, they wouldn't open their door to me. But coming with this broader contingent of people, I'm going to get through the door.

What's the current status of same-sex partner immigration rights?

The most important recent development was the July introduction of the PPIA bill in the Senate. We have been working furiously since 2000, when the bill was originally introduced in the House to increase the number of cosponsors. Now that we have that companion bill, we actually have a future. It may be very far away, but we have it.