After moving to Washington DC, Norma joined Itzqueye, a DC-based nueva canción band as a singer and accordionist. The group originally came together to fundraise for the Sanctuary Movement, a movement formed by roughly 500 congregations of Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Jews, Unitarians, Quakers and Mennonites to shelter Central American refugees denied political asylum. They performed their music in the Washington area singing in Spanish, English, Hebrew and Arabic with a message of hope that people in Latin America and the Middle East will one day live in peace and dignity. They released their debut album Cantos de Lucha y Libertad: Songs of Struggle and Freedom in 1990.
ITZQUEYE MUSICIANS: Janet Braun, Norma Brooks, Cecilia Esquivel, Josué Gomez, Mario Posas, Carlos Quiroa, Michael Wheaton
