Unducumented In America: Interview Jesse Diaz & Javier Rodriguez

To All Coalition Members:

On Immigrants, Labor, Union Democracy and the Rank and File
To the National Strategy Conference on Immigrant Rights
A position Paper by Javier Rodriguez H.
Steering Committee March 25th Coalition August 11, 2006

On Immigration, History Is On Our Side, Take It, It's Yours Pt. I
Immigrants are the bedrock of America.

Has the mass immigrants rights campaign of 2006 been asphyxiated by the Democrats embrace? Two Los Angeles activists recount the movements progress since the Chicano struggles of the 60s, and current defence of Americas sans-papiers from state and vigilante attacks.

JESSE DÍAZ & JAVIER RODRÍGUEZ

UNDOCUMENTED IN AMERICA

Could you tell us about your backgrounds as Latino immigrants rights activists in the United States, and how you were radicalized? [1]

rodríguez: I was born in 1944 in Torreón, Coahuila, but my family comes from the northern mountains of Durango. My father was a Communist and a trade union leader. When I was five we moved to Ciudad Juárez, on the border. In 1953 my father went to work in the us as a farmworker, under the Bracero quota scheme that was in place then. [2] That same year, when I was nine, I got deported from the usI was working as a shoe-shine boy and had gone over to El Paso for the day, but was picked up within a few hours. Three years later, in 1956, I crossed the border for good with my mother and brothers, arriving in Los Angeles that August. We lived in the city centre, and could smell the noxious fumes from the meatpacking plants and other industries. I went to the public junior high school; there was no English as a Second Language programme then, just Foreign Adjustment schemes. My first act of rebellion was in music class, when we were forced to sing patriotic American songs; I refused. As a punishment they put me at the back of the class. Mexicans were constantly being reminded of their difference: we would be called wetback and tjshort for Tijuana. We all felt the discrimination and exclusion, and began to think about fighting back against it. In 1965 we held a demonstration against police brutality in our neighbourhood. From there I jumped into political activity, entering the radical Latino wing of the Civil Rights movement.

díaz: My family is originally from Aguascalientes, Mexico, but I was born in la in 1964, one of seven children. I was raised in Chino. We had a big house, but we lived poor: we didnt get our first television until I was fourteen. As I was growing up I saw my parents help a lot of immigrants: they lived in a trailer at the back of our yard, worked with my father in landscaping or helped my mother round the house. As a child I was aware of the Chicano movementI would see the Brown Beret marches going down Central Avenueand experienced discrimination and racism, especially from the police. But I didnt really connect with the movement until I got to college in 2000.

How did you become involved in the struggle for immigrants rights?

rodríguez: After 1965 I became involved in a local Chicano organization called Casa CarnalismoMexican slang for brotherhoodwhich mobilized people from the neighbourhood and college students. The struggle for Latino labour and civil rights was gathering pace at this time: in California, César Chávez of the National Farm Workers Association led the grape pickers strike in 1965, and the next year, Rodolfo Corky Gonzáles, a former prize-fighter, set up the Denver-based Crusade for Justice, the first Mexican American civil rights organization; in 1967, Reies López Tijerina and his Alianza Federal de Mercedes (Federal Alliance for Land Grants) seized a courthouse in New Mexico. Student groups began to form on campuses. In California, Chicano organizers came into contact with Black activiststhe Panthers, George Jackson, Angela Davisand played a role in the wider struggles against discrimination, racism, police brutality and the Vietnam War. In 1970, the Chicano Moratorium movement against the war organized a big march in East la which the police broke up in an infamous rampage, killing three people.

In mid 1974, several of us from Carnalismo decided to join forces with Bert Coronaa legendary figure in the immigrants rights movement. He was from the binational community in El PasoCiudad Juárez, but had come to California in the 1930s, working as a longshoreman before becoming a labour organizer. In 1968 he and Soledad Alatorre founded casa, the Centro de Acción Social Autónomo, which aimed to organize the immigrant community and provide them with legal advice, documentation, help with housing and so on. The number of undocumented Mexican workers had increased substantially after the end of the Bracero Program in 1964. casa was the first to organize undocumented immigrants, though it also focused more generally on working-class Mexican-Americans. casa eventually disintegrated amid major political divisions in 1978.

How has the movement evolved since then?

rodríguez: The first phase of the movement runs from 1968 to 1986up to the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (irca), which amnestied immigrants who could prove they had been in the country for four years. That was a real milestone. Throughout the 1970s we had organized against a succession of bills aiming to curb or criminalize immigration. We held marches, started petitions and a lobbying campaign, set up mailing lists; we defended people who had been fired for being undocumented, and went to challenge Immigration and Naturalization Service raids when they took place.

The us Supreme Courts clampdown on temporary rights for applicants for permanent residency was the spark for a wider protest movement in the early 80s. In May 1984 we organized a march in downtown la for a general immigration amnesty and against the SimpsonMazzoli Bill on immigration, as it then stood. Jesse Jackson spoke at the rally, which drew 10,000 peoplethe biggest crowd that had ever gathered in support of immigrants up to that point. This had an important effect, in pressing the Latino establishment, historically very moderate, to come out against the Bill. At the Democratic Convention in San Francisco in July 1984, the Latino delegates forced Mondale and the Party to take a stand against the Bill. Thirty undocumented migrants occupied the offices of a prominent Democrat law firm in Beverly Hills for several days. There were intense negotiations over proposed amendments to SimpsonMazzoli, which eventually became the irca of 1986. This still included sanctions on employers who hired undocumented immigrants, but much more significant was that it legalized the status of about 3 million people. The amnesty also included children, spouses and other family members, and allowed you to apply for citizenship within five years.

After that we entered a new phase. In California, the debate was pushed to the right, with figures such as Pat Buchanan sounding the anti-immigrant alarm. The critical moment here was Proposition 187, a Californian ballot initiative of 1994 that aimed to deny medical care and other public services to undocumented immigrants, and public education to their children. We developed a two-pronged strategy to try to defeat Proposition 187: electoral lobbying and massive street demonstrations. At the same time, there was a wave of walkouts in immigrant blue-collar high schools, and the beginnings of a new student movement. In mid-October 1994 we brought out 150,000 people against the Proposition in la, but it was voted through in November. It was only overturned by a district judge in 1998. But we gained a lot of experience from the mobilizations, and made connections with the unions, local communities and Spanish-language Latino media.

What impact did nafta have on immigration patterns, and on the movement itself?

rodríguez: Within Mexico, the Salinas government pushed through a massive wave of privatization and deregulation from 1988 onwards. nafta meant even more public services being sold off, labour protections dismantled, and many tariffs being reduced or eliminated. Mexican agriculture was opened up to heavily subsidized us importers, and hundreds of thousands of farmers were driven off the land, just as countless small businesses were crushed by the arrival of us chains such as Wal-Mart. In the border zones, where most of the maquiladoras were established, government clamp-downs on union organizing combined with high unemployment meant that wages actually dropped. One result of this was a surge in people coming to the us. The number of undocumented immigrants has more than doubled since nafta came into force, from under 5 million in 1994 to over 12 million today. Well over half of them come from Mexico, with another quarter from Central and Latin America. Of course, there are also a lot of children born in the us into undocumented immigrant families. As these communities have grown, they have begun to feel their needs, aspirations, frustrations, and look for ways to articulate them.

Organizing immigrant workers is a response to thisan effort to prevent exploitation, to improve conditions and reduce impoverishment. But we also try to unite the immigrant and the native worker. Back in 1975 I attended a conference organized by the la County Federation of Labor, where a keynote speaker claimed that immigrantsboth legal and undocumentedcould not be organized. Yet today there are unions with over 80,000 immigrant members, and Latino trade unionists head many Locals; a real process of change is taking place. The Justice for Janitors campaign that started in the late 80s is only one example of the visibility and resources that unions have provided.

What other issues have you organized around?

díaz: One of my first activities after I got to college was to join the struggle for drivers licencesundocumente d immigrants had been barred from obtaining them since 1993, but in early 2003 the California State Senate approved a bill reversing that decision. The bill became a key issue in the October recall referendum against Gray Davis, and we started mobilizing in support of it. In December 2003, we organized a three-day march from Claremont to downtown la. But Schwarzenegger had repealed the bill as soon as he became Governor, and has vetoed the compromises proposed since then by State Senator Gil Cedillo.

In late 2003 I worked with a small group of activists in Ontario, California to organize walkouts of immigrant workers and consumer boycotts to demand drivers licences for the undocumented. On December 12day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexicos national saintwe managed to shut down a number of factories and restaurants across California, including the American Apparel plant. At this time, we also made contact with other groups in Atlanta, Arizona and Texas working on similar actions. But serious divisions emerged in the movement from the start of 2004, when Bush announced his plan for guest workers.

What has the movements response been to anti-immigrant groups?

díaz: A large number of these groups have emerged in recent yearsnotably Save Our State (sos) in California, which was formed in late 2004 to lobby firms and politicians supporting immigrants rights. In 2002, I had started travelling to Arizona, where Anglo landowners had been detaining hundreds of immigrants on their ranches along the border. There were shootings; dead bodies were turning up. The local sheriffs refused to do anything about it, so we sent human-rights delegations to the area. In 2004 we also started mobilizing in response to actions by sos, who would, for instance, go to a day labour centre to harass immigrants looking for work. We would send 400 or so people there to face them down.

The Minutemen vigilantes were set up in California in late 2004 by Jim Gilchrist, a former Marine. They copied the name from an extreme-right militia that carried out terrorist attacks on the left and the anti-Vietnam war movement in the 1960s, though it originally comes from the American War of Independence. In April 2005, Minutemen began patrolling the Arizona border with Mexico, reporting undocumented immigrants. Governor Schwarzenegger came out publicly in support of the Minutemen, saying they were doing a great job, and that he would welcome them in California. In response, in May 2005 we formed a coalition called La Tierra es de TodosThe Land Belongs to Everyoneworking with a group called Gente Unida (People United) from San Diego. The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles (chirla) also took up the vigilantes issue, setting up workshops and meetings with congressmen.

That same month, the Minutemen marched on Washington, dc, and were painted as heroes by the mainstream and conservative media. When the Minutemen actually decided to gather at the usMexican border in Calexico in the summer, we took hundreds of volunteers to disrupt their training exercises. It was confrontational, and many of our undocumented base decided against participating. But it helped to draw some attention to the connections between the vigilantes and anti-immigrant organizations such as Barbara Coes California Coalition for Immigration Reform and John Tantons Federation for American Immigration Reform (fair), as well as their links to Congressional figures such as the Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo, who organized the Immigration Reform Caucus, and James Sensenbrenner, who put forward House of Representatives resolution 4437 in late 2005.

rodríguez: In fact, the Minutemen and many other similar right-wing organizations were the shock-troops, used by anti-immigrant establishment forces to create the political environment for the passage of hr4437.

What did hr4437 propose?

díaz: It would have made it a felony to be in the us without documentation, and would have applied criminal sanctions to anybody who even supported an undocumented immigrantreligious leaders, social service workers or humanitarian groups, for instance. If you drove a cab, say, and you knew that your ride was an undocumented immigrant, you could be charged with a felony. Teachers could be charged for having undocumented students in their classrooms; hence the big mobilization of teachers against the bill. hr4437 also called for the construction of a militarized 2,000-mile fence along the usMexico border, gave power to local law officials to enforce federal immigration law, and called for the deportation of 12 million undocumented people.

Was this what prompted the formation of the March 25 Coalition?

díaz: hr4437 was passed by the House on 16 December 2005, catching everyone off guard. Luckily Gloria Saucedo, a former student of Bert Coronas and head of the immigrant advocacy group Hermandad Mexicana Nacional in San Fernando Valley, had set up the Placita Olvera working group that November, which helped to coordinate the response.

rodríguez: A meeting was held at La Placita Church in Los Angeles in January 2006. Apart from Jesse and myself, those present included Saucedo, Father Richard Estrada from the Church itself, Angela Zambrano from carecen (Central American Resource Center), and some people from the International Socialists. We all sensed the urgency of responding to hr4437. Some of the proposals were for vigils, a conference, a drive for petitions, a resolution pushing the la City Council to take a stand. The first meeting resulted in a picket of the Federal Building, a press conference, a petition. Then, on January 17 I wrote an article in La Opinión, a Spanish-language la paper, calling for mass mobilizations and an economic boycott. The piece was widely circulated on the internet, and played a role in framing the next steps. In mid-February, we proposed a plan of action for March 25. The idea was to galvanize not just Southern California, but the whole country. There were divisionsmainstream groups such as the United Farm Workers (ufw) and others said we wouldnt be able to pull it off. But eventually they backed the plans for a National Day of Protest on March 25, which we announced at a press conference on March 2. Over the next two weeks, more and more organizations joined the Coalitionby the second week there were over 100.

díaz: By this time protests had been taking place in other cities. From mid-February to early March there were rallies in Philadelphia, Oakland, Houston and Washington, dc, the numbers growing from 1,200 to 20,000 or so. Then on March 10 in Chicago, as many as 500,000 people came out onto the streets. Here in Los Angeles, we put a lot of energy into organizing, and had an enormous turnout on March 25: the la Times and lapd reported 500,000 people; the Spanish-language Channel 22 commissioned a professional digital count, according to which there were 1.7 million on the march. More demonstrations took place in New York the next day, in Detroit the day after, in Oklahoma, Kentucky and Las Vegas.

In the meantime, the Somos AméricaWe are AmericaCoalition had called for a National Day of Action for Immigrant Rights, April 10. Somos América was set up in March 2006 in direct opposition to our plans. Its mastermind is Congressman Luis Gutiérrez from Chicago, and it is backed by the Service Employees International Union (seiu), ufw and various ngos that constitute the mainstream wing of the movement: the National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens (lulac), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (maldef), as well as the Catholic Church. They called for a path to citizenship, as opposed to an unconditional amnesty, which was our position. On April 10 itself, over 50,000 people turned out in Houston; in Phoenix, as many as 200,000; in New York, at least 30,000. The biggest mobilization, though, was in Washington, dc, where 500,000 people marched from Meridian Hill Park to the National Mall.

The April 10 marches were an attempt to co-opt the mobilization by the mainstream groups. We pressed ahead with our plans. The day after the March 25 mobilizations, we had decided to turn the working group into a Coalition, and named it after the day of the big marches. We then proposed May 1 as the date for the Great American Boycott/A Day Without an Immigrant. The name was inspired by the title of the 2004 Sergio Arau movie, in which the Latino population suddenly disappears from California, which has to learn to cope without them; it was a huge success in Mexico, and really hit home here too. We began to speak to the country directly through the Latino radio stations.

rodríguez: There are hundreds of these stations across the us, and at least two dozen just in Greater Los Angeles. Getting the djs on board was a key part of our strategy from the start. By the time March 25 came around, we had about 25 of them supporting the movement, including Eddie Piolin Sotelo and Marcela Luévanoswho have the most popular morning shows on ksca, the top-rated la stationRicardo El Mandril Sanchez and Pepe Garza on kbue, Hugo Cadelago and Gerardo Lorenz on ktnq, and many others.

díaz: We also did a lot through the internet, using listservs to build contacts, especially the National Immigrant Solidarity Network. Then there were the churches, community groups, unions and the labour movement. It was a loose form of organization, but it gave us the basis for a nation-wide action.

What were you calling for?

díaz: The demands behind the May 1 boycott were agreed at a national conference on April 22, as a series of ten points. First and foremost was an immediate and unconditional amnesty for all undocumented immigrants. Among the other points were: no fence on the border, no increase in the number of immigration agents, no criminalization of the undocumented, an end to the raids and to deportations that divide up families.

What was the turnout on May 1, and how widely was the boycott observed? How did employers react?

rodríguez: There were big demonstrations in Chicago, New York and lathe Univisión network estimated the total turnout here at over a millionand smaller ones in cities across the us, from Florida to Washington State. Over 70 cities nationwide participated in the boycott, but it was most effective in the Southwest. In la, in almost all the industries employing Latino labour, 75 per cent of production was stopped, and 90 per cent of truckers working out of the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports didnt show up for work. On farms in California and Arizona, fruit and vegetables went unpicked, and across the country, meat-packing and poultry plants, fast-food franchises and other businesses were forced to close. In a lot of cases, employers supported their workers: all over Los Angeles businesses started putting up signs saying they would be closed on May 1. A lot of students from middle and high schools also joined in the boycott.

But the mainstream Latino establishment once again tried to split the movement. The Latino mayor of la Antonio Villaraigosa refused to march with us on March 25, although many of us had supported his mayoral campaigns, both in 2005 and the unsuccessful one of 2001. He also came out against the May 1 boycott, along with Cardinal Mahony and Somos América. They had called for a march in the evening, so that people could come after work instead of taking part in the boycott. Their slogan on May 1 was Today We March, Tomorrow We Voteignoring the fact that non-citizens and undocumented immigrants, who are a hugely important part of the movement, cannot vote.

It is estimated that there are between 12 and 15 million undocumented immigrants in the us, out of a total of 3540 million immigrants. Could you tell us about this community?

rodríguez: Mexican immigrants predominate for historical reasonsthey account for over half of the undocumented arrivals. But there are many others: from Central and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe. Around 7 million of the undocumented have jobs of some description. They make up something like a quarter of the workforce in agriculture, and a significant proportion in food processing, textiles, construction, domestic service and cleaning. The immigrant community is primarily bilingual, primarily working class, though there is a growing entrepreneurial class within its ranks: at least a million us businesses are run by immigrants. And there are immigrant students throughout the country.

díaz: Many people thought May Day 2006 was a day without a Mexican or a day without a Latino. But our movement is internationalist: it includes all the undocumented, without distinguishing between ethnic or national groups. This was one of the keys to the success of the March 25 Coalition here in lawe had Koreans, Filipinos, Chinese and Central Americans on board.

Mexican immigration nevertheless predominates. Does the immigrants rights movement have links to organizations in Mexico? What role has the Mexican government played?

rodríguez: The Mexican government has been attempting to co-opt us for a long time. There was an especially strong push under Salinas after 1988, as the pace of neoliberal reforms quickened, and especially when they wanted us to line up behind nafta. Much of the us Latino establishment, including the us Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, saw an opportunity for its own advancement in promoting the nafta agenda. After Salinas, Zedillo continued on the same neoliberal line, and the pris defeat by the pan in 2000 brought only a shift further to the right, under Fox. Calderón promises more of the same.

We have made trips to Mexico to organize there, and have connections with a number of Mexican unionsthe Unión Nacional de Trabajadores and the strm, the telephone workers unionas well as with the prd, through figures such as the parliamentary deputy José Jacques Medina. We also have links to unions and other social movements in New Mexico, Texas and Chihuahua through the Border Social Forum. Links like these enabled us to spread the boycott across the border, and effectively close down several ports of entry. Over 40,000 Mexican day-labourers refused to cross into El Paso from Ciudad Juárez on May Day 2006, and hardly anyone went from Tijuana to San Diego. The boycott had a wide resonance in Mexico as a whole. Everyone there knows that the countrys second-largest source of income is remittances, and there are millions of people with family members or friends in the us, not only from northern Mexican states, but also from further southespecially Jalisco. On May 1, a lot of people across Mexico also refused to buy products from American companies like Sears or Wal-Mart.

Are there divisions between the Hispanic and Black communities?

díaz: Black leaders took an active part in the 2006 May Day mobilization. But there are definitely tensionsin the unions, the high schools, prisons, and in the wider community as a whole. The divisions have a lot to do with labour conditions. Black workers are no longer being sought after, since businesses can now hire immigrants who cannot speak up for themselves because they dont have citizenship. With this threat hanging over them, Black workers have in many cases been intimidated out of demanding their civil and labour rights. The employers have been able to divide us along race lines. The argument that immigrants are taking jobs from Black people has even meant a handful of African-Americans joining the Minutemen, which is a real travesty. But it shows how much we need to prioritize this, because in class terms were all facing the same conditions; were all in this together.

What was the impact of the mobilizations on immigration legislation?

díaz: The spring 2006 mobilizations effectively killed off hr4437. But since then the focus of new legislationthe KennedyMcCain Bill and S2611 in 2006, the strive Act and Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (cira) in 2007has been the idea of a pathway to citizenship. [3]

This means a restricted process for legalization, through payment of fines and back taxes, which could take as long as 14 years. In the meantime, there would be stepped-up border security, deportations, and criminalization of undocumented immigrants arriving. In fact, raids were launched right after the May Day boycott, with 1,800 people rounded up for deportation within a day or two.

What has happened to the movement since spring 2006?

rodríguez: Like any mass protest movement in the us, the immigrants rights movement always ran the risk of being diverted into the Democrats electoral machine. The legislation put forward since hr4437, in offering a limited track to legalization, succeeded in drawing the support of many mainstream Latino leadersfor example Raúl Murillo from Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and Juan José Gutiérrez from Latino Movement usa gave qualified backing to the strive Actas well as the seiu and organizations like the National Council of La Raza, though the afl-cio and many ngos have been opposed. This co-optation of one wing of the movement by the Democrats, along with raids and deportations later in 2006, made us lose a lot of the momentum we had built up during the spring. As a result, the battle in Washington since 2006 has been between the mainstream and the Republican Rightand by the summer of 2007 it was clear it was the Right who won. They managed to mobilize and unify their grassroots through talk radio stations, and the cira was effectively strangled by Republican legislators in June.

This division between the pro-amnesty forces and the Democratic establishment is the background to the demonstrations we organized this year. The actions on March 25 and May 1, 2007 were both a lot smaller than in 2006. On May Day there were again two demonstrations: ours, which went to City Hall, and another one backed by the Latino establishment and Cardinal Mahony, which ended up in MacArthur Park. The MacArthur Park march was violently broken up by the police, who injured over 100 demonstrators and several journalists. It showed all the claims that the lapd had been reformed to be completely emptythough the widespread public anger over this may make it more difficult for them to clamp down on immigrants in the same way in the future.

Between them, the two May Day marches this year drew up to 100,000 people, but we had twice as many as the afternoon one. Mobilizations took place in 75 cities; besides the major urban centres, there were marches in places like Denver, Phoenix and Milwaukee. These were also much smaller than in 2006, though still significant. The May boycott wasnt observed nearly as much as last year, but we did manage to shut down la and Long Beach harbours and the garment district, as well as stopping many cargo deliveries across la county. Another boycott we called for September 12 was not such a success, however; the momentum is visibly down compared to 2006.

díaz: All along, the fundamental principle of our movement has been full, unconditional amnesty for all undocumented immigrants, and full labour and civil rights for anyone working here. But Somos América, which is little more than a cover for the Democratic Party, used the mobilizations to push forward a set of legislative proposals totally at odds with this; they essentially switched to supporting the guest worker programme. This would, of course, serve the interests of the big corporations the Latino establishment is linked toif you go to one of the National Council of La Razas events, for example, there is corporate sponsorship from the likes of Wal-Mart and Home Depot, and they get millions in grants from Citibank, Pepsi and Ford. When we sent a delegation to Washington, dc in April 2006 to lobby against the proposals then being debated, we found the mainstream Latino ngos and activists and the seiu working hand in hand with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, promoting legislation that would criminalize undocumented workers, pushing them underground and making it easier to exploit them. This comes on top of deportation raids that would break up families and leave hundreds of thousands of people without a livelihood, and the massive militarization of the border.

The Hispanic Caucus and figures like Gutiérrez have not spoken out against the violence on the border, the construction of the border wall or the raids. Meanwhile, the ufw and the seiuincluding its vice president Eliseo Medina, himself a Mexican immigranthave given their backing to a blue card scheme for agricultural labourers, which is being promoted in Congress by the California Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein. This has led to something of a backlash from the seiu rank and file against the leadership, who are now planning a new push in favour of these temporary schemes.

In the meantime, there have been splits on our side. Hermandad Mexicana Nacional has fractured as regional leaders of hmn have taken different positions on the proposed immigration bills. A large part of the movement has been absorbed by the legislative cycle. It has to be said that at this point in time the movement is a shadow of its former self.

What challenges does the immigrants rights movement face now?

díaz: At the moment the priority is to defend our communities against raids and deportations. Beyond that, we have to get back to ground level organizingsmall- scale forums, organizing from within the community, local marches. The spring 2006 mobilizations showed us how easily the movement can be co-opted by mainstream groups. Many people put their faith in the Democrats, who simply sold us out. We werent able to sustain the momentum of 2006 into 2007. Now, all the leading Democrats have one eye on the 2008 elections, and are trying to stall the immigration debate. We have applied for a permit to march on the Capitol on May Day 2008, and are now focusing our efforts on that. Many of our people feel discouraged, that their efforts were fruitless, or that their leaders let them down. We need to learn from this anger at what has happened over the past year if we want to mount any kind of challenge in future.

September 2007

[1] Interview conducted by William I. Robinson, author of A Theory of Global Capitalism (2004), and Xuan Santos; both teach sociology at uc Santa Barbara.

[2] Bracero Program: from 1942 to 1964, this allowed a quota of Mexican farmworkers to come to the United States.

[3] cira 2007 incorporated much that was in previous, failed bills, and was strongly backed by the White House as well as a majority of Senate Democrats. The Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy (strive)Act, proposed by Congressman Gutiérrez, is presently under discussion in House subcommittees.

To All Coalition Members:

It was six months of grueling every day work but it paid off. We motivated and galvanized the country once again. Our march was an easy 100,000. It was twice the size of the April 7 event which I called at 50,000. If the police said 25,000 it always means three or four times more. The naysayers, Nativo Lopez, Juan Jose Gutierrez, Mayor Villaraigosa, Piolin and Cucuy and others did their best to undermine us without success. The success belongs to all of us and all our supporters. In LA, the hunger strike coupled with the media strategy were masterful. It opened the communication doors widely with the people with a motivating message. Of course the mass direct contact, especially at La Plazita Church, in the garment district and at the Fiesta Broadway Festival, South Central LA and many other areas, was the essential element. In all it propelled the momentum.

The police attack is a clear warning a decision has been made to dismantle our movement. For our downtown march the police tried its best to provoke us, the organizers, and also the marchers, but we didn't bite. Our security squelched the igniting fires.  In San Antonio ICE BRAZENLY MADE A PRESENCE AT THE 10,000 PEOPLE RALLY WITH BUSES. The movement is too massive and threatening to the establishment.

This is a wake up call for national unity, the most important task the social movement and us the immigrant rights sector have in front of us.

Hunger Strikers have a thank you potlock event today Friday May 4 at La Plazita Church. Mass begins at 5:30 PM. Be there.

We need to support each other and begin discussion on where we are at, the police attack, what it means in political terms, as well as the next moves. The big prize is full legalization and empowerment-without a 14 year wait in line- for the now 13 million immigrant workers and their families. It can be done. We did it in 1986. Then the last stage took four years. From the igniting 1982 cancellation of the Silva Letter to the signing of the IRCA Amnesty Law by Ronald Reagan in early 1986, with only a one year wait for the coveted Green Card.

The May 1 National Movement National Organizing Committee will have a teleconfernce call on Sunday May 6.

Javier Rodriguez
 

On Immigrants, Labor, Union Democracy and the Rank and File

Companer@s:

This conference in Chicago can be a watershed event and a conduit for the labor movement to begin a new era to build a trade union movement more in tune to the reality brought about by the massive upsurge in the ranks of the immigrant community.

In a written statement that I recently emailed to the leadership of the March 10th Movement Coalition, I addressed the workshop on Immigrants and Labor and I suggested it be changed to Immigrants, Labor, Union Democracy and the Rank and File.

The amended title broadens the political spectrum and opens the discussion and analysis towards the history, the role of trade unions, its leadership and participatory union democracy, versus the top down practices of "Ël Charrismo", (Mexican term use for corrupt union leadership) that are clearly the norm in some, if not the majority, of the unions and central labor federations in the US now in the saddle of organized labor. To site a few in Southern California the problem of Labor Charrismo is embedded in the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, SEIU and HERE locally and nationally. (The analogy can be also applied to some of the immigrant organizations now passing themselves as progressive and/or militant).

In 1968, in the height of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, CASA-HGT-Centro de Accion Social Autonomo-Hermandad General de Trabajadores, the pioneer organization of the immigrant rights movement was founded by the old man Bert Corona during his radical years in Los Angeles. This in his radical years. Its vision was to empower the weakest of the American working class, bring the issue of immigration to the fore nationally and inject the immigrant community into the thick of the social struggle. Based on his longtime experience in labor and the movement of Mexican people, he implemented a multi-political and organizational strategy rooted on giving essential services such as immigration, legal, employment, housing, an identification card, etc. A second part consisted of fighting and lobbying against the unfair laws and practices of INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Services and its infamous enforcement weapon “La Migra”, now changed to ICE.

Because the thousands of CASA members were 99.9% undocumented workers and their families, union and non union, the old man knew CASA had to organize the unorganized (non-union) waging campaigns in different industries where the workforce was primarily immigrant and undocumented. For this an organizing committee, a brigade of 15 cadre, led by Nacho Uribe, was formed. All totally dedicated and unpaid volunteers, whose role was to organize directly at the factories where CASA members proliferated. Logically because of the official anti immigrant posture of the AFL-CIO, its affiliate Central Labor Federations, the UFW, including Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, Corona also designed and orchestrated a campaign for union democracy, essentially consisting of advising rank and file movements and taking on the known bureaucratic and sell out union leaders. Much like today. In this context the Old man made a lot of enemies. Chavez and Huerta and the rest of the US born Mexican-Americans in the UFW leadership were highly uncomfortable with the old man because he dared to challenged their anti immigrant and anti democratic stands.

This year, in our travels through out the US, Jesse Diaz and myself encountered the phenomena of “Los Charros” and like the corrupt leaders of the past they became uncomfortable with our presence and our position on the national boycott as well as a humane immigration reform demanding a full, no one left behind, legalization for the 12 million undocumented immigrants.

Like most of you in your regions and wings of this mass movement, we have had a bitter but fruitful engagement with “Los Charros”. They tried to isolate us, confuse us, divide us, coopt us, promise us high level donations, and when all that did not succeed, they tried to destroy the village in order to save. In a unified call against the May 1st National Boycott, they coalesced with, the protector of pedofiles, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, Mayor Villaraigosa, and President Bush. They scabbed on “A Day Without Immigrants”. Behind the smpke screen it was about power. They didn’t want to share it with skilled and creative militants.

Essentially they do the same when a local union leadership rises and demands the sharing of power, or making independent decisions, or elect one of their own. The hammer of the International is raised and saves the day by “Trusteeship”. The Local Union, or any union entity considered a threat, is placed under the official rule of the mother union. Then the designated trustee has all the authority. No meetings and no collective participatory decisions for as long as the law calls for, which gives them time to build a new Shop Steward system, the union staff is bought and paid for, and then elections are called for. Of course, it’s like the occupation in Iraq. With this extreme measure, the politics of organized labor are kept in place, the proper place, in support of the empire and the union status quo. As Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former Casista and union leader repeatedly but demagogically spouts, “God bless America”.

So we are at a crossroads. Don’t be fooled by the messengers who may support your position on immigration. And some of them are absolutely honest and in Los Angeles some of them have been with us and have been key to the success of our Coalition in mobilizing the 1.7 million on March 25th and the successful boycott which closed many parts of the US economy and mobilized many more on the streets. We have them, mostly staffers, some of them former Casistas and highly political, but essentially its only them in the meetings. There are some exceptions to this rule. And we are certain we had the support of the rank and file and a sector of the hired staff.

As in 1968 and other periods of struggle, today there is a need to begin a call, publicly, for a more militant trade union movement. Openly. Sin pelos en la lengua. If us, the leadership of this wing of the immigrant rights movement, leading by example, calls for a process of struggle to democratize the labor movemet, the immigrant, the workers of all nationalities, will heed our call. If you hear and see opposition in our ranks, which is considered the most and radical of this mass movement, it will be because some in our ranks leaders have the same practices as the union bosses of old and new.

On Immigration, History Is On Our Side, Take It, It's Yours
January 17, 2006

It has been 38 years since the founding of the immigrant’s rights movement that led us to the historic Immigration Reform Laws of 1986. 20 years have passed since and without a doubt, in my time, I have never seen such a draconian array of proposed immigration reform laws in congress. The proposed criminalization of the aliens and supporters, the wall and militarization of the border are all an invigorated deluge of white nationalism disguised as anti terrorism and national security.

It’s a smoke screen. Not content with the level of voracious exploitation brought forth by 25 years of Neo-liberalism, these laws are designed to further enslave the undocumented immigrant class living in this country and placed them and their families further back to the past, to the rear of the bus.

Critics and pro immigrant sectors in the US, Mexico, and Latin America are condemning this pro war and anti immigrant American administration, singling out the racist and macabre implications of the bill passed by the lower house of Congress at the behest of Speaker James Sensenbrenner, with overt support from President George W. Bush.

The writing is on the wall. With the polls showing disapproval of the president and his fabricated war on Iraq, the Republicans are finding refuge in their most conservative base, whipping up the old stand by issue, illegal immigration.

The pro immigrant sectors have been lobbying, petitioning, holding press events, protests and regional meetings, but, the response lacks a historic vision and a coherent unified national strategy to lead us out of the quagmire. For the moment the right has the offensive.

Behind the xenophobic proposals is the country’s highly organized ultra right, the Richard Mellon Scaif family fortune, their front man, John Tanton "The Pupeteer", and the shock troops, the paramilitary "Minutemen Project". They have all successfully pressured the Republican majority in Congress and the White House. Surprisingly the anti immigrant wave has turned Congressman Tom Tancredo into a respectable right wing zealot leading an 80 member caucus on immigration reform. But Behind it all is Tanton.

As in the eighties, today, the country has a burgeoning undocumented population of low wage workers in the millions. In real terms they are the unofficial "Bracero Program". Because they perceive no social security or tax return benefits, it can be argued the economy rests on their backs. In the same vein it’s not farfetched to say today’s war on Iraq and its costly occupation is substantially paid for by the immigrant population. It is no different than when the Spanish empire financed its war against the French on the exploitation of the Gold mines of Guanajuato, Mexico and the silver mines of Bolivia.

Mexico’s lukewarm response doesn’t really threaten Bush or Congress, but real pressure could turn the tables. For starters Mexico could expel the American Ambassador and reduce US-Mexico relations to "interest only affairs". As the Gringos did during the Macarena-DEA affair, It could virtually close the border entry points, turn off the oil pipes and finally suspend NAFTA. Indisputably this treaty has been horrendous for Mexico. It has decimated that country’s small agriculture as well as millions of small businesses, dramatically pauperizing Mexicans. Both President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and our then rising "Latino Establishment" demagogically proclaimed NAFTA was Mexico’s ticket into the 1st world and the migration flow to the promised land would recede. What a joke. But don’t expect anything dignified from President Vicente Fox. He’s a dogmatic neo libelarist free trader acting as the empire’s lap dog against the surging independent Latin American nations.

So what to do is the big question?

If history has taught us anything, the answer lies in the historical experience of the Latino immigrant rights struggle of the last thirty eight years. After the mass deportations of the 1950s and the expiration of the 20 year old Bracero Program, the rising tide of the first wave of the undocumented immigrant was coming to the fore. In 1968 the Autonomous Social Action Center was born. CASA-MAPA, as it was originally named(not Hermandad Mexicana), became the first Latino effort to organize immigrant workers. Hatched in the midst of the Chicano Civil Rights struggle, it turned into a genuine mass working class popular movement.

In 1971, along with a successful constitutional challenge, we defeated the Dixon-Arnett Bill, then the country’s first anti immigrant legislation signed into law by none other than California’s Gov. Ronald Reagan. In January 1973 the National Coalition for Fair Immigration Laws and Practices was founded in LA and it immediately waged a national campaign to defeat the noxious Kennedy-Rodino Bill. Young Ted Kennedy’s office was inundated with an estimated 1 million letters demanding no employer sanctions and amnesty for all immigrants. From 1968 to 1978 CASA was established nationally and the arteries and foundation for a grass roots movement was set, including today’s electoral and labor successes.

By the eighties the undocumented population had grown by millions. It was 1982 when the Class Action Silva Vs. INS was resolved and with it the protection for over 100,000 immigrants, all Mexicans, was suspended. This sparked the call for legalization and the Los Angeles Coalition for Visas and Rights for the Undocumented was founded with thousands in its ranks.

The right wing in Congress then thought they could stick us with the stringent and limited 1984 Simpson-Mazzolli Bill. It was an election year and it also signaled the key historical push for the struggle for the amnesty of 1986. We endorsed and directed the ground breaking Jesse Jackson Campaign and his support for immigrants was unequivocal. A key historical decision was conceived. With only a three week campaign, on May 19, we held the 10,000 people march for a general amnesty and against the Republican sponsored immigration bill. With a grass roots coalition in place and Jackson and my brother Antonio as the key speakers, it was the largest mass gathering in support of immigrants to date.

We then moved on to the National Democratic Convention in San Francisco but the democratic base didn’t need much prodding. The emboldened Latino delegates revolted and they, along with the Jackson delegates and others forced Walter Mondale and the Democratic Party to take a stand against the Republican Bill. The final push had been made successfully. Ironically, after intense negotiations, it was the archconservative President Reagan who finally signed the 1986 IRCA law benefiting millions. History clearly reveals this was the product of the popular mass struggle begun in 1968.

In the nineties, although a divided pro immigrant movement staged the two largest street protests-25,000 and 150,000-in defense of the immigrant population it was not enough muscle to stop Proposition 187 at the ballot. Fast forward to 2003 and the successful rightwing California Recall Campaign against Grey Davis and the subsequent revocation of the Cedillo License Law. Gov. Schwarzeneger enraged California’s Latino underclass auguring the first successful statewide Latino Economic Boycott on December 12, 2003. With the exception of the electoral arena, this highly radical political venture, with hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million Latinos participating, went beyond anything we had ever seen before.

Conclusions. First and foremost, the successes, unity, strategies and tactics, the coalitions, and accomplishments of this movement have been primarily due to the role and the vision of a progressive and left wing Latino leadership. Los Angeles, the bedrock, has been the most prominent venue for the key historical events of this struggle. However, several glaring negatives stand out: 1. In 1986 An estimated two million immigrants were left out and most of them have lived in the shadows since and 2. at the end, the middle class Latino national organizations, who have always been alien to the popular mass _expression, ended up in the negotiating table in Washington. 3. This movement has had its share of errors, caudillos, opportunists and moderates. (The meeting just held in San Bernardino on Jan 12, 2006 attended by 200 people is a perfect example. According to Anti-Minutemen activist Prof. Jesse Diaz, "We were used again. It was a show for the media. A delegation of The Minutemen was there, 20 strong, led by Ted Turner sitting in the front row, and shamefully Dr. Armando Navarro, the MC, silently refused to kick them out". Not surprisingly, this is vintage Armando. The meeting was not a collective enterprise. Astonishingly, the agenda, panel format, the speakers, the MC, the media interviews were all allegedly, the decision of one. Of course little came out of it. Many were disolutioned. It was not an inclusive, collectively set, participatory democratic venue. A common characteristic of Latino grass roots endeavors of late. The confrontation with the Minutemen took place at the end with Jesse challenging Turner and he ran.)

Internationally, the empire’s wars for profits and hegemony, its indiscriminate bombing destroying cities and massacring tens of thousands of civilians in a matter of hours, as in Falluya, submitting prisoners to the barbaric practice of torture and secret prisons and the secret spying on its own citizens, has made the US, once again, the principal human rights violator in the planet. Actor Harry Belafonte was right on target when recently, in Venezuela, he labeled George, "the biggest terrorist in the world".

Internally, the opinion polls clearly disfavor Bush. The winds of impeachment are in the air and the calls are sounding louder. The opening and the momentum are clear for the massive _expression of national Latino outrage against the proposed Republican Bill, calling at the same time for legalization. Latinos and the immigrant rights movement, one and the same, need to galvanize hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million unto the streets of Los Angeles, the second Mexican Capital. This will spark support and regional marches throughout the country. With 2003 as a backdrop, it should be followed by an economic boycott, possibly national. For this, the immigrant rights ONGs, labor, community, political, civil rights, clergy, and student organizations should take the baton from anti war leaders and come together in a comprehensive broad non sectarian coalition, or coalitions, connecting in the process to the most pressing issues and movements in the country today. The Spanish language media, though corporate, will follow and will probably engage actively. They did in ’94. Most important, the organizational wave will rise and put the heat on the usually dormant Latino establishment and call them on the front line. It’s been done before. Progressives should also call the chips on LA’s progressive Mayor Antonio Villaraigoza. Contrary to the spin that he is a product of labor and UFW follower his real political roots lie deeply as a CASA left activist in the immigrant rights struggle. He owes us.

Making Simon Bolivar’s dream a possible reality, Latin America is definitely swinging "to the left". Bolivia and probably Chile will now join Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil in an independent block against the politics of neo liberalism and for national sovereignty. Just around the corner is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s almost certain election as the next president of Mexico in July of this year. They are waiting for Latino leaders, their compatriot paisanos, to visit them and express their solidarity and vice versa ask for their support and condemnation of the Bush regime. As independent states, along with Cuba, they are a powerful ally in the international arena and the struggle to defeat the right. Like anyone else, they just have to be educated on our history and struggles. The activist African American establishment, much more astute and intrepid, has just completed its second 13 member visit to Venezuela headed by veteran actor Danny Glover.

In the last 5 years more than 2 million Mexicans have immigrated to the north. It is to our advantage to keep the doors open because upon crossing the border they become Latinos, us. The future triumph for legalization and empowerment for today’s 12 million immigrants will turn into an inspiring defeat for the right. History is once again boldly challenging us. The momentum is there, staring daringly at us. In the name of the people, take it, run with it, it’s yours.

Javier Rodriguez H. is a Journalist in Los Angeles and was a leading member of CASA, co-founder of The Coalition for Visas and Rights for the Undocumented and directed California Latinos For Jesse Jackson in 1984. Jrod1194@sbcglobal.net

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