Whose Backlash?

http://www.laweekly.com/dissonance/13024/whose-backlash/
From the LA Weekly.
Whose Backlash?
Nuestro backlash

By MARC COOPER
Wednesday, March 29, 2006 - 7:00 pm

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. At least in physics.
In politics, however, the equation isn’t always symmetrical. A mild push might
invite a whopping Sunday punch. Likewise, an unbridled onslaught might go
completely unanswered.

So what about this nationwide chain reaction of immigrant demonstrations, school
walkouts, a freeway blockade, and Saturday’s historic rally that brought
hundreds of thousands into the streets of Los Angeles? Will this feisty and
largely unanticipated show of force by an “illegal” underclass — replete with
flapping Mexican flags — provoke some ferocious, crushing backlash of
xenophobia and reprisal? Are we in for an amped-up repeat of 1994, when a much
smaller downtown demo of Latinos helped fuel, a few weeks later, a revanchist
white-voter turnout in favor of the rights-stealing Proposition 187?

This nightmare scenario is what some analysts are predicting. Problem is,
they’ve got it backward. The feared nativist backlash has been in full motion
now for some time — long before the humongous immigrant demonstration last
weekend. The groveling media suck-up to the minuscule Minutemen show (hundreds
of journalists shamelessly traipsing behind a few score vigilantes) a year ago
established a twisted and ugly frame for a national debate that had been
delayed way too long. The Lou Dobbsian jibber-jabber about “broken borders”
reached its crescendo last Christmas, when the House passed the outrageous
Sensenbrenner bill that would deem all so-called illegal aliens — and their
employers — felons. (Undocumented workers currently are in violation of civil,
not criminal, codes.)

Why should anyone feign surprise when an entire population that cleans our
offices, cuts our lawns, serves our food, makes our beds, tends to our
children, and pays taxes but gets no refunds, finds it expedient to mobilize
politically against its wholesale criminalization? It’s asking a lot, don’t you
think, for workers to remain silent and impassive as their arrest and
deportation are actively being contemplated in Congress? The only surprise is
that it has taken this long to materialize.

Our contemporary Cassandras, those who in 1962 would have lectured Dr. King that
he was only stirring up Mr. Charlie by pushing his Negroes too far too fast,
might recall that the white backlash of 1994 was immediately followed by a
counterbacklash. An enraged and energized Latino constituency accelerated its
entrance into citizenship and onto the voter rolls, and within four years it
steamrollered the California GOP — a flattening from which state Republicans
have still not recovered.


So while the grumbling Archie Bunkers might get their ya-yas all worked up by
the Mexican flags unfurled in Saturday’s demo, the smarter among Republican
strategists look upon the size of those protests with some pause and
trepidation (if not with a calculator in hand). Many of those in the rally were
legal, or have legal relatives, or, if illegal, might soon be legal. And they
could hardly be counted on to vote for a party that would continue denying
their existence. There’s a reason why George W. Bush isn’t replicating the
despicable demagogy of Pete Wilson. At least he, if not all of his fellow
Republicans, has assimilated the lessons of Prop. 187.

I don’t think that the sudden upsurge in marches and demos in any direct way
encouraged a handful of key Republican senators to join with Democrats on
Monday in approving a sweeping and liberalized comprehensive immigration-reform
measure (which still faces an uphill battle on the full Senate floor). What’s
astounding is that the protests weren’t used as an excuse to not do so. How
could they when, at virtually the same moment the protesters overflowed
downtown, the president’s own radio address broadly endorsed the two principal
demands of the demonstrators: expanded legal immigration and some channel or
another through which the 12 million illegals already here can come into legal
status.

The only argument we — as a nation of immigrants — can make against the current
migratory wave is that our grandparents and parents came here legally, so why
don’t Jose and Maria do the same? Well, the America of 2006 is not the America
that my family came to in 1915 (and when they came, they also pushed aside
better-paid, longer-term residents and citizens). Our work force is vastly
older and immensely better educated and skilled than even 50 years ago. The
industrial revolution, which was roaring ahead a century ago, has given way,
unfortunately, to a service economy. Barring Mexicans from coming across the
border is not going to magically reopen shuttered car and tractor factories. On
the contrary, if you could even plausibly tamp down the inflow, you would only
increase the out-migration of American business. When a 2,000-mile border
separates two nations with as much as a 20-to-1 wage gap, what do you think is
going to happen?

Our national economy easily absorbs and desperately needs about a million and a
half immigrant workers per year to grow and compete. We let a million of them
come in legally. The other half-million we make run and dart across the border
at great peril. Our reality has outstripped our laws — and our way of framing
the issue. In the end, it will make little difference who prevails in this
year’s congressional debate, as nothing will change on the ground — backlash or
not. It’s a lot like debating the tides.

Organizing student walkouts on the www

Or if you're a Mexican-American teenager, it's an easy way to
subvert the man and surprise America.

Student Protests Echo the '60s, but With a High-Tech Buzz
Youths used a popular website to organize their walkouts. And some
did know what a 'sit-in' was.
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer
March 31, 2006



Shuffling her feet in her Garden Grove home last weekend, Mariela
Muniz stared into the carpet and suffered, as teenagers do, the
silent deliberation of her parents. Soon, her father nodded and her
mother uttered the words she'd been waiting to hear: "Lo puedes
hacer."

"You can do it."

The next morning, the 15-year-old sophomore at Garden Grove High
School — with the permission of her parents, both of whom are
factory workers and Mexican immigrants who became U.S. citizens
after entering the country illegally — skipped school for the first
time in her life.

Following in the footsteps of those who led the first of the student
walkouts March 24 and the adults who organized last Saturday's
massive protest against proposed immigration legislation, Muniz
became one of a few dozen students in Southern California who helped
spearhead a national exhibition of civil unrest, one of the largest
and most boisterous since the civil rights movement four decades
ago. By the end of today — in Fresno, in Monterey Park, in San
Diego — more than 40,000 students in California will have walked out
of their schools to protest the proposed reforms.

There is little question that some students took advantage of the
protests to ditch school. Some acknowledged they had little idea
what all the fuss was about. Others took the opportunity to throw
bottles at police and to shut down freeways. Law enforcement
officials criticized them for diverting resources from more pressing
needs, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told them to go
back to school.

But for the small group of students who instigated the walkouts,
most of whom hadn't been politically active but were well-connected
on campus and online, it was a transformative week.

Using modern technology — mostly their communal pages on the
enormously popular MySpace website — they pulled off an event with
surprising speed and dexterity. Planned in mere hours on little
sleep, lacking any formal organization, the protests were chaotic
and decentralized and organic.

........................

They had heard about the March 24 walkouts at several high schools
in Los Angeles, and decided to launch a protest of their own. On
Sunday afternoon, they posted a bulletin on MySpace — since
discovered by school administrators, who were not pleased —
announcing that anyone wishing to participate should stand up at the
8 a.m. tardy bell Monday and "meet in front of the school."

In the scattered, rapid-fire text typical of students' MySpace
missives, the bulletin continued: "dOnt b scared…. All these politic
officials are trying to make their dreams come true by destroying
ours, AND THEY WILL, unless we do something about it!!"

On the Internet site, which serves as a free-of-charge, virtual
gathering place, users can send bulletins to all of their
MySpace "friends." The lists can include dozens of people and the
bulletins can be passed along in seconds.

It didn't take long before most of Garden Grove High's roughly 2,200
students knew what was coming, without the knowledge or involvement
of teachers or parents.

Soon, the bulletin crossed over an invisible but critical line
between teens who were friends but attended different schools.
Students began posting their telephone numbers, and soon dozens more
pledges to participate were obtained through phone calls and instant
text messages.

Still, when the tardy bell rang Monday morning, Muniz had no idea
what to expect. Teenagers can talk a big game. But would they follow
through?

She waited in front of the school. Soon, the doors opened, and
scores of students — most of them Latino, but a handful of whites,
African Americans and Asian Americans too — joined her. They marched
through Garden Grove and Anaheim, picking up students at several
other schools as planned through MySpace bulletins. By 1 p.m., they
had covered 10 miles. An estimated 1,500 students had walked out.
Muniz was a truant — and, to her friends, a hero.

School administrators have since informed her that she'll have to
perform community service as penance. Back at her home, a humble
ranch-style house with family photographs on the wall and avocados
on the dining room table, she said it was worth it.

"Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in," she
said. "We did. And it worked."

Emergency action: immigration

Tell Congress: Vote No on Sensenbrenner's, Specter's, or Any Other Anti-Immigrant Bill!

Congress is on the verge of passing legislation that will decide how immigrants will be treated for decades to come. 11 million undocumented immigrants and those who help them get food, a job, or a home would be turned into criminals -- unless we act now!

A powerful conservative alliance sold the Iraq war in the name of making people safe from terrorism. Now they want us to believe that our security depends on making being in the U.S. without proper papers a felony and aiding undocumented immigrants a federal crime. Our harsh immigration laws already break up hundreds of thousands of families and often leave U.S.-born children without a mom or dad. This vicious attempt to manipulate people's post-9/11 fears would further strip immigrants of rights all people should have.

This weekend, more than a million immigrant rights supporters marched in Los Angeles and in other cities around the country to protest this anti-immigrant attack and demand that immigrants are treated with the dignity and respect that should be accorded to every human being. On March 10 up to 300,000 marched in Chicago. Another protest is taking place today in Washington, DC, as the Senate Judiciary Committee begins debate on immigration reform.

CALL YOUR SENATORS TODAY
United for Peace and Justice urges you to add your voice to the chorus that is calling for real immigration reform that does not criminalize immigrant adults and children or the social workers, nurses and others who provide them with help:

Capitol Switchboard: (888) 355-3588 (toll-free) or (202) 334-3121

Please call both of your Senators TODAY. You can ask for the Senator by name at the number above. If you don't know his/her name or the line is busy, see: http://www.senate.gov and click on "Senators" at the top left.

Tell your Senator to vote NO on HR 4437, the Sensenbrenner bill, Senator Arlen Specter's bill, or any other version that retains anti-immigrant provisions. Instead of undermining civil rights and civil liberties, they should support immigration reform that enables undocumented immigrants to legalize their status and gain a path to citizenship, reunifies immigrant families, stops mandatory deportations and indefinite detentions, and supports the rights of all workers.
To find out about protests in your community, see: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/

MORE INFORMATION
In December 2005, the House of Representatives passed HR 4437, which was introduced by Representative James Sensenbrenner. HR 4437 is a punitive, anti-immigrant bill that would, among other things, make an undocumented immigrant's presence in the US a federal crime; fund 700 miles of wall on the US-Mexico border; and expand the definition of smuggling to include assistance to an undocumented person.

Now the Senate Judiciary Committee is considering its own immigration legislation, starting with Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter's "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006." This alleged "compromise" bill is in fact virulently anti-immigrant. Specifically, it would:
Make it a felony to be "out of status" or in technical violation of immigration laws. A student who drops a course, a lawful permanent resident who does not notify DHS that she moved, the mother of a sick, US citizen child who overstays her visitor visa, an undocumented farm worker -- all could be arrested, prosecuted criminally, and/or deported.
Make it a felony to help an undocumented immigrant find a job, a place to live, or to get to a grocery store, even if you are a religious institution, family members, or a nonprofit organization. Green cardholders convicted of "Good Samaritan" acts can get deported.
Force local and state police to enforce immigration laws -- immigrants may be afraid to call 911 for help.
Deport more Green Card Holders for smaller criminal offenses.
Put more money into detaining immigrants, a costly and overcrowded system that is already full of abuse.
Make it more difficult to gain legal status or get citizenship.
Drastically limit the federal courts' abilities to review immigration decisions -- forcing all appeals into a single court in order to silence courts around the country that have found Immigration's actions to be wrong. Many people's appeals will just be thrown out or dismissed without being heard.
For more information on the current immigration legislation, visit:
- National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
- Rights Working Group
- Detention Watch Network

Los Angeles March

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest26mar26,0,3771225.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From the Los Angeles Times
More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants' Rights
By Teresa Watanabe and Anna Gorman
Times Staff Writer


Joining what some are calling the nation's largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting "Si se puede!" (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.

The marchers included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life and a love for this county.

Arbelica Lazo, 40, illegally immigrated from El Salvador two decades ago but said she now owns two business and pays $7,000 in taxes annually.

Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, came here illegally just four months ago to find work to support the wife and five children he left behind; in his native Guatemala, he said, what little work he could find paid only $10 a day. "As much as we need this country, we love this country," Salvador said, waving a stick with both the American and Guatemalan flag. "This country gives us opportunities we don't get at home."

Saturday's rally, spurred by anger over legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last December, was part of what many say is an unprecedented effort to organize immigrants and their supporters across the nation. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is to take up efforts Monday to complete work on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal. Unlike the House bill, which beefed up border security and toughened immigration laws, the Senate committee's version is expected to include a guest worker program and a path to legalization for the nation's 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants.

In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have staged demonstrations in more than a dozen cities. The Roman Catholic Church and other religious communities have launched immigrant rights campaigns, with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony taking a leading role in speaking out against the House bill and calling on his priests to defy its provisions that would make felons of anyone who aided undocumented immigrants. In addition, several cities, including Los Angeles, have passed resolutions against the House legislation and some, such as Maywood, have declared itself a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants.

"There has never been this kind of mobilization in the immigrant community ever," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "They have kicked the sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights struggle."

One of the marchers Saturday, Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, left his wife and children behind in Guatemala four months ago to cross the border into the United States so he could earn enough money to return home and buy a house.

Jorge Valdovinos, 43, is a legal immigrant from Mexico who has three US-born children and works as a financial advisor.

Amid a sea of American and Mexican flags, protesters chanted "Si Se Puede!" and waved banners in Spanish that read, "We aren't criminals" and "The USA is made by immigrants."

"I love this country as if it were my own, for the opportunities it has given me," said Laurentino Ramirez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who works at a garment factory. "The law is unjust for those who don't have papers. We come to work. We don't come to do harm to anyone."

Many of the marchers were immigrants themselves — both legal and illegal -- from Mexico and Central America. Some had just crossed the border, while others had been here for decades. There were construction workers and business owners; families with young children and people in wheelchairs. Throughout the afternoon, protesters heard speakers demand a path toward legalization and denounce HR 4437, which would tighten border enforcement and crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers.

The rally was organized by numerous unions, religious organizations and immigrant rights groups and publicized through Spanish-language media, which encouraged participants to wear white to symbolize peace and bring American flags. The mostly peaceful march stretched over 26 blocks, shutting down streets and tying up traffic around downtown for hours. Police estimated the crowd at 500,000, more than five times the size of the 1994 rally against California's Proposition 187, which would have denied services to undocumented immigrants. Participants said the massive mobilization shows that immigrants' voices must be heard and that they are contributing to the country's economy.


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Immigration policy

Which Way Immigration Reform?
Toward a Comprehensive Immigration Policy
By Tom Barry | March 20, 2006

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3161

A tribute to Cesar Chavez

A tribute to the life and work of Cesar Chavez

Duane Campbell
Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education
CSU-Sacramento



César Chávez: "Presente"

The spirit of Cesar Chavez lives on in the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California. Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers (UFW) the first successful union of farm workers in U.S. history. There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers union.
The United Cannery and Packinghouse Workers (UCAPAWA) organized in the 1930's, the National Farm Workers Union (NFW) led by Ernesto Galarza tried to organize Farm workers in the 40's and 50's. In 1959, the AFL-CIO tried to organize again with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). AWOC had several weaknesses, including a top down leadership selected by AFL-CIO leaders, not by farm workers, and a strategy of working cooperatively with labor contractors. AWOC continued the prior efforts of Ernesto Galarza and the NFW in struggling against "braceros" or guest workers, contract workers imported from Mexico, from breaking strikes. A renewed "guest worker" bill is presently before Congress.
Each of the prior attempts to organize farm worker unions were destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and allied itself with the churches, students, and organized labor. The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing in the Southwest and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S.
Today, under the leadership of UFW president Arturo Rodriguez, over 28,000 farm workers enjoy benefits on the job. They are incorporated into California's educational, health and civic communities. The UFW has shown the AFL-CIO that immigrants can and must be organized. In 2002 we won significant victories in the legislature and numerous elections.
César Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others deliberately created a multiracial organization, Mexican, Mexican American, Filipino, African-American, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Arab workers, among others, have been part of the UFW. This cross racial organizing was necessary in order to combat the prior divisions and exploitations of workers based upon race and language. Dividing the workers on racial and language lines always left the corporations the winners.
In the 60's Chávez became the pre-eminent civil rights leader for the Mexican and Chicano workers, helping with local union struggles throughout the nation. He worked tirelessly to make people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. It is a testament to Cesar Chavez's skills and courage that the UFW even survived. They were opposed by major interests in corporate agriculture including the Bruce Church and Gallo Corporations as well as the leadership of the Republican Party then led by Ronald Reagan. Workers were fired, beaten, threatened and even killed in pursuit of union benefits . Non union farm workers today continue to live on sub-poverty wages while producing the abundant crops in the richest valley, in the richest state in the richest nation in the world.
In response to corporate power, Cesar developed new strategies, such as the boycott, based upon his personal commitment to non-violence in the tradition of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. César Chavez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993 near Yuma, Arizona.
Today Mexican, Mexican American and Puerto Rican union leadership is common in our major cities and in several industries. For myself and others, the UFW was a school for organizing. Hundreds of activists in labor and community organizations owe their skills to UFW training and experience. Along with improved working conditions, salaries, and benefits, training this cadre of organizers remains a major legacy of the UFW.
César taught us that all organizations have problems, that all organizations are imperfect. But, if you wait for the perfect organization, nothing gets done. Building popular organizations builds people's power, and democracy. Chavez' legacy to popular struggles, to Chicano/Mexicano self determination and to unions for the immigrant workers is beyond measure. He is present in all of our work. I plan to march on March 25, and celebrate March 31,2006 in memory of Cesar Chavez' contributions building a more democratic society for working people. You can find our more about this remarkable leader at www.ufw.org
And, www.cesarchavezfoundation.org
Duane Campbell is a Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at Calif. State University-Sacramento and the author of Choosing Democracy; a practical guide to multicultural education. (Merrill/Pren Hall.2000)

Immigration bill: urgent action

Take Action Now : March 24, 2006.

The Senate Judiciary Committee may attempt to complete immigration bill mark-up this week.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Arlen Specter R-PA., is currently considering the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006. The committee has met twice to consider the bill, but has only made progress on Titles I and II on border and interior enforcement. The most controversial issues, such as the criminalization of the undocumented and those who assist them, the temporary worker program, and the fate of the undocumented population, could be taken up this week. The committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday and Thursday and may try to finish its work and report a bill by the end of the week. It is crucial that you contact your Senators this week to ask them to support comprehensive immigration reform, most particularly an earned legalization program for the 11 million undocumented in the country.

As background, Senator Frist has stated he will bring enforcement-only legislation (most likely Titles I, II, and III of the legislation) to the floor the week of March 27 if the Committee does not report a bill to the floor. Such a move would diminish chances that comprehensive immigration legislation will be considered during the current Congress.

We urge you to contact the Senators no later than Wednesday with a two-part message:

1). Only a comprehensive immigration reform bill is acceptable and that the Senate Judiciary Committee should be given time to complete its work and,
2). Please support an amendment to the bill which would provide an earned legalization program for the 11 million undocumented in the country.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are:

Alabama: Senator Jeff Session's office at (202) 224-4124

Arizona: Senator Jon Kyl's office at (202) 224-4521

California: Senator Feinstein’s office at: (202) 224-3841

Delaware: Senator Biden’s office at: (202) 224-5042

Illinois: Senator Durbin’s office at: (202) 224-2152

Iowa: Senator Grassley’s office at: (202) 224-3744

Kansas: Senator Brownback’s office at: (202) 224-6521

Massachusetts: Senator Kennedy’s office at: (202) 224-5251

New York: Senator Schumer’s office at: 202-224-6542

Ohio: Senator DeWine’s office at: (202) 224-2315

Oklahoma: Senator Coburn’s office at: (202) 224-5754

Pennsylvania: Senator Specter’s office at: (202) 224-4254

South Carolina: Senator Graham’s office at: (202) 224-5972

Texas: Senator Cornyn’s office at: (202) 224-2934

Utah: Senator Hatch’s office at: (202) 224-5251

Vermont: Senator Leahy’s office at: (202) 224-4242

Wisconsin: Senator Kohl’s office at: (202) 224-5653 & Senator Feingold’s office at: (202) 224-5323

Click on the links provided for a summary of the bill and talking points which highlight the major issues in case you have an opportunity for a longer conversation with staff. Again, the short message is that 1). the Senate Judiciary Committee should be given time to complete its work on a complicated immigration bill. Such a bill should not be rushed out of committee. Please support an amendment to the bill in committee and/or on the floor which would provide an earned legalization program for the 11 million undocumented in this country. (An earned legalization program would provide temporary work visas for currently undocumented. It would require them to pay a fine, begin learning English, and work for six years before becoming eligible for a green card/permanent residency)

This is an important week for the chances for comprehensive immigration reform. We need your voices.


Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope.
The Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform

www.justiceforimmigrants.org

100,000 March in Chicago for Immigrant Rights

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Chicago_Immigration_March.html
Saturday, March 11, 2006 · Last updated 7:56 a.m. PT
100,000 march in favor of immigrant rights
By KAREN HAWKINS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


CHICAGO -- Hoisting American flags into the air, tens of thousands of immigrants from the Chicago area marched downtown in a display of support for immigrant rights as a bill to stiffen border enforcement awaits action in the U.S. Senate.
Many took up enthusiastic chants like "Si, se puede (Yes, it can be done)" and "La raza unida nunca sera vencida (A people united will never be defeated)."
The mostly Latino marchers Friday descended upon the plaza across from the federal courthouse, where they listened to speeches backing pro-immigrant legislation.
"Raise those American flags!" shouted U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat. "This is our country, and this is where we will stay."
Police estimated that more than 100,000 marchers came from all over the Chicago area, many carrying - or wearing - Mexican and American flags. The protest was spirited, but peaceful, and there were no reported arrests or incidents.
The legislation, already passed by the U.S. House, is billed as a border protection, anti-terrorism and illegal immigration control act. It includes such measures as enlisting military and local law enforcement help in stopping illegal entrants and authorizes the building of a fence along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich addressed the crowd in Spanish, telling them he is the son of immigrant parents and understands their issues.
The Democrat's proclamation that "ustedes no son criminales. Ustedes son trabajadores" ("You are not criminals. You are workers") brought loud cheers.
Abigail Marquez, 35, said she came to the rally with her husband and teenage son to express her support for Latino issues. The native of Guadalajara, Mexico said she did not expect so many people to participate in the march, organized by dozens of activist groups.
"I had no idea. There are just so many people here," she said in Spanish. "I feel very happy because it shows that we are all united."
The march began at noon at a park several miles west of the downtown Loop business district. Hours later, marchers still thronged the Loop, clogging streets and tying up traffic. By early evening, traffic had returned to near-normal levels, police said.
Abel Nunez, associate director of a social service agency that was one of many organizations spearheading the event, said the goal was "to demonstrate to people that immigrants are here and we contribute to this country."
The Illinois Minuteman Project, affiliated with a national volunteer civilian border patrol group, held a news conference before the march began.
State director Rosanna Pulido said she does not want to see Chicago become a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants. Nationally, the illegal immigrant population has grown from about 8.4 million in 2000 to nearly 12 million, according to a new report.
"There are 14 million underemployed Americans," she said. "Don't they have the right to have a better life and support their families? Let's give them an opportunity because this is their country."
---
Associated Press Writer Nathaniel Hernandez contributed to this report.

AFL-CIO rejects temporary guest worker proposals

AFL-CIO rejects U.S. guest worker proposals
Tue Feb 28, 2006 4:17 PM ET
By Peter Szekely

SAN DIEGO, Feb 28 (Reuters) - AFL-CIO leaders on Tuesday said they would reject guest worker proposals now in Congress, saying that all foreign workers who come to the United States to fill labor shortages should come as permanent residents.

In a comprehensive policy on an immigration issue that has divided labor as well as Republican lawmakers, leaders of the 54-union federation ditched the idea that a temporary guest worker program could be made acceptable.

"To embrace the expansion of temporary guest worker programs is to embrace the creation of an undemocratic, two-tiered society," AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson told a news conference.

The AFL-CIO's immigration policy, which has evolved from a restrictive view a generation ago, is expected to be formally adopted on Wednesday by its executive council during its winter meeting, after winning the endorsement of a council subcommittee, an AFL-CIO spokeswoman said.

The AFL-CIO, the larger of two U.S. labor federations, continues to support the legalization of more than 11 million illegal foreign workers in the country as it has since taking that landmark position in 2000.

Its new policy, however, would oppose existing U.S. guest worker programs, such as H1B visas for foreign professional workers or H2B visas for seasonal unskilled workers, as well as Senate proposals to expand those programs.

By rejecting the guest worker concept, the AFL-CIO rejected the notion of separate but equal working conditions for workers who are not accorded permanent residency status, or "green cards," and given the option of becoming citizens.

"Our answer is that the future labor shortages need to be filled by workers with full rights," said Ana Avendano, director of the AFL-CIO's immigrant workers' program.

Avendano said the number of foreigners who come to work in the United States with residency status in the future should be determined by a formula using economic indicators that measure the job market for individual industries.

LABOR SPLIT ON IMMIGRATION

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of five unions to break away from the AFL-CIO last year and start the rival Change to Win labor federation, supports a version of a guest worker program in a bill sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, and John McCain, an Arizona Republican.

But that bill was overshadowed on Friday by a comprehensive draft offered by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter that will become the vehicle for Senate debate on immigration matters. The committee is scheduled to discuss his bill on Thursday.

Besides allowing illegal workers who entered the United States before Jan. 4, 2004, to remain indefinitely, Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, would allow an unlimited number of new guest workers to enter the country without a right to eventually become permanent residents or citizens.

Republicans are split over the immigration issue, which has exposed the gulf between conservative activists who oppose guest worker and amnesty programs for current illegal workers and Republican business interests that rely on immigrant labor.

President George W. Bush favors a guest worker program that offers illegal immigrants in the United States the chance to register and work -- mostly at low-skilled jobs that Americans don't want -- for up to six years.

A bill that passed the House of Representatives would expand an employer verification system designed to weed illegal immigrants out of the workforce.

Beyond Diversity to Justice

Beyond Diversity :
The Struggle for Justice and Solidarity


"Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflict."
- Mary "Mother" Jones


We need to understand our society, both the positives and the negatives, in order to work for more democracy. In 1903 W.E.B. Dubois stated, " For the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." And now, at the start of the Twenty First Century our nation and our movements continue to struggle with racism. We believe that the danger to our democracy is not race-- it is racism; the oppression of a group of people based upon their perceived race. Racism is both a belief system and the domination of a people based upon these beliefs.

Racism is a great and dangerous falsehood: i.e., that one "race" is inherently superior in the biological sense and, conversely, that other races are inherently "inferior." Racism grew out of an effort to justify such self-serving economic thrusts as genocide against Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans, the seizure of much of Mexico by the United States, and much more -- and has continued as a means through which oppressors exploit labor and maintain their political power. The mythology of racism is deeply rooted and extremely tenacious.

Racial prejudice is a negative attitude toward a person or group of people. Racial discrimination encompasses the actions taken to further oppress the target -- the victim -- group. In our time, racism has remained a central characteristic of modern capitalism and contributes to the extreme inequalities in our world.

Although racial definitions, and ethnic definitions are often vague and imprecise, racism continues to divide our communities and our movements. For a racist: defining race is easy. A race is "them", those people, the other, the not you. Any group which the racist hates or fears. Often it is a group that shares certain characteristics with the racist. The racist seldom speaks of the great myriad of basic human similarities, but instead the differences are emphasized to a high degree as to draw distinction and justify intolerance and oppression.

Institutional racism is the use of power and authority of a dominant group, working through the social structures of society, to enforce prejudices and to prevent the subjugated group from gaining access to public services such as good schools, effective health care, decent housing, and equal opportunity, particularly in meaningful employment.



The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point
is to change it. Karl Marx


DSA presents itself as a democratic, socialist, feminist, and anti-racist organization. Since its founding in 1982, the Anti Racism Commission of DSA has defined itself as pursuing an anti-racism agenda. This agenda includes participating in the dialogue and intellectual efforts of DSA to advocate for a pluralist, anti-racist society and to advance the democratic socialist project within this society.

Racism has produced a tortuous history in the U.S. intellectual community even among socialists and progressives. Socialism has often had a troubled relationship with anti racism struggles. Marxism has contributed significantly to the understanding of social and economic relationships, but has proven inadequate to explain the origin, development and institutional role of racism in our society. ( See Toward a Socialist's Theory of Racism, Cornel West)

Since our 1983 publication of Third World Socialist, we have defined the anti racism project beyond the white-black paradigm to include a multi-polar understanding of the role of race and the connected role of class oppression in the US society. While the issue of African American slavery and oppression is central and important, to only focus on Black-White issues is to ignore the objective reality of U.S. race relations.
In 1985 the organization adopted this language in its priorities document, " In our society there are few problems more urgent than the effects of racism and sexism. While rooted in the history of slavery, invasions, and the early development of the Americas, racism has remained a central characteristic of modern capitalism. Racism and sexism are brutal and oppressive system of institutions and ideologies which we must be committed to resisting as a fundamental part of the struggle for new economic relationships."
In 2001, DSA adopted a new political priorities document which stated that, "The politics of DSA will be guided by a demand for social and economic justice for all - - now! In pursuit of justice, multi racial and anti-racism politics shall become a priority in our work. Agendas in our organizations should consistently include the issues of communities of color. This calls for an immediate re-orientation of our practice toward multi racial coalition building. We will consistently look for opportunities to work with activists in communities of color."
As Democratic Socialists we propose to create a multi racial class-based movement for social change. Only a movement with such an anti-racist, pro-justice viewpoint at its core has a possibility of success in the U.S. To build a multi racial movement, we need to have a conversation about race, oppression, class, language, and culture.
Generally people are willing to consider race and class oppression when they see the specific effects of these oppressions on their own lives. We recognize class as a relationship between two or more groups of people who have specific roles and power relationships in the economic system. Business owners and employees are the most obvious examples. The racial stratification of our nation has promoted and extended the class domination. Racial oppression is such an integral part of economic and political domination that the struggle against racism is necessary for all working class progress.
Our movement cannot exclude the white working class from the dialogue about race. And, working class unity is necessary part of any realistic strategy for positive structural change.
Some in the white working class remain influenced by the racist ideology still dominant in the institutions of our society. While rejecting white supremacist ideology, we also need to explore the oppression that these working class whites experience.
First, we choose to briefly deconstruct whiteness. Many have been influenced by the currently popular arguments of identity and white privilege. We acknowledge that white is a socially constructed category with both positive AND negative connotations.
Identities are constructed by the individual defining and interpreting their own experiences and their interactions with others. A person becomes Chicano, or Latino, or White, or Asian American. They learn and accept this identity. And, their identity is potentially constantly changing.
We propose that the same mechanisms that bestow privilege upon those who self-identify as "white" also rob many of the other associations that people of color are forced to use (for positive and negative ends). Being classified as white prevents one from choosing another identity ( e.g., Irish, or progressive) or a combination of identities that more accurately and usefully describes oneself. THIS INCLUDES CLASS IDENTITY. We recognize that many people accept and respond to multiple identities.

Studies of identity have led to a focus on White Privilege. This privilege is substantive, damaging, and we resist it in our work. The white privilege argument, while a useful scholarly endeavor, often does not help much within class based popular movements because , in part, the critique of white privilege has often been misguided and misappropriated to cloud class. Yes, a Black man in Manhattan may encounter a problem getting a cab, even from a Black cab driver. And so would a white person who is obviously homeless. Yes, a Black or Latina college professor may encounter prejudice while shopping in a boutique clothing store- as would a poor white, or working class white woman who entered the store in her work clothes or even the Salvadoran sister who sewed the clothes.

This argument about white privilege, in part because it derived from studies in psychology, is complex and often distorts the issues of class. Most writings, most intellectuals, and certainly the popular media refuse to talk about economic class. There are reasons for this. A black factory worker and a white factory worker have a lot more in common with each other than either has with the CEO, no matter what the color of the CEO. To be accurate, we should really discuss white /upper class privilege, Please read Barbara Ehrenreich's book, Nickeled and Dimed.: On (Not) Getting By in America. (2001) The subjects in this book are not privileged. They are oppressed. While they do not have major privileges, they do live and work within an economy organized based upon White Supremacy. Some have argued that this delivers privileges, because they are white. But, does not the organization of White Supremacy keep in power the very class which is oppressing working people?
Beyond Diversity: Some allies , good folks, from a liberal persuasion avoid recognition class issues and class oppression by arguing for diversity. They argue that we need to develop a more representative group of teachers, faculty, etc. As socialists, we find diversity to be a weak, timid, corporate, commodified goal. Instead, we seek justice!

Let us suggest what we regard as a more useful response.
Some people learned their anti-racism by going to diversity workshops. Workshops are valuable. Some in a younger generation have learned anti-racism by not learning racism in the first place. This group has learned anti-racism first hand from their advantage of growing up in a less racially stratified society than that of their parents. While frequently not experiencing racism directly, these young people do live and work in a society organized on the basis of White Supremacy. We must recognize this progress as well as the changes in realities of working class life in the United States as important variables in building the anti-racist movement.
Still others learn anti racism by working with social movements. We encourage all to work against racism within popular movements. Within the many struggles for justice we learn anti-racism and unlearn class bias on a practical level.
It helps us to move beyond the white privilege argument by recognizing the difference between guilt and responsibility. The white privilege argument is usually about guilt. (not a very useful emotion). We prefer to deal with responsibility. ie. what are we going to do differently? Focusing on white privilege usually does not build movements, while focusing on anti racism and class solidarity will.
Rather than assign guilt we find it more useful to work in solidarity with people of color in opposition to real oppression and in favor of real change. The important task is to do something about oppression and White Supremacy. We recognize that we are each either sustaining the current social order-including its racial injustice and white/upper class privilege, or we are engaged in resisting this social order. We choose to resist. The goal of the Anti Racism Commission of DSA is to help build a movement for social justice. We are not satisfied with calls for diversity, instead we demand Justice NOW!


WE MUST BUILD MOVEMENTS.

Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. Frederick Douglass.
Our goal is to build a movement to change the nation. To do this, we need unity- - unity with justice.
Socialists point out that one of our difficulties in seeing class in our society is that we look at poverty (class) and we see race. We racialize class. As a consequence we seldom accurately see race or poverty or class oppression.
Lets talk about the working class. If we are going to do class politics, we need to look at our own attitudes toward both race and class. Class refers to the economic and social differences between groups in our society. (poor, working class, middle and upper class). As socialists we recognize the working class as a potential agent for change. The U.S. has a multi racial working class. Workers of color make up the majority of workers in many cities and industries. And whites of the working class make up at least 40% of the potential voters in the nation.
Working class politics is most frequently expressed in the organizing efforts of labor unions. U. S. unions have historically been divided over racism. Some have perpetuated racism and discrimination and social inequality and others fight against racism. Left organizations have a similar history. Overcoming the divisions of race is central to our struggle in building a progressive working class majority. Are we going to support racism, and divisions, or are we going to build a unified social movement to change this society?

At present the working class all over the world is losing ground. If you are interested in doing something enduringly effective about this -- working to reverse this trend and moving forward -- then please join us.
Our experience tells us that many in the working class are ready for an alternative. They are looking for something beyond the choice between Republicans and Democrats. We believe that that alternative is socialism and a socialist analysis. African Americans, Latino, Native Americans, Asians, and Anglos in the working class are ready for socialism because they think it is wrong for some people to live in mansions while others live in public housing that looks like a war zone. We think it is wrong for some people to live in luxury while others cannot adequately feed their children. We do not accept a social order in which one in five children live in poverty and the U.S. has one of the highest infant death rates in the modern world. We do not accept a social order in which one group has quality schools in safe neighborhoods, and the working poor have inadequate and unsafe schools. We do not accept a world economic system where over 1 billion are without safe water, and 149 million children are malnourished.
Only a vigorously committed multi racial movement with multi racial leadership -- and the vision of full socio-economic equality -- can organize the necessary power and carry it through to the full development of the genuinely democratic, egalitarian society. That is the kind of movement that will be strong, enduring, vital -- and successful. We invite you to join us.


Chief Oren Lyons [Onondaga] presenting the statement of the Grand Council of
the Iroquois to the United States Government, 1973:

"We have not asked you to give up your religions for ours. We have not
asked you to give up your ways of life for ours. We have not asked you to
give up your government for ours. We have not asked you to give up your
territories. Why can you not accord us with the same respect? For your
children learn from watching their elders, and if you want your children to
do what is right, then it is up to you to set the example. That is all we
have to say at this moment. Oneh."

A working paper of the Anti Racism Commission of Democratic Socialists of America.
2004
Suggestions welcome

Los Angeles times vrs. UFW

Major newspapers plicked up the Los Angeles Times series attacking the United Farmworkers Union.

We hope that readers also consider the response from the UFW.

http://www.ufw.org/

In memory of Br. Ed Dunn

Anti immigrant forces

an interesting essay on who makes up the main anti immigrant groups:


http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=10485
The New Nativism
The alarming overlap between white nationalists and mainstream
anti-immigrant forces.

By Leonard Zeskind

The immigration battle

from 'The New Republic'

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060116&s=judis011606

THE FIGHT OVER IMMIGRATION IS A FIGHT OVER IDENTITY.
Border War
by John B. Judis

Issue date: 01.16.06

A battered yellow school bus rumbles up a bumpy dirt road on the
outskirts of Sasabe, a small Mexican town just over the border from
Arizona. At the top of the hill, the bus winds around brick and mud
huts. Ragged children stand in the doorways, and emaciated dogs forage
for scraps. The bus passes dented pickups and old cars without wheels
and stops in a dusty clearing, where it disgorges about 40 teenagers
dressed in blue jeans and carrying small knapsacks. One boy's t-shirt
features a picture of Che Guevara. A girl's pale blue top says
adorable in sequined letters. They are subdued, almost expressionless.
They mill around, waiting for the coyotes, or smugglers, who, for a
hefty fee, will take them in pickup trucks to the border.

There, they will climb through holes in the barbed wire fence
separating Mexico from the United States. Some will not make it
through the 100-plus-degree Arizona desert on the other side (from
October 2004 to October 2005, 261 would-be migrants died in the desert
before reaching Tucson or Phoenix) and about one-third of them will be
apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol. But, over the course of a year,
almost two million will make it, sometimes after several tries, and
enter the underworld of undocumented migrants: working on farms, as
day-laborers in construction, as servants and maids, or in sweatshops
and meatpacking plants. Unable to protest mistreatment, they will be
subject to abuse and exploitation, but most of them will still fare
better than if they had stayed in their native villages.

This influx of migrants into Arizona--and the fact that many stay in
the state rather than moving north or west--has created a political
explosion. In November 2004, anti-immigration activists won a bruising
campaign to pass Proposition 200, which denies "public benefits" to
people who can't prove their citizenship, despite the opposition of
the state's congressional delegation, including Republican Senators
John McCain and Jon Kyl; Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano; and
major business groups and labor unions. Last spring, the Minuteman
Project, which George W. Bush wrote off as a group of "vigilantes,"
set up shop in Tombstone, near the border, to dramatize the failure of
the Border Patrol to prevent "illegals" from getting through.
Republican state legislators, equally hostile to McCain and
Napolitano, are trying to expand Proposition 200 and plan to make
illegal immigration the focus of the 2006 elections. "We are ground
zero" in the battle over immigration, warns former Arizona House
Majority Whip Randy Graf, who spearheaded the campaign for Proposition
200 and is now running for the Tucson-area House seat to be vacated by
Representative Jim Kolbe.

The furor over illegal immigration is sweeping the country--from
California and Washington to Virginia and Tennessee, and even up to
Vermont, New Hampshire, and Minnesota--but Arizona is indeed ground
zero, having surpassed neighboring states as the principal gateway to
the United States for illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central
America. Beltway politicians who want to clamp down on the border
claim this furor is the result, as Colorado Republican Representative
Tom Tancredo has suggested, of immigrants "taking jobs that Americans
could take." And many Americans far from the Arizona border certainly
believe that--in low-immigration West Virginia, for example, 60
percent of respondents in a recent poll agreed that "immigrants take
jobs away from Americans." But that's not what's happening in
Arizona's citrus groves or hotels or restaurants. And, in Arizona,
those who are most up in arms over illegal immigration are far more
concerned with its sociocultural than its economic effects. They are
worried about what is commonly called the "Mexicanization" of Arizona.
That kind of cultural concern extends to legal as well as illegal
immigrants--and it can't be easily fixed by legislation.

Mexicans began crossing the border to Arizona in the early twentieth
century to work in "the five Cs"--construction, copper, citrus,
cattle, and cotton--but, until recently, the great majority of illegal
immigrants came through California and Texas. In 1990, for example,
about 90 percent entered through those two states, while only about 5
percent came through Arizona. But, as the uproar over "illegals"
grew--in 1994, for example, California passed Proposition 187, denying
public benefits to undocumented workers--the Border Patrol instituted
Operation Gatekeeper in California and Operation Hold-the-Line in
Texas. These programs reduced illegal immigration to those states, but
not overall. Instead, illegal immigrants were simply diverted to
Arizona's desert border, and, between October 2004 and October 2005,
about half of the four million illegal immigrants who entered the
United States came through Arizona. According to Princeton University
sociologist Douglas Massey, about 1.5 million of them crossed the
eastern part of the Arizona border, south of Tucson, and about 470,000
entered through the area around Yuma, near the California border.

Going through the desert is far more dangerous than walking over a
bridge into a Texas or California border town or even fording the Rio
Grande. And it's more expensive, too. But Mexicans and other Latinos
are willing to pay the coyotes, because they hope to find well-paying
jobs in the United States. And, relative to where they came from, they
will. In 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),
a farm worker in Mexico could expect to make $3.60 in an eight-hour
day, while his counterpart in the United States made $66.32 in the
same period. The discrepancy has increased since the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect in 1994, removing tariff
barriers on the importation of U.S. farm products and decimating small
farmers in Mexico. Says Sandra Polaski, a trade expert at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, "Small farmers who produced for
subsistence but also for the market lost their market access."
According to the USDA, Mexican farm income fell 4.3 percent per year
during the 1990s. Young men and women left in search of work, and,
while some of them found jobs in U.S. factories on the border
(maquiladoras), many of them crossed the border in search of
better-paying jobs.

Most of those who make it do find jobs--92 percent of males, according
to one estimate. And, with undocumented workers adding to the normal
population increase, Arizona's Latino population has ballooned, going
from 19 percent in 1990 to 25 percent in 2000. Phoenix, which was once
a primarily Anglo town, has gone from 20 percent to about 34 percent
Latino. Says former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, one of the
state's prominent Republicans, "When I was in the first grade in 1960,
Phoenix was the same distance from the border. Phoenix now feels much
more like a border town than it did even ten years ago. Billboards in
Spanish, a lot of people speaking Spanish. Most of us think this is
great, but a lot don't." This transformation in Arizona society and
culture, along with the disorder created by the dramatic rise in
border-crossings, has made immigration the biggest issue in Arizona
politics.

In the 2002 gubernatorial election, when Napolitano barely edged out
Republican Representative Matt Salmon, the two candidates rarely
mentioned immigration. But, soon after Napolitano took office in 2003,
she and her chief of staff, Dennis Burke, were astonished to discover
that the state's voters were preoccupied with the issue. Says Burke,
"The first time we looked at polling, the number-one issue was
immigration, not education. Then, a year and a half ago, it got pretty
visceral. It started to permeate all issues." That was largely because
political activists and conservative Republican state legislators had
begun organizing.

In July 2003, Phoenix resident Kathy McKee established the Protect
Arizona Now Committee and got a lawyer to write what became
Proposition 200, basing it on California's Proposition 187. It was put
on the November 2004 ballot. And, although almost the entire Arizona
political establishment opposed it, the measure still garnered 56
percent. Then, last year, the state legislature passed a raft of
anti-immigrant bills, including measures to deputize local and state
police officers to enforce immigration laws and to broaden the
definition of the "public benefits" denied to illegal immigrants under
Proposition 200. Napolitano vetoed all but one of the bills but has
since backtracked in the face of growing public pressure. And Russell
Pearce, the powerful chairman of the Arizona House Appropriations
Committee--who, with Graf's departure in 2004, has become the leader
of the legislature's anti-immigrant force--is currently championing
legislation that would make English Arizona's official language and
construct a wall along the entire Arizona border.

Graf, Pearce, McKee, and the Republican legislature have clearly
tapped a growing sentiment among the state's white voters. Wes
Gullett, a political consultant and a key adviser to John McCain,
recently conducted a poll in Cochise County, south of Tucson, to test
voter concerns. "Instead of asking what are the top three issues,"
Gullett says, "we have to ask what are the top four, because the first
three are immigration. You have to ask, 'What do you care about other
than immigration?' It's crazy down there."



But what, exactly, is this craziness about? In Washington, politicians
and political organizations regularly attribute the obsession with
immigration to illegal migrants taking the jobs of native-born
Americans. Tancredo makes that claim, and so do the two leading groups
advocating restrictions on immigration, the Federation for American
Immigration Reform (FAIR), which bankrolled Proposition 200, and the
Center for Immigration Studies. That did happen in Midwestern
meatpacking plants several decades ago, and it may still be happening
in some parts of the country, but it does not seem to be the case in
Arizona, where unemployment hovers below 5 percent and where
construction, agriculture, and tourism are plagued by acute labor
shortages. Illegal immigration doesn't even seem to be having a
dramatic effect on wages, with pay for unskilled work in Arizona
regularly exceeding the minimum wage.

Unskilled workers currently make up 32 percent of Arizona's labor
force, and they are constantly in demand. Tom Nassif of Western
Growers, a trade association, recently complained that the
construction industry was "siphoning off" the migrant workers that
growers needed in the field. "Farms will not have enough workers to
harvest their crops," he warned. Meanwhile, Arizona's tourist industry
says it can't find enough workers for its hotels and restaurants.
Bobby Surber, the vice president of Sedona Center, who runs three
restaurants, two shopping plazas, and a resort, and employs 200
people, says, "Even though we pay larger than average, and full
medical and dental, we cannot find enough employees."

Of course, Arizonans could still believe, just as Americans in West
Virginia do, that illegal immigrants threaten their jobs. And
pollsters invite this response by always asking about the economic
effect of immigration and refraining from raising uncomfortable
cultural concerns. But, in interviewing Arizonans, one rarely
encounters complaints about illegal immigrants taking jobs away. One
does hear about the cost of state services for illegal immigrants.
Indeed, even the Latinos who voted for Proposition 200 were worried
about the burden that illegal immigrants were placing on schools and
hospitals. And, in border towns, crime and disorder are pressing
issues. (Some of the coyotes double as drug smugglers, and the
migrants traipse through farms and ranches.) But, among many
Arizonans, the most important issues are cultural. They fret about
"Mexicanization"--about Arizona becoming a "Third World country" or
"the next Mexifornia."

In interviews I conducted last fall, leaders of the movement to
restrict immigration usually began by expressing concerns that illegal
immigration was undermining the rule of law and allowing terrorists to
sneak across the border--concerns they seem to believe are most likely
to win over a national audience. But they invariably became most
animated, and most candid, when talking about what they see as the
unwillingness of Mexican immigrants--legal or illegal--to assimilate
into American culture.

Connie, who doesn't want her last name used for fear of retaliation
from immigration advocates, was one of the first members of the
Minutemen. She lives in Sierra Vista, a small retirement town near the
border. Barely five feet tall, with short, graying hair, she prides
herself on her feistiness. She is now in charge of patrolling the
Nacos area near the border. She says that, at night, she and her
husband station themselves on a hill in view of the fence and watch
for "illegals." She says that she became interested in the Minutemen
because the organization was upholding the rule of law and keeping out
terrorists. "We have many apprehensions of Pakistanis and Iraqis on
the border. They are coming in disguised as Hispanics and blending
in," she says. (When I ask a human rights worker in Sasabe if he had
heard of Iraqis entering the United States disguised as Latinos, he
laughs. "The [Mexican] army is very watchful about that kind of
thing," he says.)

Connie insists that the Minutemen are neither "extremist" nor
"racist," but, as we ride along the border in her Ford Navigator,
Connie voices distinctly cultural and racial concerns. She says that
the illegals she sees coming across the border are the "darker"
Mexicans. Mexican President Vicente Fox, she says, "doesn't want them
in the country." She speculates that Mexicans might want to take over
Arizona: "In Mexico, they are taught this land was taken from them.
They are not taught they were paid tons of money for it. There is a
belief they want this back." (After defeating the Mexican army in
1848, the United States bought all of California and the Southwest
from Mexico for $15 million.) When I comment that California has
remained in good shape despite massive immigration, she takes
exception. "California is not a shining example," she says. "You have
the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Russians, all these people
immigrating. How many languages do you have to have on the ballot?"
Asked if she would support McCain's proposal to allow Mexicans to
enter the country legally as guest workers, Connie demurs. "Who is
going to pay for it?" she asks. "When my grandmother came from
Czechoslovakia, one thing she did was assimilate. She was proud to be
an American. Their attitude is, 'We won't assimilate.'"

That's what bothers Graf as well. "We are talking about assimilation,"
says the congressional candidate, as we sit in his East Tucson
campaign headquarters. "I don't have any problem about anyone who
wants to salute our flag and learn our language and be a citizen. What
got me into the whole issue was that I was standing in line in a
Safeway, and this woman was ahead of me, and she had an infant, and
was pregnant, and her mother was with her. She was paying for
groceries in food stamps. And, when the clerk asked for her signature,
she acted like she didn't understand English, and neither did her
mother. I found it odd that an entire family could be here on welfare
and not speak any English. On welfare!"

Graf's chief ally is Pearce, who lives in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.
Last fall, he complained to a reporter from Stateline.org about his
hometown: "It's not the Mesa I was raised in. They have turned it into
a Third World country," he said. By "they," Pearce means Latinos in
general. On his website, he warns, "Over 800,000 Americans fled
California last year because LA became a clone of Mexico City."
Pearce, like Connie and Graf, envisages a cultural conflict between
the white America he grew up in and an invading army of dark-skinned,
Spanish-speaking immigrants from south of the border.

Ray Borane, the longtime Democratic mayor of Douglas, a border town in
Cochise County, laments that Graf "represents the majority opinion" in
the state. That may be an exaggeration, given Napolitano's and
McCain's continued popularity, but Graf and his angry allies do
represent a significant segment of voters--perhaps one-third or
more--who are up in arms. And longtime observers of Arizona politics
confirm that a concern with Mexicanization lies at the heart of their
opposition to illegal immigration. "Nobody is afraid of jobs," says
Gullett, the McCain adviser. "We have got labor demand. That's not a
problem. There is no feeling that people are losing their jobs. There
is a tremendous fear that our community and our way of life is
changing." Dave Wagner, the former political editor of The Arizona
Republic, who is writing a book about Arizona politics, says that, in
Phoenix, "Mexicans and Mexican-Americans have their own culture and
stores. It is possible if you are Spanish-speaking to disappear into
that culture. That scares the hell out of some people." Says Woods:
"Arizona has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, and a lot of
people are uncomfortable with that."



It's a discomfort that politicians like Graf and Pearce hope to take
advantage of. They want to purge the Republican Party of pro-business
conservatives like McCain, Woods, Kolbe, and Phoenix Representative
Jeff Flake, all of whom favor a guest-worker program and some form of
amnesty for undocumented workers already in the United States. Graf
ran against Kolbe, an opponent of Proposition 200, in 2004, and, in
spite of being massively outspent, got 43 percent of the vote. He's
running again, and, with Kolbe out of the race, he has a decent chance
of winning the Republican nomination. Republicans in the legislature
are also preparing a witches' brew of new anti-immigrant legislation
for the term that begins in January.

And the underlying conditions that have fueled their protest and made
Arizona ground zero are likely to persist. Arizona businesses have
relied on migrant labor for 100 years. Says Phoenix College political
scientist Pete Dimas, author of Progress and a Mexican American
Community's Struggle for Existence, "Immigrants have provided the
cheap labor on which this whole part of the country has depended." And
the demand for unskilled labor is likely to continue. According to
statistics from the Department of Labor, 13 of the 20 occupations in
Arizona that will experience the highest growth from 2002 to 2012
employ unskilled workers. Many of these jobs in food-processing or
building service are now spurned by the native-born and are filled by
illegal immigrants. And, with all of Mexico's tariffs on farm products
due to disappear under NAFTA, and with the Central American Free Trade
Agreement going into effect, the supply of unskilled labor looking
northward is likely, if anything, to mount.

As immigrants continue to cross the border, the "culture war" is
unlikely to abate. Connie is right. Mexican and Central American legal
and illegal immigrants probably won't assimilate in the way her Czech
grandmother did. European immigrants who came to the United States in
the last century had to travel over an ocean to arrive here, and many
of them came from countries undergoing political or economic
upheavals. Their identification with the homeland rarely lasted past a
generation. That's not as true of Mexican or other Latino immigrants,
who have their own claim on the culture of the West.

Many of the migrant workers who crossed the border after 1848 did so
to make money to bring back home. They retained their language and
national identity. According to Douglas Massey, Jorge Duran, and Nolan
J. Malone in Beyond Smoke and Mirrors, 23.4 million of the 28 million
undocumented workers who entered the United States between 1965 and
1985 returned to Mexico. What's changed in the last decade,
ironically, is that more extensive border enforcement has discouraged
illegal immigrants from returning to Mexico for fear that they will be
unable to get back into the United States. Still, many continue to
support extended families in Mexico, call themselves Mexicans, and
consider their primary language Spanish. They are contributing to a
bicultural America that stirs fear and resentment among some
native-born Americans and that will continue to inspire calls to close
the southern border.



Arizonans on both sides of the controversy are looking to Washington
for solutions. They know that states can't pass their own guest-worker
programs; nor can they police their own borders. But there is little
chance that the Bush administration and Republicans in
Congress--sharply divided between social conservatives and business
interests--will be able to pass legislation this year. And, even if
the House, the Senate, and the White House could agree on an approach,
it would not end the furor over immigration.

Last month, social conservatives in the House, led by Tancredo and
Wisconsin Representative James Sensenbrenner, passed a punitive bill
that would erect new walls along the border, make illegal immigration
a felony, and require employers to weed out illegal workers by
checking their immigration status against a national database. In the
Senate, McCain and Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy introduced a
bill that is backed by business and by some labor groups. It would let
migrant workers obtain renewable three-year visas and allow
undocumented workers already in the country to stay provided they pay
a fine. McCain and Kennedy probably can't get their bill through the
Senate--too many Republicans fear being tagged as proponents of
"amnesty" for illegal immigrants--but they could certainly muster
enough votes to prevent the Senate from passing a version of the House
bill.

In the past, Bush has leaned toward McCain's approach--the president
encouraged McCain after the 2004 election to seek Kennedy's support
for a bill--but he has recently attempted to appease social
conservatives, praising the House's measures to "protect our borders
and crack down on illegal entry into the United States." Bush holds
out hope for a Senate bill that would somehow combine McCain's
approach with Tancredo's. But that's unlikely to happen.

Even if Congress were to adopt one of these approaches--or a
combination of the two--it would not quiet the controversy. Punitive
approaches have either had unintended consequences (for instance,
encouraging illegal immigrants to stay in the United States rather
than return to Mexico) or have proved unenforceable. Border Patrol
spending has increased over 1,000 percent since 1986 without reducing
border-crossings. McCain and Kennedy's approach is far better,
acknowledging the inescapable reality of Latino immigration and its
net benefit to the U.S. economy. But granting amnesty to undocumented
workers, and inviting new workers in, will not satisfy Americans who
are offended by the growing presence--legal or illegal--of Latinos in
their midst. And combining the two proposals would more or less
reproduce the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which hiked
border spending, threatened employer penalties, granted amnesty to
undocumented workers, and led to almost two decades of clamor over
immigration.

That furor will not abate until at least one of two conditions is met.
The first is a dramatic generational change in the cultural attitudes
of non-Latino Americans--meaning the acceptance of biculturalism in
large parts of the United States, including Arizona. Frank Pierson,
the supervising organizer of Arizona's Valley Interfaith Network, a
coalition of church and labor groups that promotes cultural
integration, wants Arizonans to adopt the biblical tradition of
showing "love for the stranger." But non-Latino Americans probably
have to reach a point where they no longer see immigrants from south
of the border as strangers at all.

The other condition is a change in the unequal economic relationship
between the United States and its neighbors to the south, which would
reduce the supply of unskilled laborers seeking jobs in the United
States. Such a change could probably only occur if the United States
were to assume the same responsibility toward Mexico and Central
America that the more prosperous nations of Western Europe did toward
Spain, Greece, and Portugal when they wanted to enter the European
Union--granting them aid, along with protection of their industries
and agriculture, over a transitional period.

But neither condition is likely to be met in the near future.
Americans are not ready to embrace the teenagers who gathered in
Sasabe as their own, and U.S. business is not ready to see Mexico and
Central America as anything other than a platform for exports and
investment. As a result, the conflict over Latino immigration will
continue. And, if what's happening on the Arizona border is any gauge,
that's not something to look forward to.
John B. Judis is a senior editor at TNR and a visiting scholar at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.



John B. Judis, a senior editor for The New Republic, has been a
contributor since 1982. He received his B.A.in 1963, and his M.A. in
1965 from the University of California at Berkeley. As active member
of SDS and the left of the Sixties, he taught philosophy at Berkeley
and at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Judis was a founding editor of the Socialist Revolution in 1969, now
called Socialist Review. In 1975 he started a new monthly called East
Bay Voice. He moved to Washington in 1982 as the Washington
correspondent to In These Times. Soon afterwards, he began writing for
The New Republic, and for GQ. His articles have also appeared in The
American Prospect, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post,
Foreign Affairs, The Washington Monthly, American Enterprise, Mother
Jones, and Dissent.

His books include The Paradox of American Democracy: Elites, Special
Interests, and the Betrayal of Public Trust; William F. Buckley:
Patron Saint of the Conservatives, and Grand Illusion: Critics and
Champions of the American Century.

UFW second response re: Miriam Pawel

Puzzled by Miriam Pawel’s L.A. Times series
 
            We are grateful to the hundreds of good people who know our work and have contacted us expressing outrage at Miriam Pawel’s recent series in the Los Angeles Times. For a few, the articles have raised concerns, and we appreciate you contacting us directly so we can answer any questions. Please email us at UFWofamer@aol.com and we will respond.
 
            • Pawel’s main premise—that the United Farm Workers is “failing to organize California farm workers”—is directly contradicted by reporting from no less than 22 Los Angeles Times reporters and two columnists between April 25, 1994 (when the current UFW organizing drive began) and Sept. 23, 2005.  These stories chronicle substantial UFW organizing, election, strike and boycott activities plus new union contracts and legislative victories.
 
            Either all the stories by those L.A. Times reporters are wrong or Pawel’s stories are wrong. They both can’t be right. There is a long list of accomplishments and facts in that L.A. Times coverage raising serious questions about Pawel’s reporting.  Please see citations for just 48 of the 1994-2005 news articles and columns by Times writers on UFW activities by subject matter with headlines, reporters’ names and dates at www.ufw.org.
 
• Among other things, L.A. Times stories from 1994 to 2005 chronicle:
 
—A string of UFW election victories and campaigns to win contracts, with workers at 32 companies voting for the union in secret ballot elections and dozens of important UFW contract successes, including the largest strawberry, rose, winery and mushroom firms in California and the nation.
           —Fierce grower resistance to farm worker organizing.
           —The UFW’s major organizing campaign among Central Valley table grape workers last summer that produced modest pay hikes and a near win in the largest private-sector union election in the nation last year, at Giummara.
           —New laws and regulations aiding farm workers the UFW won since 1999, from seat belts in farm labor vehicles and fresh protections for farm workers cheated by farm labor contractors to an historic binding mediation law and new pesticide protections for farm workers. The UFW even convinced Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2005 to issue an emergency regulation to prevent further heat deaths of farm workers and all outdoor employees.
 
            • If Pawel was telling the full story of the UFW and the Farm Worker Movement, her writing would have reflected it.  You decide:
            —Tuesday’s story totaled 121 column inches.  Only 5 inches contained facts or perspective provided by the UFW.
            —Monday’s article was 135.5 column inches. Just 8.5 inches were from the Farm Worker Movement.
            —Sunday’s story was 132 column inches. Only 10 inches were from the Farm Worker Movement.
 
We plan to take these facts and much more to the editors of the L.A. Times and demand the full story of the UFW, Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement be told. We’re never satisfied with the progress we have made. But we’re proud of what we have accomplished and remain committed to overcoming the many challenges we face. We hope you will join us. Please send your letter to the editor of the L.A. Times if you have not already done so. (A much more detailed refutation is being prepared and we will share it with you.)  

2005: The year hatred went mainstream along the border

2005: THE YEAR HATRED WENT MAINSTREAM ALONG U.S-MEXICO BORDER

EDITOR'S NOTE: Christian Ramirez is the director of the American Friends
Service Commitee in San Diego, a human rights organization offering job
placement, legal advice and housing leads to undocumented people crossing
into the U.S. On Dec. 31, 2005, he was interviewed by Cliff Parker and
Carolyn Goossen, who work for New America Media, a collaboration of over
700 print, broadcast and online ethnic media organizations.

BY CLIFF PARKER AND CAROLYN GOOSSEN, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

Q: Describe growing up three miles north of the U.S./Mexico Border.

Christian Ramirez: I grew up knowing that the border was a place where I
could take a nap. It wasn't until I traveled to other places that things
started to click. As a kid you ask yourself, why can't my grandma come
visit me, and why do I have to wait in line to go visit her?

Q: What does the border mean to you?

CR:I cannot imagine myself not living in a border community, where you can
be in a new place within seconds or hours depending on the border wait.
It's a place of great artistic expression, especially in Tijuana. It is a
place of violence and a place of inspiration.

You have to live here to see the many stories that go through this border.
People wishing to go north because it's their only hope, and people going
south because it's the only form of entertainment. A border is place where
all these different ways of thinking meet for an instant. You have a bunch
of Navy guys going south to get drunk, and bunch of migrants coming north
with all they have, just to find a little bit of hope. Where else in the
world can you see something like that?

Q: What are the differences you've felt along the border before and after
the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)?

CR: Throughout the history of the border, we've dealt with the Dept. of
Treasury (DOT) or customs, and the Dept. of Justice (DOJ), the INS and the
U.S. Border Patrol.

With the DOT, there was always a very cold relationship, but with the DOJ,
particularly the INS, there was an openness, a willingness to sit down and
dialogue about important tactics.

When 9/11 happened, and we began to hear the discourse about the border as
a national security concern, there were long waits at the border, there was
a stronger presence of border patrols in border communities and advocates
started being detained and beat up.

The DHS has refused to speak to border communities and border residents.
This is a different border, a police state, with border patrol enjoying
more impunity than ever before.

Q: How have you responded?

CR: After the DHS came into existence, we knew we needed to invest time in
building leadership in the border areas. We felt the only way to change
policy in Washington was to create a strong base of people who were
impacted on a daily basis by immigration policies and that they would
themselves would become advocates in the long run.

Q: How would you characterize the past year in terms of the immigration
debate?

CR: In 2004, the mainstream media began covering border issues, and the
language turned to "broken border" "alien invasion." We began to see a very
violent discourse, a justified use of violence.

2005 was the high mark for this. Suddenly, in 2005, the vigilante groups,
paramilitary formations that have always existed here, became mainstream.
The groups that were once on the fringes of our society became folk heroes
for mainstream America.

This has been a year of mainstream hate and mainstream violence at the U.S.
Mexico border.

The border patrol now operates with full power, above the constitution, and
with no judicial review. Not since the McCarthy era have we seen something
like this. If it continues, it will not stop here. The Mexico-U.S. border
will not simply be an imaginary line -- it will expand to the rest of the
country.

Q: What needs to happen in the debate on immigration?

CR: We have heard the voices from the Minutemen, from policy makers, from
presidents, but the one voice that has not spoken, and will speak, is the
border communities.

Q: What issues do the immigrant voices bring to the debate?

CR: We are tired of counting the dead. We want a new reality. We want
family unification, to be treated with the same rights and dignities as
products. We want to have the right to drive a vehicle, so we can drive
from home to our place of employment. We want the possibility for our
children to go on to higher education if they have the ability to do it.
This is what border communities are calling for.

Q: What happens if the Sensenbrenner bill becomes law?

CR: It means that anyone without documents in this country would turn into
a federal criminal. And it means that anyone who aids and abets
undocumented people would also be criminal -- like a church that provides
shelter, clinics for women fleeing domestic violence and organizations like
us. If it passes, we will be forced to go underground.

Q: What is the main cause of death on the border?

CR: The main reason is the climatic conditions. Most people die because
they are cooked to death in the desert, or they freeze to death in the
mountains. And it happens, because the U.S. government under Clinton pushed
the migrant flows away from the urban areas and into the most remote and
inhospitable terrains along the U.S.-Mexico border. This, they said, would
deter the migrants. But they failed in their analysis.

Two million people were undocumented in 1986, and currently, the official
number is 11 million. This policy has only been successful in pushing
people to the deserts and mountains where they are going to die.

Many Americans don't know this. If they knew that innocent people were
being killed, there would be a different reaction to border policies. The
Minuteman project would not be a welcome group.

Q: And how does the year 2005 end?

CR: Today, a young man was shot by border patrol trying to cross the
border. It is a common occurrence here. This is how the year will end on
the border. Just the way it began -- with shooting, with violence, with
bloodshed.


_________________________________________
Arnoldo Garcia
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Red Nacional Pro Derechos Inmigrantes y Refugiados
310 8th Street Suite 303
Oakland, CA 94607
Tel (510) 465-1984 ext. 305
Fax (510) 465-1885
www.nnirr.org

UFW leaves the AFL-CIO

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-011206ufw_wr,0,5262207.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews
From the Los Angeles Times
United Farm Workers Breaks With AFL-CIO
From Associated Press

3:34 PM PST, January 12, 2006

WASHINGTON — The United Farm Workers union has left the AFL-CIO and will join a group of breakaway unions known as the Change to Win Coalition, in a move the UFW hopes will boost recruiting efforts, officials said today.

The UFW, with about 27,000 members, joins the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE HERE and the Carpenters in forming the dissident Change To Win Coalition. The Laborers International Union of North America also is part of the new federation, but has not left the AFL-CIO.

"We view this as a positive step in fulfilling our twin commitments of focusing more resources on organizing and finding new ways to pursue employers that fiercely resist the right of workers to organize," said Marc Grossman, a UFW spokesman. "No employers more fiercely resist the right to organize than agriculture."

UFW already was allied with the Change to Win unions, but sent a letter two days ago informing the AFL-CIO, a federation of more than 50 unions, of its plans to leave.

"We regret to see them leave the federation because there's a lot of history there," said AFL-CIO spokeswoman Denise Mitchell. "It's a union with a proud legacy that got a lot of support from the entire movement, especially the AFL-CIO. I hope we will make history together again in the future."

The farm workers union was founded by Cesar Chavez, an agricultural worker. He died in 1993.

When the AFL-CIO formed 50 years ago, union membership was at its zenith, with one of every three private-sector workers belonging to a labor group. Now, fewer than 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized.

The breakaway movement started last summer with the departure of the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union. The departure of a half-dozen unions has left the labor federation with more than 50 unions representing almost 9 million workers.

My response to the Miriam Pawel articles in the L.A. Times

One of the central problems of the series by Miriam Pawel, an Associate Editor of the L.A. Times is that the writer strings together a long list of crises with little acknowledgement of the internal contradictions in her own presentation.

For example. Suppose that you as reader are shocked by the purges.
Then you read;

“Ganz had helped oust Jones, but by 1978 he had grown troubled by
Chavez's reluctance to tackle key issues: Should the union focus on
the vineyards, its symbolic heart, or on the vegetable fields, where
it had built a strong base of support? Should organizers try to win
more elections and add members, or consolidate and work on
administering contracts effectively? “

So Jones had helped purge people, and then he was purged.
Ganz had helped to purge Jones, and then he “decided” to leave.

It is not just that you need a scorecard to keep up. What the writer seems to have done is to tell a tale and then select statements to support her thesis. At times the statements are almost neutral, such as those by Dolores Huerta, but they are linked by placements in paragraphs to charges of conspiracy etc.

It appears to this reader that the writer has been loose with her use of evidence.
This is a problem with anyone writing this story. Each person who you turn to for “evidence” has their own view. Indeed, many have their own view of when the crises occurred. The writer, Miriam Pawel, sees the turning point in 1977-79, around the issues of the Synanon game. Her final article on Eliseo Medina focuses on this same time.

But, there were crises and purges earlier. For a first person account of an earlier “purge” read the account by Philip Vera Cruz, once Vice President and a leader of the Pilipino in the union. His autobiography tells the tale. ( full disclosure. Philip was a friend of mine). The point is that this “purge occurred without any Synanon game.
Union life was tumultuous. There are many tales of struggle.
The author selected a few of the crisis times to focus on.

There were earlier major conflicts over a variety of issues. What we have is the view of some of the participants and usually a recording of when they left. Well, many of the same participants stayed through earlier conflicts, crises, and purges which are not mentioned. So, we have a partial story.

In particular if you look at the third article Pawel offers comments that many problems emerged from the use of The Game by Synanon founder Charles Dederich. Now, I am not going to make a case for the use of the Game. I have only read about it.
However, as I read it, it seems to be a structured form of confrontation group training which was popular in the 70’s, a particular and peculiar “therapy”. Many organizations used this approach. I was personally involved in two Colleges of Education using this approach during this time. Yes, it has many problems.
But, lets not convert it to some sinister project different than what others were doing. Synanon has its own story and I do not chose to get into that. You can look it up on the web.
Other readers who took part in the Game are invited to tell me if it was more than confrontation group therapy. There is a history of poor use of therapy models and manipulation on the left.

From my own experience with a social change project I can say that we rejected the confrontation group approach because it assumes that all cultures respond to openness and criticism in a similar manner. It is a highly culturally specific project and the UFW was culturally diverse. That is precisely the environment which I would not use confrontation group gaming in.

The remnants of this approach still are used in areas of anti racism education and anti sexism education. In my experience, it usually does not work to build unity and solidarity.
I have written some more about this in “Beyond Diversity: the struggle for Justice and Solidarity”, posted as a pdf at
www.dsausa.org/antiracism
Duane Campbell

UFW responds to L.A. Times articles

UFW response:
L.A. Times attacks farm workers with lies
Please send a letter to the editor today
The Los Angeles Times is running a series of inaccurate, dishonest and untrue stories by reporter Miriam Pawel viciously attacking the Farm Worker Movement and Cesar Chavez.
We know the conditions farm workers endure on a daily basis and recognize much work remains. Despite supplying extensive, detailed information and unparalleled access over many months refuting specific inaccuracies and misleading charges, L.A. Times reporter Pawel refused to include the Farm Worker Movement’s side in her stories. These initial points will be followed by a much more detailed response.
The UFW’s commitment to organizing farm workers is unwavering. Less than 150 union members are non-farm workers. Our limited resources mean we can’t be every place the need is desperate in California. So our focus has been the Central Valley and Central Coast, the greatest concentration of farm workers in America.
Thousands of farm workers benefit daily from the United Farm Workers’ efforts:
-1. 32 election victories, most in California, since the current organizing drive began.
-1. Dozens of UFW contracts including the largest strawberry, rose, winery and mushroom firms in California and the nation plus victories in other states.
-1. Over the last decade, the UFW has dedicated up to 50% of its resources to organizing, among the highest of all unions. Donations provide key support for organizing.
-1. Ongoing UFW organizing faces stiff resistance, as evidenced by the state of California’s ruling that last summer’s election at Giumarra table grape vineyards could be thrown out because of the grower’s illegal actions.
-1. The UFW has helped tens of thousands of farm workers through recent legislative gains: the 2005 regulation to prevent heat deaths; seat belts in farm labor vehicles; remedies for workers cheated by farm labor contractors; new pesticide protections; the historic push for immigration reform could aid hundreds of thousands in farm labor.
The Farm Worker Movement is continuing the legacy of its founders, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, who believed the movement had to go beyond the work place through non-profit, independently-run groups with distinct missions and staff. Annual independent financial audits give all the organizations clean bills of health.
-1. The nine-station, three-state Radio Campesina network mixes Mexican music with extensive educational programs for 300,000 daily listeners. Radio Campesina blankets the highest concentrations of farm workers in the nation.
-1. More than 1,900 of 3,500 amenity-rich affordable housing units serving about 10,000 people are in farm worker areas in the Central Valley, Arizona and Texas.
-1. Community organizing efforts where farm workers live are improving the lives of thousands in the Salinas and Central valleys and in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.
-1. The Cesar E. Chavez Foundation empowers and equips tens of thousands of young people to carry on Cesar’s life and work.
It is natural for members of Cesar’s family to be inspired by his example. Less than a dozen of 400 committed movement employees are family members; just four hold policy-making positions. Many spent decades as full-time volunteers, work hard for modest pay. They all serve without compensation as board members. Arturo Rodriguez was elected UFW president directly by farm workers.
You can help! These facts and much more that didn’t appear in the L.A. Times are why we ask you to help us bring balance to these unjust stories. Please write down your own feelings and send a letter to the L.A. Times.
Sign your letter to the editor with your full name, street address and phone number, and send it today to: letters@latimes.com or Letters to the Editor, 202 West First Street, Los Angeles, CA. 90012

For more: go to www.ufw.org