On May 1st,
Immigrants Reclaimed Their Voice
By Nativo Lopez and David
Bacon
Los
Angeles, CA: Yesterday (May 1) over a million people
filled the streets of Los Angeles, with hundreds
of thousand more in Chicago, New York, and cities
and towns throughout this country. Immigrants feel
their backs are against the wall, and are coming
out of their homes and work places to show it.
In part, their protests respond to H.R.4437 -- the
Sensenbrenner bill -- that proposes to eliminate
all social space in which undocumented immigrants
can work, survive, and provide for their families.
The protests do more than react to a particular
Congressional agenda, however. They are the cumulative
response to years of bashing and denigrating immigrants
generally, and Mexican and Latinos in particular.
The protests seem spontaneous, but they come as
a result of years of organizing, educating, and
agitating -- activities that have given immigrants
confidence, and at least some organizations the
credibility needed to mobilize direct mass action.
This movement is the legacy of Bert Corona, immigrant
rights pioneer and founder of many national Latino
organizations. He trained thousands of immigrant
activists, taught the value of political independence,
and believed that immigrants themselves must conduct
the fight for immigrant rights. Most of the leaders
of our movement today were students or disciples
of Bert Corona.
Together, these factors have produced a huge popular
response, a fight-back as we have never seen before.
Unfortunately, however, these protests are also
being used in Washington, DC, to justify compromises
that betray the interests of immigrants and working
people generally. Some more liberal Washington legislators
and their coterie of beltway lobbyists even claim
credit for the marches -- or at least use them to
justify their proposed compromises. But people have
poured into the streets not to support these proposals,
but driven by fear of the harm they will do.
All of the various compromises offered in the Senate
have repressive Sensenbrenner-type measures within
them. The three-tier Hagel-Martinez legalization
program, for instance, would produce a codified
caste system, a sort of Bantu Apartheid that is
un-American and would rip our families apart. The
Democratic Party's answer to the Sensenbrenner bill
has been the McCain-Kennedy immigration proposal,
which contains huge guest worker programs and increased
workplace raids to punish the undocumented for the
crime of working.
The huge number of immigrants and their supporters
in the streets find these Senate compromises completely
unacceptable. We will only get what we are ready
to fight for, but people are ready and willing to
fight for the whole enchilada. This is not the best
that we can get, and we have nothing to lose.
Our greatest problem is that the Democratic Party
is unwilling to stand and fight to oppose the repugnant
idea of second-class status, in its haste to make
a deal. National advocacy organizations claiming
to represent immigrants are showing signs that they
will accept these deals as well. At the same time,
Washington legislators and lobbyists fear the growth
of a new civil rights movement in the streets, because
it rejects their compromises and makes demands that
go beyond what they have defined as "politically
possible."
People are willing to fight for more, and are making
far-reaching demands. The immigration debate must
be resolved by immigrants themselves and their voice
must be paramount -- not the voice of the politically
well-connected.
Much of the leadership of Washington's liberal hierarchy
has already accepted the McCain-Kennedy proposal,
and further Senate compromises, with no real consultation
with immigrant workers. They have become compromised
by ties to political parties and large corporations,
all of which have more powerful voices than those
of immigrants. This elitist approach has been rejected
by millions of people in the last month's marches
and demonstrations, who want a voice in the decisions
that will affect their lives.
These ties have never been honestly discussed with
immigrant communities. Before the latest marches,
those ties led these organizations to tell us not
to stop work, leave school or buy anything for just
a single day. Yet it is obvious that the national
debate has changed only because of our willingness
to do those very things.
The May 1st actions highlighted the economic importance
of immigrant labor. Undocumented workers deserve
legal status because of that labor -- their inherent
contribution to society. The value they create is
never called illegal, and no one dreams of taking
it away from the employers who profit from it. Yet
the people who produce that value are called exactly
that -- illegal. All workers create value through
their labor, but immigrant workers are especially
profitable because they are so often denied many
of the union-won benefits accorded to native-born
workers.
The average undocumented worker has been in the
United States for five years. By that time, he or
she has paid a high price for his or her lack of
legal status, through low wages and lost benefits.
The Senate compromises would have these workers
pay even more -- fines for legalization, as though
they were criminals. These compromises would then
have them wait over a decade to gain real legal
status, not even considering the millions who would
not qualify, and would then be deported.
Undocumented workers deserve immediate legal status,
and have already paid for it.
On May 1st, immigrant workers demonstrated their
power in the national immigration debate. Their
absence from work places, schools and stores sent
a powerful message that that they will not be shut
out of this discussion, and that corporate-funded
national organizations do not speak for them.
They are rescuing from anonymity the struggle for
the eight-hour day, begun in Chicago over a century
ago by the immigrants of yesteryear. They are recovering
the traditions of all working people. – New
American Media.
(Editor's Note: Two immigrant-rights activists,
one a key organizer of the May 1st boycott, says
immigrants are setting an agenda different from
recent right-wing legislative attacks and liberal
compromises. Nativo Lopez is one of the prime organizers
of the boycott, marches and work stoppages in Los
Angeles. He worked with the late Bert Corona, the
legendary immigrant rights pioneer, in the Mexican-American
Political Association and the Hermandad Nacional
Mexicana, groups he now heads. David Bacon is an
associate editor at New America Media and author
of "The Children of NAFTA" (University
of California Press, 2004). He sits on the Comprehensive
Immigration Reform Committee of the Bay Area Immigrant
Rights Coalition.)
Photos by David Pham, Online Director and photographer
at New America Media
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
