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Jewish World Review
May 9, 2006
/ 11 Iyar, 5766
How to lose immigration debate
By
Bridget Johnson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
"Unless you've lived under a rock for the last 15
years, you should make a note of this: The southwest
is already Chicana/o-Latina/o!" proclaims the Web site
of the California State University, Sacramento,
chapter of MEChA.
MEChA — the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan — has
been one of myriad Chicano-rights, pro-immigration or
social justice groups that have plunged into the
immigration debate. But just as a sea of fluttering
Mexican flags at the rallies, the "Nuestro Himno"
Spanish-language take on the national anthem, and
Mexico's "Nothing Gringo" campaign timed to coincide
with May Day boycotts and walkouts in the U.S. have
generated anger and suspicion about demonstrators'
motives among many Americans, some forces within the
immigration-rights movement will also tarnish more
moderate activists.
MEChA is just such a group.
There are an estimated 400 loosely organized MEChA
branches on college and high school campuses across
the country. Established in 1969, the group has
pressured institutions to establish Chicano studies
programs, protested Columbus Day and held Chicano
graduation ceremonies. Some chapters' Web sites are
peppered with shots of Subcomandante Marcos — the
masked figurehead of Mexico's Marxist Zapatista
guerillas — or Che Guevara, and the MEChA logo boasts
a bird with a lit stick of dynamite in one claw and
maquahuitl — an Aztec weapon — in the other. "Through
a philosophy of Chicana/o Nationalism, MEChA has not
wavered from its original goal of Chicana/o control at
the University," states UC-Berkeley's MEChA site.
MEChA has been in the thick of the latest
immigration protests, from San Diego State University
members trying to avert arrests of marching high
school students, to "mechistas" organizing a rally at
an Albuquerque high school at which signs bore the
now-familiar refrain: "We didn't cross the border. The
border crossed us."
With a line in its "El Plan de Aztlan" introduction
that translates to "for the race, everything; for
those outside the race, nothing," MEChA's belief in
the "liberation" of Aztlan — southwest territory
acquired by the U.S. for cash and debt in the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo — and ethno-exclusive
views continue to disturb. "Aztlán belongs to those
who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the
crops and not to the foreign Europeans," reads "El
Plan de Aztlan," required reading for chapters as
noted in MEChA's national constitution.
MEChA has proven to be a political liability, too. Los
Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was president
of the MEChA chapter as a University of California,
Los Angeles, student in the 1970s, renounced his MEChA
ties after pressure from a UCLA alumni group in his
second stab at the mayor's office. Lt. Gov. Cruz
Bustamante, who lost the 2003 recall election to
Arnold Schwarzenegger, didn't renounce his affiliation
when his MEChA past at California State University,
Fresno, was raised by opponents. State Sen. Gil
Cedillo, who was also in MEChA in the 1970s at UCLA,
has been trying to pass legislation to grant driver's
licenses to illegal immigrants with such single-focus
that he's been dubbed "One-Bill Gil."
At a time when immigrants-rights groups should be
trying to present a persuasive, less-strident case to
the American people, several groups with radical
agendas have instead taken to in-your-face activism
against tighter immigration laws:
-
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education
Fund, whose co-founder Mario Obledo said in 1998 that
California is going to be a Hispanic state, and those
who don't like it "ought to go back to Europe."
-
The Mexican-American Political Association, which
mapped out its demands in a flier for the May 1
boycott: "Immediate legalization without conditions,
no border walls, no criminalization." MAPA President
Nativo Lopez has stated his desire for Spanish to be
the state's primary language. MAPA also called for a
campaign of non-cooperation with Los Angeles County
law enforcement last year when the sheriff's
department flirted with a Department of Homeland
Security partnership to better identify criminal
aliens in county jails.
-
Carlos Montes, a co-founder of the original Brown
Berets in 1960s Los Angeles, is helping put together
an August demonstration — sponsored by MAPA and
endorsed by MEChA — against a border fence and the
Minutemen, as well as against the war in Iraq. He
lauds Venezuela and Cuba as "examples of the
possibilities for humankind."
The involvement of separatist, militant or
controversial groups in a movement for illegal
immigration can only backfire. By building the issue
into "them vs. us," by painting tolerant Americans as
racists, by sowing separatist seeds among youth in the
name of cultural identity, these activists will
alienate Americans who may have sympathized with the
plight of immigrants but find few moderate voices left
to back.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News (http://www.dailynews.com/bridgetjohnson). She blogs at GOP Vixen (http://gopvixen.blogs.com). Comment by clicking here.
© 2006, Bridget Johnson
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