[Marxism] Thousands of Latinos rallying for immigration reform

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thousands of Latinos all over the country are rallying for legalization of
immigrants under the auspices of national and local Latino evangelical
churches, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and local Latino civil rights
groups.

The "National Family Unity Campaign" is being spearheaded on behalf of the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus by Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez, who
represents a Chicago area district in the House and is the only Latino in
the lower chamber from the Midwest.

The campaign kicked off Friday night in Providence, Rhode Island, with an
event at a local church estimated by the local media at nearly 1,000 people,
and continued this afternoon at the monster "Tabernaculo de Atlanta" Church
in the Atlanta suburb of Norcross. 

It is a huge space in an industrial and business area into which you could
have fit two or three basketball gyms. When my son and I got there a half an
hour before the event the Church parking lot was already full and we had to
park on a residential street three or four blocks away. 

The Tabernacle was packed so full that people were spilling out the doors
and had also completely filled to standing room only another hall of a few
hundred people that was hooked into the event by a giant screen projection
television. My guess is that there were 3,000-4,000 people there, based on a
Church official who told me they had seating for more than 2,000 including
the overflow room.

The event was a combination of religious revival, congressional hearing and
protest rally. 

First came some religious singing and bible reading, and then the "warm up"
speaker. He is the head of a national Latino evangelical pastors association
who --frankly-- struck me as a world-class orator and brought the crowd to
its feet repeatedly with a strident denunciation, not just of U.S.
immigration policy, but of unnamed forces who he described as having tried
to silence the Christian Church's struggle against policies he denounced not
just as unjust and immoral, but as sinful and unchristian.

An extremely dynamic and powerful speaker, it was clear that part of his
message was addressed not so much to this audience, but to moderate forces
in the national immigration reform coalition who are refusing to wage a
public campaign for legalization of immigrant workers out of deference to
President Obama and/or because they don't want to dilute other legislative
priorities (namely, card check union recognition). The exact pretext --it's
too early, let's stop factory raids first, let's concentrate on card check
recognition, if we piss Obama off he'll never help us-- varies with the
group, the individual and the day, only the message is the same: YOU SPICS
NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK UP.

This pastor was, not just righteous but categorical: he said the Church
--and whether he exactly meant this consciously, I'm not sure, but this is
what I understood it meaning, socially and politically, that he was talking
about the Latino Evangelicals-- would not be silenced because it had to
answer to an authority even higher than the president, it had to follow the
word of God. And God thinks deportations and breaking up families are an
abomination. 

He stressed the fight was for NO deportations, NO raids, legalization for
all "because we are all children of God." And responding to those who argue
half a loaf is better than none, he said this was prophetic testimony, and
that God would work a miracle through his people in this Church and churches
like it all across Atlanta and the country.

The context for these remarks, which most in the audience were unaware of,
is this. Unions like the SEIU and UNITE-HERE, national Latino organizations,
Latino politicians, non-profiteers and other professional "progressives," as
well as some elements from the Catholic and traditional Protestant
hierarchies, have been especially prominent on the national scene since the
big immigrant rights upsurge almost three years ago telling Latinos that the
way to win legalization was for us to focus our efforts in getting their
Democrats elected to Congress and the presidency. 

Whereas the Latino evangelical preachers --at least many of them-- are based
in very large part on communities of immigrants without the right to vote
and often without papers, and thus they tend to favor legalization for all,
and pressuring for it outside voting and election campaigns, because those
are not accessible to their members.

However, now that Democrats control both houses of Congress and the White
House --thanks in no small part to a huge Latino swing to the Democrats in
2006 and 2008-- the forces that wanted us to focus everything on helping
their Democrats now seem to have forgotten all about legalization of
immigrants, at least in terms of their national activities and priorities.

In Georgia's case, however, virtually all locally active Latino
organizations, including the judicially-oriented MALDEF and the state
association of Latino public officials endorsed the event. Unfortunately
there was no formal union participation, but the organizing for the event
was done almost exclusively among Latino groups over a few days, less than a
week.

But even though 99% of the audience could not possibly have had a clue about
all this, they responded with amen's and hallelujahs, jumping up, shouting,
and standing ovations to the preacher's words. I think what it reflected is
a mood in the community that we've put up with this for too long, and while
Obama is respected, well-liked, admired and all the rest of it, the
community INSISTS on making it clear to him that this bullshit has got to
stop. NOW.

An especially warmly received participant was congressman John Lewis, who
was an unannounced addition to the program and spoke movingly about growing
up in Alabama in the 1950's with his parents telling him segregation was
just the way things were, that he had to accept it and not get into trouble,
until one day he heard Martin Luther King on the radio "and I've been
getting into trouble ever since." 

Lewis's forthright support to an immigration reform that stops the raids,
deportations and the breaking up of families is especially welcome, due to
his moral authority as one of the most prominent surviving leaders of the
Black civil rights movement of the 1960s, and especially his role as one of
the leaders of the Selma to Montgomery marches that led to the enactment of
the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The high point of the event, however, was not Lewis or another speaker but
the halting, heart rending testimony of members of families torn apart by la
migra. A wife told of how her husband had gone to pick up their children at
school and was hit from behind by another car. The person who hit his car
walked away scot-free, but now her husband is in jail awaiting deportation.
[The mostly white northern suburbs of Atlanta have been among the most
aggressive in the country in turning their police forces into la migra
auxiliaries.]

A girl brought the crowd to tears by saying simply, I need my mother. A
young man of 15, between tears and sobs and comforting words and hugs from
John  Lewis, told how first his father, then his mother were deported, and
now he and his sister live apart in the care of relatives. And they are good
people taking care of them, but they are not his family, and he wants his
family back. 

The testimonies were organized by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human
Rights, the main Latino civil rights organization in the Atlanta metro area.

In his remarks following the testimony, Congressman Luis Gutierrez stressed
that what we had heard was the every day reality in the Latino communities,
a reign of terror justified in the name of a spurious "national security"
that was just a cover for racism. He stressed that there were five million
children born in the United States who have at least one undocumented
parent. And Gutierrez was clear and direct about what this campaign he is
helping to organize is for.

The demand is that President Obama keep his promises, sponsor and sign a
"comprehensive immigration reform" -- but meaning specifically one that will
put an end to raids, deportations and the breaking up of families by
legalizing immigrant workers. 

This is important because some ostensibly pro-immigrant groups in recent
years have adopted a "strategy" of accepting limited, punitive and partial
legalizations, as well as other regressive provisions in immigration
"reform" bills, supposedly to win Republican support, but in reality only
serving to confuse and divide the pro-immigrant camp.

It is especially notable that Gutierrez is acting with the formal, explicit
support of the Hispanic Caucus in Congress. In the past, Gutierrez has
frequently shown a willingness to accept limitations on legalizations and
other regressive positions in proposed legislation, but his stance now is an
advance and helps educate the community on the real solution to this
problem, which is simply legalization. For everyone. 

Congressman Lewis also explicitly backed this approach, embracing Gutierrez
and stressing that the principle they were fighting for is that "no human
being is illegal." (Which, of course, brought the house down when he said
it).

It goes without saying that, consistent with their entire political history,
Gutierrez and Lewis may well accept all manner of compromises in the hopes
of getting a bill through that will provide at least *some* relief to the
besieged Latino community. 

But it is important that proponents of complete, unconditional legalization
for all understand that the need for and convenience of such compromises is,
in a sense, a separate and distinct discussion that should not stand in the
way of forging an alliance to wage the biggest possible public campaign
demanding that Obama keep his promise and stop ALL the raids and
deportations of immigrants whose only "crime" is working for a living for
themselves and their families. Even if some of the forces in the alliance
might, under certain circumstances, settle for less. What is most important
is the education of the Latino community and other working people around
human rights principles, not inside-baseball discussions about legislative
tactics.

It should also be a matter for reflection, especially on this list, that
this is the first sector that is waging a campaign of public pressure and
protests aimed explicitly at the new Obama administration around
working-class demands and based on at least a SLIVER of the masses. I know
comrades have been eager --overly so in many cases, I would say-- to resume
mass movement activity aimed at the new administration in Washington. While
I cannot state this categorically just based on my experiences in Atlanta
and reports from elsewhere, I believe the immigrant rights movement, and
specifically this campaign, is what comrades have been waiting for. 

That there is a differentiation, a split between national groupings/sectors
that rest on the Latino community, ALL of which we would have assumed in the
abstract would be firmly dominated by a quietist "don't embarrass Barack"
and "compromise at all costs" line suggests to me that there is TREMENDOUS
pressure FROM BELOW in the community. 

That is --frankly-- NOT the impression I had based on GLAHR's last few
months of activity and the community's  response, which it seemed to me was
to hunker down and duck, cowed if not terrorized not just by la migra, but
here in Georgia especially by the enlistment of local cops as auxiliaries of
the immigration Gestapo. 

But based on that, I had ALSO expected today's event, organized only with a
few days notice, to be an outpouring of --I hoped!!!-- a few hundred, not a
few thousand as it turned out. And it was clear from the way the crowd
reacted to the various preachers and routines and chants and rituals they
led people through that only a small minority were regular attendees of this
temple and familiar with its culture and practices. These were people who
were there mostly for the POLITICAL, not the RELIGIOUS side of the activity
(although we all of course went along respectfully with the latter as best
we could).

There was absolutely no presence from the organized (or even disorganized)
left. I did not see even a single one of the "usual suspects" except me when
I looked in a mirror.

Approximately 98-99% of the audience were immigrants and their children, and
I would say of the adults, a majority --almost certainly a big majority--
were undocumented themselves. I base that on the "main" thing that was
supposed to result from the event, which was to get signatures from citizens
and legal residents on petitions saying that as legal people, we wanted
Obama and Congress to make the rest of our family and community legal. A
family of 8 or 10 people near me and my son, with four or five adults, was
asked how many of the petition sheets they needed right after my son and I
had gotten ours. They said just one. And that was typical. Not many in that
crowd were filling them in. 

The sheets --one per person-- included not just your name and signature, but
your phone, your address and email. Congressman Gutierrez stressed that only
those not vulnerable to la migra --citizens and permanent residents-- should
fill them out, but that they wanted us to really do it to be able to tell
the other members of Congress and Obama, go ahead, check it out, have your
staff write them or call them up -- legalization is what the overwhelming
majority of the Latino community wants, both "legals" and undocumented. 

That composition reflects the character of the Georgia Latino community,
which, together with north carolina and tennessee, is half or more
undocumented (my guess, at least among adults), the result of the post-NAFTA
emigration to the states in the U.S. with a lot of demand for labor,
especially in construction.

It would be different in places like Chicago, L.A. and Texas generally, with
long established Latino populations, where past experience suggests MOST of
those participating will be citizens or otherwise "legal" residents.

HOWEVER, I don't think the evidence this event revealed of atomized but very
real pressure around the immigration issue is a peculiarity of Georgia. The
initiative for this event came to us from the outside, from the Hispanic
Caucus and Congressman Luis and the national Latino evangelical alliance in
Washington. And the response here from ALL the Latino groups I've heard
about was immediate -- yes, of course, let's do it. 

I understand there was even some ... rivalry ... between different
congregations to host the event, which was resolved by awarding it to the
one offering the biggest space. A decision that was made by the preachers
and made me cringe when I first heard of it because I thought they should
have picked a more modest and more central location. 

The close to 1000 in Providence, Rhode Island (of all places), and the
3000-4000 that were able to jam into this Tabernacle here are just the first
two events. This is something people should keep their eye on.

Joaquin


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