Guest Column
Who kicked the sleeping giant? Quien desperto al gigante?
- From: Mexicans in Foreign Lands cimechicago" cimechicago@yahoo.com
- Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006
Immigrants
have decided they will no longer be passive punching bags
Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and
Refugee Rights, a statewide organization committed to the full participation
of immigrants in civic life Published March 14, 2006
It looks like someone went and kicked the sleeping giant.
Last Friday, Chicago's downtown was paralyzed by an immigrant march
estimated at more than 100,000 people. They carried hand-lettered signs
saying "My Mexican immigrant son died in Iraq," "I'm a dishwasher--not a
criminal" and "Don't deport my parents."
Chicago's march is part of a growing wave of immigrant protest across the
nation. Last week, 5,000 Mexicans gathered in Oregon; on March 6, 30,000
Latinos from the Washington area rallied on the U.S. Capitol steps.
The marches are tied to the U.S. Senate's debate on immigration reform.
That's the last hope of immigrants eager to win reasonable and workable
reforms, to reunite divided immigrant families, to create a guest-worker
program for the nation's future labor needs and--most divisively--to include
an eventual path to earned citizenship for the estimated 11 million
undocumented immigrants working and paying taxes in the U.S.
The marchers also were protesting H.R. 4437, the harshly punitive bill
sponsored by U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that takes an
"enforcement only" approach to immigration reform. The legislation was
hurriedly rammed through the House just before Christmas. This bill would
make millions of undocumented dishwashers and nannies "aggravated criminal
felons" and turn priests and nurses into criminals for "aiding and abetting"
the undocumented.
The Chicago march was the work of emerging Mexican immigrant leaders and
lifelong Mexican-American activists. But the Illinoisan most responsible for
kicking the sleeping giant, and who has the most to lose in the long term,
was not present.
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a decision last fall to
use "illegal immigration" as the Republican Party's next emotionally charged
wedge issue. The political calculation is that the resentment and latent
racism felt toward our Mexican neighbors can be demagogued for political
advantage this year, dividing the Democrats and keeping the House in
Republican hands.
However, in what appears to be an entirely predictable example of the law of
unintended consequences, the immigrant communities in general and the
Mexican community in particular have declined to allow themselves to be
passive punching bags.
There are few communities in the U.S. that work harder at lower pay and in
worse conditions than the Mexican community. Mexicans do this with few
complaints in exchange for the promise that their children might live better
lives. But the community does not appreciate having its hard work denigrated
by being called "criminals" or "terrorists." Signs on Friday said it all:
"We are America."
The last big spasm of immigrant bashing was in California during the
mid-1990s by then-Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and Proposition 187. Mexican
immigrants responded by first marching and then becoming American citizens
and voting Democratic in record numbers.
Hastert's short-sighted strategy has gored the Republican business community
that understands our nation's labor needs and energized a national Roman
Catholic immigrant-justice campaign so muscular that last week Cardinal
Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles threatened massive civil disobedience. The
anti-immigrant demagoguery also launched an unprecedented national political
mobilization by the Mexican and immigrant community. Oops!
A little-noted fact about the 2004 presidential election was that socially
conservative immigrant Latinos were 40 percent more likely to vote for
President Bush than U.S.-born Latinos. Now Bush's and Karl Rove's carefully
crafted and successful Hispanic outreach
strategy is shredded lettuce.
What does this mean in Illinois? There are about 348,000 legal immigrants in
Illinois currently eligible to become U.S. citizens. If a substantial
percentage of these folks now take the steps to become U.S. citizens and the
immigrant Latinos are cemented into the "Blue" column of voters, it changes
the political balance of power in Illinois for the next generation. Any
short-term political gain to be made from the "kick the illegals" strategy
will likely lead to disastrous long-term pain for the Republican Party.
And, as if the point needed further emphasis for Hastert (whose district is
now 25 percent Latino), fliers distributed at Friday's march announced 10
upcoming workshops to assist immigrants to become citizens. The motto of the
march? "Hoy marchamos! Manana votamos!" "Today we march. Tomorrow we vote!"
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