While the small Latino youth movement takes to the streets, community-based organizations are focusing on political empowerment through more traditional channels. Political passions are inflamed (literally) at the Peace and Justice Center, a quasi-underground youth hangout just west of downtown Los Angeles. In the August heat, as skateboarding daredev- ils go airborne in the parking lot outside, about 20 activists in their late teens and early twen- ties plot pyromaniacal political theater in a meeting room dec- orated with posters of revolu- tionaries including Malcolm, Martin, Che and Marcos. The group approximates a politi- cized version of the forlorn inner-city waifs of Larry Clark's film Kids-a multieth- nic (though majority Latino) crew of youth who are creative, angry, idealistic, and unabashedly radical. The young activists are plan- ning a demonstration set to take place at the federal courthouse A student protester holds where the fate of Proposition California Governor Pete V 187 will be determined by Judge Mariana Pfaelzer on September 10. "We have to be there so that they will feel a serious presence," says C6sar Cruz, a Chicano student at the University of California at Irvine who is sporting the latest in '90s Chicano revolutionary chic: a dramatic black tejana (Stetson-style cowboy hat worn by Mexican banda music aficionados), a bandanna forming an inverted triangle from chin to chest, and a up a placard lambasting lilson. large leather medallion carved with the Aztec Sun Calendar hanging from his neck. Nods around the room. "Yeah, I think we should fuckin' take the streets!" says a blond, blue-eyed teenager with a Chicago accent who- through one of those California transcultural miracles-is now a Chicana who goes by the name of "Lucha" (in Spanish, "Struggle"). "Logistics!" C6sar cries out, furiously scribbling notes on loose-leaf yellow sheets that lie on the floor next to his copy of The Diary of Che Guevara. "Who's going to bring the bull- horn?" They will take to the streets. There will be civil disobedi- ence. And, they hope, there will be massive media coverage because of the happy coinci- dence that the federal court building is across the street from the county court building, where every media organization in the country is camped out covering the Trial of the Century. The all-important discussion of march aesthetics begins. The members of the Four Winds Student Movement, La Resistencia (a wing of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA), Youth Breaking Borders, the Affirmative Action Coalition of the University of California at Irvine and the Women's Action Coalition share one vision in com- mon: they want to burn something. VOL XXIX, No 3 Nov/DEC 1995 Rubbn Martinez is an editor at Pacific News Service and author of The Other Side: Notes from the New L.A., Mexico City, and Beyond (Vintage). 29REPORT ON IMMIGRATION "Let's burn those snitch forms!" someone proposes, ovember, 1995 marks the first anniversary of referring to a draft from the California Attorney the California election that placed the issue of General's office of a form to be used-should 187 ever immigration on the national agenda with the re- actually become law-to turn in "suspected illegal election of Gov. Pete Wilson and his all-out crusade for aliens." Proposition 187. It also marks the anniversary of the The representative from the Women's Action biggest student mobilization in Los Angeles since the Coalition (WAC) offers, "I could make a big doll of late 1960s. Though they have yet to replicate the mas- Pete Wilson, cover him with those forms, and then burn sive student walkouts and marches of 1994, this small but vocal and potentially galvanizing force represents, for Latinos, the most politicized generation since the Chicano movement born 30 years ago in the pick- ing fields of California. Most of the activists at the Peace and Justice Center are veterans of last year's protests-high school and college stu- dents who led walkouts, organized teach-ins, and volunteered for get-out- the-vote efforts. Many were present at the pre-election October 16 march in Los Angeles which drew over 100,000 people onto the streets, one of the largest demonstrations in modern California history. "Proposition 187 affects me in every way," says Ana Vdsquez, a 20-year-old student at the University of Southern California. "My family is half docu- mented and half undocumented. My mother's a citizen, my tfos came across the river." Most of the advocates for the undocu- mented are young Chicano and Central American citizens like Ana who feel A thousand high school students in Porterville, California participate in an election- that 187 paints all Latinos, regardless of day student walkout. immigration status, as welfare freeload- him." The idea is received with much laughter and ers, criminals, and the cause of the worst economic immediate approval, downturn in California since the Depression. In this, But Angel Cervantes, a student at the Claremont the activists of the 1990s differ from their 1960s fore- Graduate School and one of the most prominent youth runners. Latinos were once clearly and bitterly divided leaders during last year's massive school walkouts between native-born, mostly English-speaking against 187, is concerned about timing. "If you burn Chicanos and immigrant, Spanish-speaking Mexicans. Wilson first, the cops might arrest you and then the Cultural differences and at times the appearance, if not media won't get to hear any speakers. How about the the fact, of economic competition contributed to this speakers first, then burn Wilson?" rift. Several more proposals are tossed out; it's getting Today, activists decry the line between San Diego hard to follow exactly what is being burned when. "So and Tijuana. The new thinking-reflected in the popu- what's it going to be?" asks Olga Miranda, a Belmont lar slogan, "We didn't cross the border, the border High School student leader. "Snitch forms burning, crossed us"-re-imagines the old Mexico that gov- speaker, Wilson burning, or speaker, speaker, burning, erned the Southwest before the Mexican-American burning?" War. A growing Central American population, already The WAC representative can't resist: "Speaker burn! politicized from the experience of the anti-intervention Speaker burn! Speaker burn!" and sanctuary efforts of the 1980s, has also informed After more deliberations, the group comes up with a and influenced what was once purely "Chicano" slogan: "Wilson, you liar, we'll set your ass on fire!" activism. 30 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON IMMIGRATION These activists want to reach out beyond the Latino community. "We're trying to break down the image that this is the 'Chicano movement' of the nineties," says Angel Cervantes, a founding member of the Four Winds Student Movement (the group's name hints at Native American spirituality and a multiethnic world view). "We want to bring in anyone who's been mar- ginalized. A lot of organizers are moving away from race and ethnicity towards issues of class." This post-nationalist rhetoric has yet to translate into political reality, however. While the crew at the Peace and Justice Center may indeed be a sign of a new coali- tion politics, the turnout at last year's marches was practically 99% Latino. And the election results once again confirmed California's political and cultural frag- mentation. According to a Los Angeles Times exit poll, the divide between Anglo, middle-class California and the soon-to-be-majority Latino population has become an unbreachable chasm. White Californians voted near- ly three-to-one in favor of 187, while Latinos voted nearly four-to-one against. Asians and African-Americans wound up in the middle, nearly splitting even-a hopeful sign for coalition-minded activists. The problem is that demographics don't match up with actual voter turnout, a situation that Mexican political scien- tist Jorge Castaileda has called California's "electoral apartheid." Had Latinos voted proportionate to their pop- ulation numbers (approximately one- third statewide), 187 may well have been defeated. But low voter-registra- tion and turn-out rates-along with the fact that a substantial number of Latinos, both documented and undocumented, are not citizens-have historically held back not only a possible swing vote, but a bloc that could, theoretically, become the dominant force in California politics. Not all the grassroots organizing going on around the issue of 187 is as visionary or radical as the admittedly fringe youth movement at the Peace and Justice Center. Many Latino institutions-energized by 187, like the students-are focusing on politicalA get empowerment through more traditional channels. Last year, community-based organizations such as the Central American Resource Center, One Stop Immigration, and the Catholic Church-based United Neighborhoods Organization recruited people for marches, conducted letter-writing campaigns, and coor- dinated media-outreach efforts. Latino newspapers, TV, and radio stations went on an unabashed crusade. La Opinion, the country's largest Spanish-language daily, still regularly lists hotline numbers in stories about post-187 discrimination. Nevertheless, the deep divisions over strategy that emerged a year ago remain intact today. Before the election, some elected officials counseled against mas- sive demonstrations. "All those angry brown faces on TV, the Mexican flags being waved, it was exactly the wrong image to be sending out," says one political con- sultant. "It played right into whites' fears about being overwhelmed by Latins." Others question this thinking. "It was a waste of time to pander to the angry white voter," says Gilbert Cedillo, general manager of the Service Employees International Union Local 660, which represents over 40,000 County of Los Angeles workers currently facing unprecedented lay-offs due to massive budget cuts. "The course we should have been following is to expand our base and create a social movement." -out-the-vote drive organized by opponents of Prop 187. Many community-based organizations are focusing on increasing the ranks of eligible Latino voters. The Southwest Voter Research and Education Project pro- jects that some 100,000 people will apply for citizen- ship in California in 1995 alone. Nationally, applica- tions for citizenship rose 250% from 1992 to 1995. This rate is proving untenable for the Immigration and VOL XXIX, No 3 Nov/DEC 1995 C C 0 s 31REPORT ON IMMIGRATION Naturalization Service (INS), an agency primarily funded these days to "hold the line" at the southern U.S. border. At a recent INS swearing-in ceremony for new citizens at a football field-sized room in the Los Angeles Convention Center, it was evident that 187 was the driving force behind the increased interest in citi- zenship. "With the new laws that they're passing, I was afraid I'd be left defenseless," says Adelaido Vdsquez, a Mexican immigrant who has lived over a dozen years in the United States and had heretofore resisted natural- ization-an often painful process for Mexicans whose Many community-based organizations are focusing on increasing the ranks of Latino voters. It is projected that some 100,000 people will apply for citizenship in California in 1995 alone. cultural ambiva- lence, given the history of conflict and discrimination in the Southwest, is legendary. As the newest cit- izens exit the con- vention center, they are immedi- ately accosted by partisan voter-reg- istration activists. "Republicans! Republicans regis- ter here!" shouts Yarda Scudder, a middle-aged blond woman wearing jeans and a red kerchief tied around her neck, attempting perhaps to approximate the Ronald Reagan pastoral look. But the table that does the brisker busi- ness is presided over by the portly, Zapata-mustachioed Democrat Rudy Montalvo of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. "Make your vote known!" he shouts in Spanish. "Let Pete Wilson hear the voice of the immigrants, of the workers, of the humble!" The Catholic Church is active in the citizenship drive as well. There are 187 (eerie coincidence) Latino- majority parishes out of a total of 290 in the most pop- ulous archdiocese in the country. According to Assistant Director of Hispanic Ministry Louis Velisquez, half of these parishes are helping the immi- grant faithful naturalize. Sounding a clear liberation- theology line, Veldsquez says that the Church is "com- mitted to the mandate of the gospel, which is less a mat- ter of eternal life after death than living life here and now with justice, peace and love." Interestingly, the Protestant evangelical churches are equally involved in a grassroots effort to, at the very least, keep their brethren from being deported. At Iglesia Evang61lica Latina in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, the church boasts an immigration office with several counselors and new computers. Over a 100 people a week seek immigration services here, a young Salvadoran clerk poring over one family's paperwork tells me. "People are worried that they're going to be kicked out of the country at any moment," she says. "If they have some kind of papers, we do the best we can, but if they're completely undocumented, there's noth- ing we can do." Some evangelical churches have taken a more radical stance on the issue of immigration. Dan Ramirez, a laymember of the Apostolic Assembly, a Pentecostal church, notes that his religious community sees biblical law as taking precedence over the laws of the state. When undocumented brethren are deported, an elabo- rate network of contacts are often able to return the deportees to the flock in a kind of Pentecostal sanctuary movement. "As politicians preach communal values while accentuating the divisions in society [through laws like 187], these Latino Pentecostals bear witness to the true meaning of communal life," says Ramfrez, who, in his secular life, is an administrator at Stanford University. Nonetheless, the citizenship drive is seen as the principal vehicle for Latino empowerment. "We expect to have 2.1 million people registered by next year," says Antonio Gonzilez, director of the Southwest Voter Research and Education Project. "The '96 election will be hot. California will be at the center of the country politically because of issues like immigration-and the Latino vote will increasingly be heard." But, warns David Hayes-Bautista, director of the Alta California Research Center, Latinos will not be able to achieve much alone. "The vast majority of the electorate will still be largely older and Anglo," he says. "Latinos must forge ties with African Americans, Asians and progressive whites." bsent from the discourse of most mainstream institutions (and elected officials) is word on Jthe fate of the undocumented, who are, at least ostensibly, the direct target of 187. While most com- munity organizations speak sympathetically of the undocumented, the practical and political upshot of this solidarity is conspicuous in its lack of definition. When asked about the undocumented population (it is esti- mated that between 3% and 10% of California's Latinos may lack papers), one Catholic Church official said that the Church continues to provide health care and education through its hospitals and parochial schools to anyone regardless of immigration status. While such social services are invaluable, the Church has not yet taken up a more forceful advocacy role on behalf of the undocumented. Admittedly, proposals such as a new amnesty sim- ilar to that implemented under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 are a political long shot in the current jingoistic climate. Many activists, however, think that main- stream institutions have all but abandoned the undocu- mented. "The definition of political power only through voting is too narrow," says Leonardo Vilchis, a lay worker at Dolores Mission Church in East Los Angeles, a parish that serves some 150 undocumented people through refugee and shelter services. "With that defini- tion, you're ignoring the biggest problem-the undocumented." Vilchis notes that the undocument- ed have begun advocating A Latino student protests Prop 187 during a rally in support of immigrant hotel workers in Lafayette, California this spring. on their own behalf-form- ing, for instance, street-vending cooperatives and inde- pendent day-laborer unions. Despite the recent high-profile crackdown at the bor- der, the incessant sweeps of la migra in the cities, and the increasingly ill political winds blowing not only in California but in Washington, D.C. as well, many of the undocumented appear unfazed by the political storm. A visit to a day-laborer site on the corner of Sunset and Alvarado reveals the eternal hope of the immigrant. By mid-morning, when the possibility of a day's work has all but evaporated, a handful of men wearing paint- flecked T-shirts, jeans and workboots respond to the sit- uation with a shrug of the shoulders. Yes, times are tough, several of the men say. "Work's less easy to come by," says Macario Moctezuma, a 28- year-old native of Mexico City who lost a job with a construction company when the boss came around ask- ing for "good papers." Still, there's no going back, he says, prompting several men to nod in agreement. "We're still better off here." Ricardo Martinez, a 21-year-old man from rural Jalisco, still believes in the promise of California. "I'm hopeful that all this will change," he says, "and that one day the politicians here are 100% Latino, so that we can be treated better in California. Why do they put us down so much when they're practically living off of the work we do for them?" As I'm getting into my car, Ricardo comes up to me out of earshot of the others. He asks me if I know of a good journalism school. "I know I have to learn English, and I'm tak- ing classes at night, plus I bought one of those home- study classes with the cas- settes...." Still, the psychological impact of 187 politics has taken its toll on the undoc- umented. Whether children in classrooms distracted by fears that their families may be torn apart by la migra or working mothers nervous about sending their children to school or to public hospitals when they are ill, a climate of fear has dampened some of the immigrants' stubborn opti- mism. Meanwhile, the political temperature in California continues to heat up. Everything from O.J.-inspired racial tension (prompted by Los Angeles Police Department detective Mark Fuhrman's racist descriptions of African Americans and Mexicans), to continuing chafing between inner-city youth and law enforcement, to Governor Pete Wilson's dismantling of affirmative action has contributed to the growing distance between rich and poor, immigrant and non-immigrant. There will certainly be plenty of rhetorical heat in U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer's courtroom downtown-and perhaps out on the streets with Peace and Justice Center activists gleefully burning things. Whatever the decision in court about Prop 187's consti- tutionality, the battle over the referendum will answer many questions about California's, and by extension the country's, future. The immigration debate, after all, includes issues of race relations, class disparity and the global economy. Three decades after the civil rights movement brought us both fire on the streets and major change to our public lives, a new and perhaps just as momentous struggle is upon us. At the center of the con- troversy are the newest Americans-and their blood rel- atives who have been here for generations.
