Acuna, Rodolfo F rudy.acuna@csun.

edu

Rough Draft

A Tolerance of Violence On the Border

By

Rodolfo F. Acuna

In trying to make sense as to why most Americans and even a large number of Latinos are
so complacent about so-called minutemen running amok on the border, searching for
undocumented people, I recently re-read Herbert Marcuse’s 1965 essay on “Repressive
Tolerance.”

Marcuse wrote that “[t]tolerance is an end in itself “and necessary for the preservation of
the status quo and the strengthening of “the tyranny of the majority...” When tolerance is
turned into a passive state it promotes laissez-fairez, entrenching the established attitudes
and ideas of the right wing. The result is that we passively tolerate ideas and actions that
are damaging to man and nature.

The University of California professor argued that there was a difference between true and
false tolerance and it was an abuse of tolerance to ignore unjust attitudes and ideas
because the truth may antagonize sympathizers.

According to Marcuse, a liberating tolerance was intolerance toward unjust ideas and
movements. Marcuse was later to posit that it was the intolerance of students on
campuses that removed Dow Chemical and the recruiters off the university campuses.

Marcuse distinguishes the Right from the Left and movements that help people versus
those that keep them in their place. These movements are difficult to distinguish because
of the historical amnesia of Americans. They believe that the Right and the Left have
contributed equally to social legislation that protects the average citizen.

The truth be told, as a historian, I cannot remember a single piece of progressive social
legislation sponsored by right wing senators or representatives. Indeed, they opposed the
end of slavery, the protection of children’s rights, social security, and civil and human
rights, for starters.

Society’s lack of historical awareness of these facts and the reluctance of liberals to call
the Trent Lotts of this world liars perpetuates this false consciousness.

In respect to undocumented workers and immigrants this repressive tolerance has

allowed racist nativist to blur reason and sanction border violence. It has allowed the
historically illiterate like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to praise Arizona
vigilantes. "They've done a terrific job. And they have cut down the crossing of illegal
immigrants by a huge percentage." We are conditioned to tolerate this undemocratic
behavior and forget that in another time these vigilantes would be wearing white hoods.

Border violence is not an aberration and is as American as apple pie. At least, 597
Mexicans were lynched near or on the border. The majority were not bandits; they were
lynched because they were Mexicans. Witness that there has been no similar history on
the Canadian border. Why?

What will be the cost of tolerating these vigilantes?

In the summer of 1976, George Hannigan, a Douglas, Arizona, rancher and Dairy Queen
owner, and his two sons, Patrick, 22, and Thomas, 17, kidnaped three undocumented
workers looking for work. They “stripped, stabbed, burned [them] with hot pokers and
dragged [them] across the desert.” The Hannigans held a mock hanging for one of the
Mexicans and shot another with buckshot. Judge Anthony Deddens, a friend of the
Hannigans, refused to issue arrest warrants. Finally, an all-white jury acquitted the
Hannigans. Activists on both sides of the border protested the verdict and pressured U.S.
Attorney General Griffin Bell to indict them. A federal grand jury, in 1979 indicted the
Hannigans for violating the Hobbs Act. Interference in interstate commerce. After
deadlocks and s retrial a jury found the Hannigans guilty.

Since the Hannigan case, the hate groups have expanded. Historically, extremist groups
have preyed on the fears and xenophobia of the American majority. Klansman David Duke
organized “border patrols in the late 1970's.” In the early 1980s Louis Beam and his Texas
Knights harassed an immigrant Vietnamese fishermen in Texas.

During the 1980s, these hate groups grew as a product of the Internet where pornography
and hate became profitable enterprises.

The idea of sending organized para-military groups to the border remained a right wing
affair. The cry of “Close our Borders!”was the creation of white supremacist groups that
are integrated in the ranks of the so-called “Minutemen” and spearhead their activities.

The agenda of many of these self described patriots goes well beyond “the protection of
the border, however. The ADL reports that Glenn Spencer of Voices of Citizens Together
and the American Patrol has “departed sharply from that of legitimate immigration reform
groups.” Much Spencer’s rhetoric and writing “did not target immigration so much as he
targeted Hispanics, particularly those of Mexican origin, regardless of whether they were
immigrants or not.” The Anti-Defamation League ADL cites a 1996 letter to the Los Angles
Times in which he wrote “the Mexican culture is based on deceit.”
Spencer’s pal Roger Barnett, a rancher from Cochise Country, Arizona, attracted national
attention by running around with pistols and assault rifles capturing undocumented brown
people and holding them against their will.

Meanwhile, other kooks like Jack Foote, based in Arlington, Texas, have been inspired by
Roger Barnett. He formed Ranch Rescue, like the other hate groups, has a Web Site,
spreading fear and collecting money.

In March 2003 two of Ranch Rescue’s “Minutemen” were arrested for allegedly detaining
two Salvadorans and pistol whipping one of them.

On July 23, 2003, Claudine LoMonaco of the Tucson Citizen reported that "from the start of
the fiscal year in October 2002 through Sunday, as many as 171 people have died in
Arizona -- 43 percent more than the official Border Patrol figure of 119."

Where is this history of tolerance going end? The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports
that in October 2002, New Jersey white supremacist radio talk show host Hal Turner told
listeners to “kill every single one of these invaders.”

The violence is not an aberration. It is not going to go away. It is directed at Mexicans and
by extension anyone who looks like them.

Chapter 6

The Return of the Robber Barons

2000

The Year 2000 was an eventful year, I travelled to Europe and studied the
immigration wwhich I had to see for myself. It also brought to fore many other issues such
as how fragile the Latino/Hispanic labels were. This was made evident with the controversy
over six-year old Elián González which witnessed breaks between Chicanos in Congress
and in the community. It also exposed the power of a small but fanatical group which had
appropriated the label Hispanic and influenced policy that affected all Latinos of which
those of Mexican extraction. We had the numbers but not the weight of the government or
cuktural influence.
(106) “Popi,” January 2000 Internet.
http://911review.org/Wget/aztlan.net/acuna.htm http://hpn.asu.edu/archives/2000-
February/000105.html

In 1969, Alan Arkin played a Puerto Rican single parent with two boys, lived in Spanish
Harlem. Working three jobs just to survive, he felt the boys drowning in what he termed a
cesspool. Desperate Abraham notices that the United States lavishes Cubans who escape
the island with benefits and gifts and treat them royally. He concocts a scheme to take his
sons to Miami and send them out to sea, hoping that they will get picked up by a friendly
boat within a day. The world would think that they were Cuban and rich Anglos would adopt
his sons.

However, things did not work out as planned and after a day Abraham begins to worry. He
haunts the local bars, listening to television news programs. Finally, consumed by the guilt
that he had forced the boys to go to sea, he tries to drown himself, only to hear that the
coast guard had rescued them. The authorities had taken them to a local hospital, badly
dehydrated and in critical condition. The Miami Cuban community goes wild, hailing them
as heroes, and pour gifts on them as well as offers of adoption. Tension mounts as the
boys lay unconscious, and doctors do not know whether they will come out of the coma.

Fearing that the boys will die, and afraid that if they woke up, they would reveal his plot,
Abraham goes through a series of keystone crisis goes to see the boys at the hospital.
When they awake, the younger boy tells the greeters that he hates his father; he had told
them that drowning at sea was better than life in the sewer. Believing that the father was
referring to Cuba and not the sewer of New York, a lady tells him that he should love his
father because he wanted to save him. That he was a great man. In the end, the boys spot
Abraham. Consumed with love for their father, they chase him and give him away. A
Cuban official tells him that the boys want him and not the rich life he wants for them, and
that because of this, his plan would not work. They all return to New York.

For those following the circus in Miami surrounding Elián González, the parallels with Popi
hit close to home. Bonds exist between a father and a son that all the rationalization and
bribery will not loosen. Despite the brainwashing evident in the treatment of Elían,
ultimately he will suffer if those bonds are ruptured. Once the notoriety surrounding him
ceases and he becomes an ordinary young boy, his memories of his father will increase.
He will no longer be showered with gifts, taken to Disney World on demand, and he will be
just plain Elián.

The irony of Elián’s case does not escape many Mexican Americans, other Latinos and
Black Americans. Identifying with Abraham is not difficult for them, and they recognize the
preferential treatment that Cubans entering the country without documents
receive. Literally thousands of Haitians, Mexicans and other Latinos are unceremoniously
deported weekly, many of them return to economic circumstances much worse than those
of Elián.

When I visited Cuba this past July, I could not help but see the contrasts between it and my
ancestral home of Mexico. Cuba is a poor country, kept that way by a cruel U.S. policy that
panders to political fanatics who yearn for yesteryear and dream of returning to the island
to mismanage it once again. No doubt the economic boycott has hurt many young boys
such as Elian, who appears to have been one of the more fortunate there. However, the
fact is that I did not see the extremes that I saw in Mexico where poor Native Americans
beg and sleep on the streets of Mexico City. The truth be told, some Mexicans live in luxury,
vacationing frequently in Cancun and Acapulco, paying $200 a day for a hotel room, while
their compatriots earn a minimum wage of $3.50 a day.

I saw first hand that Cuba had a lower infant mortality than the U.S.. Cuba has one medical
doctor for every 250 Cubans with universal health care. Its literacy rate is higher than the
U.S. with students graduating from elementary school actually knowing how to read.
Although poor, its automobiles relics of the 1950s, I could walk the streets of Habana at 4
in the morning and not get mugged.

Here in the land of the free we only have one Latino medical doctor for every 22,000
Latinos. Getting into medical school unless one’s father is a medical doctor has become
impossible. Only those with the funds to buy themselves into a domestic or foreign
medical school can break the cycle. The United States boasts of a low illiteracy rate, yet
educators know that functional illiteracy is much higher.

We are also aware of the extremes. The quality of minority schools and those in white
neighborhoods are wide: witness that some 83 percent of the teachers in the West San
Fernando Valley are credentialed while fewer than 50 percent of the teachers in the inner
city have credentials. Moreover, health care in this compassionate society is withheld
from those without papers.

While the Cuban American community laments the fate of Elián if should he returned to
Cuba, Latino and African American first graders in California have a better chance of going
to prison than being eligible to attend the University of California system. Even then, if one
is a woman of any nationality, are you as safe alone in any neighborhood, whether rich or
poor, as a woman is in the streets of Habana? Frankly women are not even safe on college
campuses in the evening where rapists have found a haven.

Most sociologists say that a predictor of future success is the relationship between father
and son. Even agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service concede that the
relationship between Juan, Elián’s father, and Elián is positive, and that Juan has a stable
job and home in Cuba. There is no credible evidence that Elián suffered in Cuba. Still, the
Miami cabal wants to severe Elián from Juan based on their hatred of Fidel Castro. They
maintain that a paternal great uncle who did not know Elián or his mother before last
November has more rights to Elián than his father or grandparents. This is not rational, this
is not right.

What is so disturbing is that in this circus atmosphere the so-called free press has not
looked into the background of Elian’s Miami family (stretching the definition of
family). What gives them the right to have a superior right to the custody of Elian than the
father? Are they so much better educated? Do they have the resources to send Elian to
college? If they loved Elian so much, why would they parade him, wrapped in an American
flag?

Hopefully, the cable stations will screen the film “Popi,” so it can remind us of the plight of
the Abrahams of this country. Perhaps then more people will appreciate the hypocrisy of
politicos who weep for family values while keeping a child from his father. Meanwhile, the
Miami circus will continue.
(107) “The Making of the Miami Myth Machine,” April 2000 http://www.change-
links.org/MythMachine.htm . “MITO Y REALIDAD: Los Cubanoamericanos de Miami,” La
Opinion. Apr 23, 2000. Vol. 74, Iss. 221; p. 1B

Almost every Mexican American, it seems today, had a grandparent or a great-grandparent

who rode with Pancho Villa. Few know or admit having ancestors who opposed the
Mexican Revolution or supported the dictator Porfirio Díaz. The events surrounding Elián
Gonzalez remind me of this page in Mexican American history, holding out hope that in
time the Cuban American exiles, like the Mexican exiles of 1913, will outgrow their
infantilism.

As in the case of Miami Cuban Americans, many of the Mexican exiles arriving after the
1911 overthrow of Díaz actively pressured the U.S. government to intervene and overthrow
the Mexican government that, according to them, had taken away their land and privileges.
The Mexican exiles dreamed of the day that they would return to Mexico and resume their
old ways.

Time swept away the fanaticism of the Mexican elites. Succeeding generations mixed with
the followers of Villa, Emiliano Zapata, and other revolutionaries, while others returned to
Mexico. Over time most realized that it was not in their interest to announce that their
ancestors rode with Don Porfirio. Slowly the descendants of many Mexican exiles claimed
the revolution as their own.

Although the Cuban revolution took place over forty years ago, the Cuban exiles’ fervor and
dreams of returning to their land and privilege still burns hot. Few Cuban Americans care
to remember that Fulgencio Batista y Saldivar came to power as the result of a 1952 coup
and that it was Batista’s political illegitimacy and the oppressive conditions imposed by
the landed elite and owners of industry that made Castro possible. They also choose to
forget that it was Batista and other dictators who turned the island into a mafia fiefdom
that allowed Cuba to be monopolized by US-based international land companies like the
United Fruit Company.

Unable or unwilling to create a revolution from within, the elites continue to pressure
Americans to fight a war that they themselves fear to wage. Because of the Cold War and
their alliance with the most reactionary sectors of our society, this exile urban elite class,
mostly based in Miami and New Jersey, has been much more effective in controlling
American foreign policy than the Mexican exile elite of the first part of the 20th century.

The clout of the late Jorge Mas Canosa and groups such as the Cuban American National
Foundation, a creature of the Republican Right-wing, bask in the perception that they can
control, or at least influence, American foreign policy toward Cuba. Challenges to this
hegemony have produced a paranoia among these leaders. Consequently, it is not
surprising that they see the Elián González controversy as a test of this power.

Desperate that their shouts no longer move many Americans, they fall back on their habit
of myth making. They recite their litany, blaming every calamity on the bearded one, angrily
accusing Castro for the abolishment of democracy in Cuba, as if it ever existed. The
problem for them is that fewer people take them seriously.

The reality is that the core group of extremists within the Cuban American community is
hardly democratic. The recent events in Miami expose the irrational and thuggish tactics
encouraged by the exile leadership. Although their leaders whip up old fears, and play on a
religious fanaticism that converts Elián into a religious symbol, they appear as pathetic as
the Mexican elites who celebrated las fiestas patrias, and reminisced about the days of
Porfirio Diaz.

Like Mexico, Cuba has evolved in the past forty years. First, more people can read than in
the time of Batista. People who read have a notion of history. They know that Cuba has
evolved racially. Forty years ago, privilege in Cuba was in great part based on color. While
they have not wiped out all vestiges of that racism, and although the crisis has slowed the
narrowing of the economic and social gap between black and white, the government does
not condone racism. The bottom-line is that racism is not as ingrained as it was when the
older generation of Cuban American elites controlled governance on the island.

I do not deny that there is racism among Mexicans. However, the Mexican Revolution
changed that society, and in spite of itself, Mexico has changed in the last sixty years. Just
in my life time the skin hue of Mexicans in the land of my maternal ancestors, Sonora, for
instance, has become much closer to that of the interior of Mexico. Mexico’s culture has
become less criollo (Spanish) and more, what can I say, Mexican.

I witnessed a similar process last July. I found the differences between the island and the
United States notable. Cuba is a more racially mixed society than the United States, with
over two-thirds of the island’s population of African ancestry. Almost every African-Cuban
intellectual I met expressed to me that he or she would not be a professor, writer or artist if
it had not been for the revolution. In watching the talk shows from Miami on television or
the crowds in front of Elián’s distant relative, Lazaro Gonzalez’s home, for example, well
over 95 percent of the Cuban-Americans of the TV audiences or the mob are obviously
“white Hispanics.”

A minority but vocal minority in the Cuban American community remain trapped in a
cesspool of intransigent nationalism. Extremist groups such as the Cuban American
National Foundation have played a determining role in preventing a lessening of tensions
and thus contact with the island. They have used the Elián González tragedy to whip up a
hysteria to solidify their base, giving the impression that Cuban Americans speak with one
voice. According to the Miami Herald, some 50 percent of Cubans even in Miami do not
agree with the demonstrations.

Yet, the lack of audible opposition within the Cuban American community presents a
major problem for other Latinos. Because of the habit of American society to generalize,
they believe that all Latinos are the same. Because the extremist voices from within the
Cuban American community drown everyone else out, other Latinos are forced to
disassociate themselves from the minority in the Cuban American community’s dangerous
infantilism. The mob in front of Lazaro Gonzalez’s house perpetuates this myth by flying the
Mexican and other Latin American flags.

The case of Elián González has made me and others less tolerant of the Miami
zealots. Many of us are unwilling to keep quiet while some in the Cuban American
community indulge themselves at the expense of a small six-year-old boy. Many of us have
Cuban American friends who we do not want to insult. Still, we realize that they are part of
the problem because too often their condemnation is hidden in the crevices of academic
journals or relegated to one or two op-ed articles. So we hear so few of them that all we
hear are the shrill voices the Lincoln Diaz-Balarts and Ileana Ros-Lehtinens, allowing the
few Cuban Americans who do speak out to often be put at risk or at very least ostracized by
the more powerful elements of their community.

The truth is that Cuban Americans do not have an overwhelming presence within the US
Latino population. Census 2000 will show some 32 million US Latinos, 21 million of whom
are of Mexican origin. Cuban Americans are only some tiny fractions of this total--about
1.4 million, contrasted with about three million Puerto Ricans and three million Central
Americans; a statistic that is startling when one considers that these areas have much
smaller populations than Cuba. We estimate that the proportion that has left those
countries is about 3 to 4 times greater than the number of Cubans who have left their
island.

The Census will also show differences between Latinos. Cuban Americans, for example,
are of a median age of 40.8 years, whereas Mexican Americans have a median age of
24.3. What the statistics will also show is that while the Cuban American is more
prosperous than the others, or at least, the wealth of its elite skews the figures in that
direction -- most Cubans in the US are not rich. Many just scrape by. The truth is that its
leaders are sacrificing working class Cuban Americans for their own purposes. The blind
obsession of these leaders with Castro prevents a healthier relationship with not only other
Latinos but also African Americans, to evolve better social programs, which would benefit
large segments of the Cuban American community. More important it prevents a full and
objective assessment of how Cuban American elites have amassed their great wealth,
often illicitly, or via various government contracts or outright government handouts.

Both Latinos and African Americans have suffered from the arrogance of this Cuban
American elite. Latino politicos and business leaders resent the likes of Cuban
Congressional Representatives Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen and their crude efforts to
make them tow the line. The two mentioned congressional representatives resigned from
the Hispanic Congressional Caucus because Mexican American Congressman Xavier
Becerra was elected its chair. Becerra committed the sin of visiting Cuba without their
permission.

The pages of the Miami Herald are replete with examples of African American resentment
to being bullied by extremist elements in the Cuban American community. Especially
galling to African Americans and many of us who experienced the civil rights movement is
the appeal of these elites to the moral authority of the civil rights movement. History
shows that during the 1960s Cuban American exile leaders, sought to advance their
interventionist politics by crawling in bed with almost every reactionary group and leader,
working and supporting the Republican party against the best interests of other Latinos
and the working poor within the Cuban American community.

Let history also show that less than a decade ago the failure of Miami in 1990 to honor
Nelson Mandela resulted in boycotts in that city, and an ideological conflict between
Cubans and blacks. We must remember that when the Cuban American cabal demanded
that Mandela, as a former political prisoner should condemn Castro, he reminded them
how staunchly Fidel and the Revolution had supported the anti-colonial, anti-apartheid
struggle, asking them, “Where were you?” Many of us believe that Mandela earned an
answer to his question! We should also demand why they are making a political pawn out
of Elian.

Listing 2000-2001

(104) “Popi,” January 2000 Internet.

http://911review.org/Wget/aztlan.net/acuna.htm http://hpn.asu.edu/archives/2000-
February/000105.html

(105) “The Making of the Miami Myth Machine,” April 2000 http://www.change-
links.org/MythMachine.htm . “MITO Y REALIDAD: Los Cubanoamericanos de Miami,” La
Opinion. Apr 23, 2000. Vol. 74, Iss. 221; p. 1B

(106) (114) “Rampart causo solo silencio: Liderazgo Latino de Los Angeles,” La Opinion.
Jun 7, 2000. Vol. 74, Iss. 266; p. 11A

(107) “The Word Chicano”, May, 2000. “El rompecabezas de la identidad chicana,” La
Opinión, 28 de mayo de 2000
(108) The Making of the Political Pocho. La Prensa de San Diego. June 9, 2000,
http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/june09/pocho.htm

***109) “Murder in Arizona: It’s Only the Third World,” Jun 24 2000

“'Chinatown' en Arizona: INMIGRACION,” La Opinion. Jul 9, 2000. Vol. 74, Iss. 298; p. 1B.
“Murder in Arizona: It’s Only the Third World,” Jul 9, 2000

(110) “Murder In Arizona ... It is Only the Third World” June 2000
http://oldweb.uwp.edu/academic/sociology/pg/latinos/acuna.htm (also in La Opinión)

It’s Only the Third World

(111)“Identidad: Politica De Los Latinos,” La Opinion, 16 julio 2000

(112) “Los Latinos y la Izquierda,” La Opinion, 30 julio 2000

(113) “How the West Was Won,” June 2000. Appeared in "El olvido salvaje," La Opinion, 17
de junio de 2000. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/message/362

(114) “'Chinatown' en Arizona: INMIGRACION

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 09 July 2000: 1B.

115) “How Else Can We Teach Them A Lesson Capital Punishment,” Jul 5, 2000; “Pena de
muerte: iguales y menos iguales,” 16 de julio de 2000

(116) La identidad política de los latinos: ¡Hasta la vista 'baby'! La Opinion, Domingo, 16 de
julio de 2000. Latinos and Spanish-speaking Gringos Hasta la vista, baby! Parts I and II
(117) Pena de muerte: iguales y menos iguales, 16 de julio de 2000

(118) LOS ANGELES: Los latinos y la izquierda,” La Opinión, 30 de julio de 2000

(119) Latinos and Spanish Speaking Gringos: Hasta la vista, baby!

(120) “Latinos and Spanish Speaking Gringos: Hasta la vista, baby!” Jul 10, 2000; “LOS
ANGELES: Los latinos y la izquierda,” La Opinion, 30 de julio de 2000

(121) “CONVENCION NACIONAL DEMOCRATA EN LOS ANGELES: La política alternativa y

el racionalismo,” La Opinion, Domingo, 06 de agosto de 2000

(122) PENA DE MUERTE: IGUALES Y MENOS IGUALES

Acuna, Rodolfo F. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 27 Aug 2000: 1B.

(123) “Pleastanville EU: Europe Becomes A Continent of Immigrants,” Oct 8, 2000

(124) Rodolfo F. Acuña, “The Election that Just Passed,” 12-2000

(125) October 12, 2000, Letter to Editor, Letters@labusinessjournal.com, Joel Kotkin’s

September 4, 2000-article

(126) “The 2000 Election,” Dec 2000, Rough Draft. DOBLE ESTANDAR En la Politica
Estadounidense: Eleccion 2000,” La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 24 Dec 2000: 1B.
(127) Rough Draft, Who speaks for the Latino student? 12 25 2000

(128) ELECCION 2000: El doble estándar en la vida política estadounidense,” La Opinion,

Domingo, 24 de diciembre de 2000

(129) LOS LATINOS Y LA POLITICA: LA MAYORIA TIMORATA

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 11 Mar 2001: 1B.

(130) Revised 4 11 01, The Thin Line

(131) Heroes Olvidados PEARL HARBOR

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 27 May 2001: 1B.

(132) LA OPORTUNIDAD PERDIDA: La verdad es que un numero significativo de jovenes

negros apoyo a Villaraigosa. A diferencia de sus padres, no estaban dispuestos a pasar por
alto los preocupantes paralelos entre las tacticas de Hahn y las de Sam Yorty

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 10 June 2001: 1B

(133) How the West Was Won, June 2001

(134) “Commentary: Narrow National Interest: Foxes and the Mexicans La Prensa, San
Diego, September 14, 2001, http://laprensa-
sandiego.org/archieve/september14/comment2.htm

(135) “Oscar no era ningun Superman,” La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 26 Aug 2001: b1.
(136) Me voy de soldado raso . . . (I’ll Going as a Buck private”), Rough Draft Sep 24, 2001.
In “Acting like John Wayne of world isn't patriotic,” HoustonChronicle.com, Sept. 27, 2001.
EL VENDAVAL PATRIOTICO, La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 30 Sep 2001: 1B.

(137) MINORIAS ETNICAS: Me estoy volviendo blanco

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 28 Oct 2001: 1B.

( ) “The Word Chicano”, May, 2000. “El rompecabezas de la identidad chicana,” La

Opinión, 28 de mayo de 2000

A question often asked of me is, Why do you continue to use the word Chicano
when even the cholos have stopped using it? As probative is why do we continue to call the
field of study of Mexican-origin peoples, Chicano Studies, especially since the
demographics of the community has so dramatically changed in the past twenty years?
Should we broaden the term to include other brown people?

The fact that we ask these questions speaks to the complexity of forging a common
identity, not only in the United States but Mexico. They also underscore that Mexican origin
and other Spanish speaking people have not yet forged a community in this country. The
fact that we continuously change a name of a community or a field of study to meet the
fancy of politicos or the marketplace is to say the least not intellectually sound and
suggests a collective schizophrenia. What we call ourselves is important, and it has
consequences. For example, what we call a discipline determines the epistemological
basis of its knowledge and what its scholars study. It determines what questions they ask.
In short, it determines how we study knowledge, and what we do with that knowledge.

Unfortunately, most of our leaders and politicians, do not really think about the
implications of their choices. Most of them do not read history, and consequently take the
path of least resistance and select the sound bite of the moment. This is unfortunate since
history is an important tool in testing our assumptions. By not defining what we are going
to study, we over rely on the deduction process in arriving at answers. This avoids testing
popular assumptions, and the deduction reinforces distortions of history.
 The term Chicano as we will see was selected as an oppositional term that
encourages skepticism of established paradigms, which perpetuate societal inequalities.
It questions the general assumption that we have always called Mexicans, Mexicans.

The truth is that Mexicans did not universally call themselves Mexicans for many
years after Mexico’s independence in 1821. This identity was problematic until the
process of state formation was almost completed in the latter half of the 19th century.
Even then the term was limited to the mestizos and criollos who controlled Mexico. The
indigenous nations remained apart, with even today the Maya, Yaqui, Tarahumara and
others coexisting within the Mexican nation state as nations.

Spanish colonialism gave birth to a national schizophrenia. It imposed not only

European but African and Asian blood. It assigned different race and social categories to
the various racial mixtures. Privileges flowed to the European, and the darker subjects
were less equal. In short, colonialism stigmatized lo indio and erased the African.

Independence did not eliminate racist practices. Within the process of state-
building, some Mexicans wanted the new Mexican identity to be European rather than
indigenous. They often called themselves Hispano, a term popular in the Southwest and
throughout the Americas. The gente de razón, the civilized people, spoke Spanish as
opposed to the indigenous who did not. The term Hispano persists, and it is still used in
New Mexico and in other parts of the conquered territory. To be redundant, universal
identification as Mexicans came slowly.

In the Unites States, the Mexican-origin population increased after 1900. The
Mexican Revolution heightened the awareness of the indigenous past of Mexicans and
many workers identified as Mexicans. US racism framed nationalism among the first
generation. Anyone from south of the border was Mexican to most North Americans. With
the rise of the second and third generations of Mexican and the formation of a small
middle-class, the identity puzzle entered another phase. The utility of assuming a new
identity that assimilated into them into society was not lost on the new middle-class. After
World War I organizations with hyphenated names became more usual, i.e., Latin-
American and Spanish-American. Further, unlike the mutualistas, mutual aid societies,
and other US Mexican organizations, the names of these new organizations were in
English.

During the 1930s, a minority began to use the term Mexican-American. This term
seems to have been most popular in California and was popular among younger activists.
It gained popularity after World War II, although even second generation Mexican
Americans used just simply Mexican.

Race always played a role within the identity puzzle. Throughout the 1930s,
organizations like the League of United Latin American Citizens campaigned to pass
legislation that designated Mexicans as Caucasian. They believed that calling Mexicans
white would give them instant equality. Many believed that World War II had given them the
right to be identified as Caucasian.

Mexican-American with a hyphen crept into use in California and Arizona, i.e., the
Mexican-American Movement (1930s), la asociacion mexico-americana (anma) (1950s),
and the Mexican-American Political Association (1959). Attempts in the aftermath of the
Viva Kennedy presidential campaign of 1960 to organize a national Mexican-American
organization failed. Texans and New Mexicans refused to embrace Mexican-American
identity, forming instead the Political Association of Spanish-speaking Organizations
(PASO). Although they called themselves Mexicans privately, they rejected the word
Mexican publicly. Even with a hyphen, it seemed to compromise their Americanism.

The identity debate took on a new proportion during the 1960s when Mexican-
Americans with a hyphen became Mexican Americans without a hyphen. This was a subtle
change where Mexican became part of the noun, a coequal with American. A critical core
of activists made it clear that they no longer wanted assimilation, which the hyphen
symbolized. They in other words were Mexican and unlike the European immigrant would
retain that identity.

By the end of the decade, Mexican American youth dominated the activist
landscape. Youth actively manufactured movement symbols trying to motivate the
community to transformation society. Their struggles toward self identity expressed
themselves in the adoption of the term Chicano, which most of the older generation did
not accept because it had negative connotations. The term Chicano by some calculations
went as far back as the turn of the century; for some it meant plebe (plebeian), lower class-
-poor Mexican workers. For others the word came from chicanery, a word that meant
deceitful and immoral. For youth, Chicano symbolized the essence of their being in
college, which was to uplift and even transform the community.

The adoption of the word Chicano came at the Chicano Youth Conference in
Denver in 1969. We applied it to the new Mexican American Studies programs that same
Spring at Santa Barbara. I voted against its adoption because I felt Mexican American
without a hyphen more fully explained my identity. Putting Mexican in the face of the older
Tejano and New Mexican activists and more important in front of the Euroamerican was
essential to the process of liberation. In Texas youth had already made a break, with the
formation of the Mexican American Youth Organization. However, when Chicano became
our identity, I vowed to abide by the choice and respect the wishes of the majority. Even
more important, for the stake of stability and the sake of forging a community, making a
commitment to one identity was imperative.

Almost immediately the private and public sectors led the assault on the new
Chicano identity. There are varied reasons for the inability of the term Chicano to achieve
hegemony. As mentioned, it had political baggage among older Mexicans. Certainly the
government conspired to lump all Spanish-speaking groups under a common umbrella at
the expense of Chicanos. Creating the illusion of a voting block rivaling that of African
Americans became an obsession for Mexican-American politicos and other Spanish-
speaking officials. Just as important the private sector tended to look at everything in
terms of the marketplace. Although Mexican Americans comprised a growing market, it
was even larger if it included all the other groups.

The identity of choice of the 1970s, was the word Hispanic, an identity that the
media readily adopted, and frankly a word lacking epistemological skepticism. The term
was appealing to the new and larger middle class. The student militancy of the 1960s had
created a space for Chicanos on the university campuses. However, most Mexican-
American students did not participate in the student movement of the times. They did not
have the benefit of Chicano studies and did not know the history of the changing identities,
much less the significance of the word Chicano. Words like liberation, and pretensions to
the land had little meaning for them.

In all honesty, Chicano nationalist and leftist also functioned as cliques, alienating
many of Mexican-American (with a hyphen) students. The word Hispanic allowed the latter
to feel part of the hype, without having to think or be committed to anything. Because of
the lack of skepticism, few recognized the racial overtones of the word Hispanic, and its
throwback to the Hispano era.

The evolution of Latino is more complex. One the other, it was an attempt to unite
those of Latin American origin under one umbrella. In San Francisco’s Mission District and
Oakland where there were many Central Americans and Puerto Ricans, activists often
used la raza and sometimes Latino, with varying success. There were tensions, and some
Latinos accused Mexican Americans and later Chicanos of being nationalists when were
reluctant to shed their identity.

On another hand, the adoption of Latino was an effort to head off the term
Hispanic. There were former student activists in the mainstream media who recognized
the contradictions inherent in the word Hispanic. Reporters such as Frank del Olmo of the
Los Angeles Times influenced that newspaper to adopt “Latino” over Hispanic as a
compromise.

Finally, the 1980s increased the pressure to adopt a general term as the migration
of Central Americans swelled the barrios. Even former Chicano activists working with the
Spanish-speaking wanted to be inclusive of the newcomers, and they suffered from the
awkwardness of separating the disparate nationalities. Calling them all Latinos, they
believed would solve this dilemma.

By the 1990s, the erosion of the Chicano was almost complete. A survey by the US
Department of Labor in October 1995 found that 57.88 percent of the Latinos surveyed
preferred the term Hispanic as the racial or ethnic term that described them. 11.74 percent
said they preferred Latino, 12.34 preferred “Of Spanish origin,” and 7.85 percent (Chicanos
were probably included under this category) preferred “Some other term.” During this
decade the number of university programs calling themselves exclusively Chicano also
declined.

In retrospect, the term Chicano has been kept on life supports by student
organizations such as MECHA (el movimiento estudiantil chicanos de aztlan) and Chicano
nationalists. Marxist organizations such as the League of Revolutionary Struggle, through
its analysis of the national question, supported the position that Chicanos comprised a
nation, separate from the US and Mexico. More important, the term has been kept alive by
cultural workers. So what went wrong?

Much of the blame must be placed on a small minority of true believers who
narrowly defined the word Chicano, often tolerating tendencies that were sexist,
homophobic, and jingoists, often anti-Marxist, who excluded other Spanish-speaking
groups. The true believers exuded a “Mexico Love It Or Leave It!” mentality. To dissociate
themselves from these tendencies, many activists and academicians leaned toward the
term Latino.

While understandable some of this distancing was disingenuous. Academicians

who were never part of any struggle took the extreme positions of a minority of nationalists
and used it as a pretext not to be committed to the process of change caused by the
Chicano Movement. In this way they could avoid any involvement or duty toward existing
student or community structures.

With this said, Why do I continue to use the word Chicano when even the cholos
have stopped using it? Because it is the term that most expresses what I believe that
research is all about. I am not a Hispanic, and only use Latino to avoid confusion,
especially when dealing with statistics. I feel a special solidarity with Central Americans in
their individual particulars. I believe that the Chicano experience and the questions raised
by that movement will help them find their own identities, and cause unity between
themselves and Mexican Americans (without a hyphen). The term Latino, for example,
makes them minorities whom the Chicano majority eclipse.

Lastly, the term Chicano raises skeptical challenges to arguments made by

mainstream social scientists. How and what knowledge we excavate is critical to
understanding the coherence of Chicano studies as a discipline. For example, it ensures
that alternative views of knowledge are presented as dialectical oppositions. This would
not be true if the name were Mexican-American with a hyphen. It would assume that
Chicano history followed in the footsteps of the European immigrant. It would ignore the
common bond of colonialism that we have with other indigenous peoples of the Americas.
The opposite would result if I used the litany of Hispano, Mexican, Latin-American,
Spanish-American, and Mexican-American with a hyphen, Hispanic and even Latino.
(108) The Making of the Political Pocho. La Prensa de San Diego. June 9, 2000,
http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/june09/pocho.htm Rampart causo solo
silencio: Liderazgo Latino de Los Angeles La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 07 June 2000:
11A.

A by-product of affirmative action programs such as EOP (Educational Opportunities

Program) and the creation of Chicano studies in the 1960s was the dramatic expansion of a
Chicano middle- class. EOP, for example, ballooned the base of Mexican American
students in our colleges throughout the United States. Unlikely places like California State
University at Northridge in 1969 had only about 100 Mexican American students. This
number has jumped to about 9,000 Latino students by the 1990s.

Theoretically, the new Chicano Studies programs were supposed to politicize students,
and help bond them to the community. Indeed, thousands of Chicano students graduated
from such programs in the past thirty years, dramatically widening the bulk of the
Chicano/Latino middle class in the Los Angeles area. While at the university, many of these
graduates were student activists, participating in MECHA (Movimiento Estudiantil
Chicanos de Aztlan).

Activists at the time hoped that exposure to Chicano Studies would politically educate
professionals who would work in the community, offering leadership and helping nurture a
political culture. But, unfortunately, human nature does not work that way. As in the case
of students throughout the world, most former student activists settled back, formed
families, and reaped the harvest of the entitlements of the middle-class.

It cannot, however, be concluded that the Chicano/Latino middle-class does not care
about educational and social issues affecting the barrio. It is just that they become less
aware of injustices because they are often separated from the barrio spatially. The
opportunity for political discourse also diminishes over times, and Chicano professionals
become increasingly dependent on what they read in the papers or hear on the news about
politics. The lack of exposure to ideas outside the popular paradigm as well as social
issues thwart their political development, and, consequently, they remain political
pochos.
I make the analogy of the pocho because when many of us entered the public schools we
spoke fluent Spanish. In fact, it was our only language. Because of the lack of maintenance
of Spanish our development in the language remained at a primary school level. It did not
advance to reading Spanish language literature. English in many cases became our
primary language. Meanwhile, we were not able to take Spanish classes until high school
when we repeated like parrots, "?HOLA PACO, QUE TAL? ?COMO ESTAS?

Many former Chicano activists because of a lack of political maintenance have become
political pochos. They learned the basics of Chicano studies, its language, but have not
advanced beyond a cultural level. They identify with the culture, but not the political
dimensions of culture. Over time, they begin to think about the barrio as a justification for
their entitlements. Notions such as the transformation of the barrio become alien to their
political vocabulary.

This lack of a political development was painfully evident during the Ramparts Police
scandal. It in many ways represented the most blatant violation of civil rights in the City of
the Angel's history. Yet, the response of Chicano/Latino elected officials and our middle-
class leaders was deafening. It was as if we had no political leaders.

Perhaps it is not fair to draw comparisons. However, we can recall the reactions of African
American politicos and leaders during the Rodney King upheaval, of those of New York
Puerto Rican elected officials to the situation on Vieques Island where three Puerto Rican
U.S. Representatives were arrested in acts of civil disobedience.

Is it too much to expect the same level of commitment from Chicano elected officials?
After all they are the beneficiaries of the dramatic growth of not only a Mexican but Central
American population.

Is it too much to expect some sense of outrage from the Chicano middle class? It was
surprising that the large Chicano middle class did not react to the Ramparts scandal. After
all they are the recipient of the sacrifices and the common historical memories of the
1960s. It seems as if they did not understand the significance of civil rights, or how
important it is to protect them.

Indeed, the protection of civil rights has been a centerpiece of the struggle of Jewish-
Americans, African-Americans and Mexican American organizations such as the League of
United Latin American Citizens and the American G.I. Forum. Why then the silence? And,
what is the political price?

To put it more succinctly, what is the duty of the Chicano middle class to the barrios in
matters concerning civil rights? Have we grown too complacent? Have we come to believe
that equality and justice can be gotten solely through the election of Mexican American
elected officials? Or, even more sarcastically, is our contribution to the barrio measured by
our individual success? Or, should the question be, do we have any duty to others once we
make it?

The lack of response by the Chicano middle-class has consequences. It delivers the
message to the public at large and to all elected officials as well that we don't care.

In order to explore these questions, on June 8th , from 6-8 p.m. at the Wilshire United
Methodist Church, 4350 Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles, the For Chicana/Chicano Studies
Foundation will host a forum on "Has the Chicano/Latino Middle Class Abandoned Civil
Rights Issues?" Former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso will be the keynote
speaker. The public is invited; admission is free. We will discuss, What are civil rights?
Does it matter where we live? Or is it as Martin Luther King put it, "Injustice anywhere is
injustice everywhere."

The purpose of the forum is not to yell or point fingers. Neither is it to complain. The
purpose is to maintain and add to the language of transformation
(109) “Murder In Arizona ... It is Only the Third World” June 2000
http://oldweb.uwp.edu/academic/sociology/pg/latinos/acuna.htm (also in La Opinión)

It’s Only the Third World

No matter what kind of spin the media wants to put on it, what armed vigilante ranchers
are doing to Mexican migrant workers in southern Arizona is morally wrong. The US Border
Patrol, which sworn to serve and protect human life, is also wrong in abetting the
ranchers= terrorist acts.

What we are witnessing is the result of one hundred and fifty years of tensions. Just in the
past month vigilante ranchers shot Miguel Palafox, a young Mexican worker. Palafox
literally crawled back to Mexico for medical treatment, accusing Arizona cowboys on
horseback of shooting him. As in the past, the Border Patrol and US officials deny this
claim, instead blaming Mexican bandits.

The traffic of undocumented Mexicans and others increased through southern Arizona in
the 1980s and 1990s. Because Border Patrol sweeps in El Paso and San Diego have been
more successful in rounding up undocumented workers, many are forced to brave the
hazardous desert of southern Arizona. A minority of ranchers, wanna be Texas Rangers,
have taken the law into their own hands and hunted down Mexicans. They have allegedly
sent out a flyer, calling for other racist nativist to joining them in the hunt.

The media, which is supposed to check these excesses, has remained relatively silent.
When Professor Guadalupe Castillo of Pima College asked a New York reporter, why the
national media was so silent, he responded, AThe border is a Third World country, and
people just don=t give a damn.@ The situation on the border is much like that in the movie
AChinatown.@ No one cares what happens in Chinatown, just like few care what happens
to African Americans and Latinos in the barrios and ghettoes of this country.

Violence is not new to southern Arizona. It dates to when the United States took southern
Arizona from Mexico at gun point in 1853. Violence was pervasive throughout the 19th
century and into the 20th. There was not much of an outcry when in 1917, mine owners
deported 1200 strikers from Bisbee alone. Most of the deportees were Mexicans.
The Border Patrol, founded in 1924, was supposed to prevent the entry of unauthorized
persons and materials into U.S. territory. The Cold War changed this role. The Eisenhower
administration turned to military solutions as a way to control the influx of "dangerous" and
subversive peoples. His Attorney General Herbert Brownell trumpeted that America's
frontier with Mexico was out of control with dangerous people overrunning us. Retired
Gen. Joseph Swing, Eisenhower's former classmate at West Point, headed Operation
Wetback. Swing reorganized the command structure, got new equipment, and fitted them
out in smart, forest green uniforms.

The late 1960s saw the nation turn to a law and order rhetoric. The drug war was added as a
reason for keeping dangerous people out of the country. Millions of dollars were
committed from Washington to modernize, professionalize, and militarize local law
enforcement over the next decade. In this war, the INS manufactured statistics. It invented
euphemisms like Aillegal@ that really meant criminals, Aaliens@ that really meant
creatures from outer space.

In this context, Patrick Hanigan, his brother, Thomas, and their father, George, in August of
1976 captured Manuel Garcia Loya, Eleazar Ruelas Zavala, and Bernabe Herrera Mata,
who crossed their ranch, fronting the Mexican border west of Douglas, Ariz. They tortured
them, using hot pokers, cigarettes, knives and fired a shotgun filled with bird shot at them.
The ordeal lasted several hours before sent them naked and bleeding back across the
border.

An all white jury acquitted Patrick and Thomas Hanigan in 1977 of fourteen counts of
assault, kidnapping, and other felonies. Their father died before the trial. A public outcry
led by Chicano organizations forced the Carter administration in 1981 to try the Hanigans.
A federal jury found Patrick guilty. Thomas, because of his young age was acquitted. At
least fifteen killings and more than 150 incidents of alleged brutality occurred against
Mexicans in Arizona alone during the 70s. Border Patrol agents had shot and wounded
three undocumented aliens during the eighteen months before 1977.

In 1981 another all white jury in Arizona state court found a former rancher, W.M. Burris Jr.,
28, guilty of unlawfully imprisoning and of aggravated assault of a Mexican farm worker.
Burris suspecting his employee around of stealing, chained him around the neck. It did not
find him guilty of the more serious charge of unlawful imprisonment and kidnaping. Burris
used a deadly weapon, and he should have carried a mandatory five year prison sentence.

Also, in the early 80s, local authorities attacked the all black, 300 member Christ Miracle
Healing Center and Church in Miracle Valley located in Cochise County. After members
resisted this attack, Cochise County authorities charged them with assault and other
felonies. Two members of the congregation were shot and killed during the
confrontation. The Pima County courts released most of the defendants because Cochise
County refused to pay for legal cost for the indigent defendants. They returned to Chicago,
their original home.

The Reagan years saw the creation of the Border Patrol Tactical Teams (BORTACS), a
special paramilitary. By 1989 Congress had authorized 5,000 federal troops for border
duty. They built fences and walls and Border Patrol budget zoomed. Combat-ready troops
were committed, but removed after public outrage over the shooting of an unarmed
Mexican national. The military, however, continued to provide aid to immigration
authorities. Some 600 U.S. Marines and army troops, built and upgraded helicopter pads
and roads. They deployed strategies of counterinsurgency used by the U.S. military in
Southeast Asia in the 1960s. Their objective was to establish and maintain social control
over targeted civilian groups. Significantly, corruption and Border Patrol abuses zoomed
out of control during these years.

During the 1980s, Border Patrol agents shot dozens of people, killing eleven and
permanently disabling ten. To take the focus away from state violence, and to break the
growing opposition to the militarization of the border, the Reagan Justice Department in the
mid-1980s, prosecuted the religious sanctuary movement. They suggested Tucson as a
center for the movement. The courts acquitted the defendants, portrayed so-called
Adangerous people.@

Instead of reversing this legacy of violence, the Clinton Administration has pandered to the
BP and the racist nativist. Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris
Meissner has encouraged the ranchers= outlaw behavior by saying they "have legitimate
concerns about the trespassers on their property." While she condemned what she called
"vigilantes," Meissner said there was no evidence to support reports by Mexican media that
ranchers had shot at migrants in recent weeks. Secretary Madeleine Albright chimed in
that the ranchers had the right to evict trespassers from their land. Both shifted the focus
to the Adangerous people@--the drug traffickers and the coyotes, after all they were
Aillegal aliens.@

As for the media, it has made a hero of Roger Barnett, a rancher, who boasts of having
made thousands of arrests of Mexican migrants. Through his words and deeds he has
invited white supremacist groups to come to their ranches to help them "hunt" Mexican
Aaliens.@ I went to the border in the first days of June. After interviewing the head of the
Border Patrol, a Tejano, and the U.S. Attorney, a Chicano, I realized that not much change
had taken place. That police authorities everywhere whether in brown or white masks had
similar pretexts. Like with the Los Angeles Police Department=s Ramparts scandal--the
answer is that sure there are instances of malfeasance, but it was confined to just a couple
of rogue cops--a couple of bad apples--the system works. Yeah!

Just in the first days of June Yolanda Gonzalez, 19, after walking three days in the searing
desert with her 18 month old daughter on her hip, from Oaxaca gave the last of her water to
her baby and died. Four Mexicans perished that week. But, who cares, it=s only Chinatown.

(110) “How the West Was Won,” June 2000 Appeared in "El olvido salvaje," La Opinion, 17
de junio de 2000, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/message/362

The June 18th issue of Time Magazine carried an article on the LA Mayoral address titled
"How the West Was Won," which portrays James Hahn's victory over Antonio Villaraigosa
as some kind of macho victory. The article downplays Hahn's racist ads and instead
chooses to center on the divisions between Latinos and blacks.

As a matter of fact, I was turned off by the title, "How the West Was Won," since it
legitimizes a history of violence that saw the genocide of the American Indian, the invasion
of Mexico, and atrocities committed y groups such as the Texas Rangers. It is a sort of
bravado that has kept alive racism toward Mexicans and other minorities. Anyway you cut
it, racism is an ugly phenomenon.
That's why I was so torn when, on the day of the mayoral election, I read in the Los Angeles
Times that an African American, Lamont Hill, 27, had on May 26th been killed at a Tijuana
nightclub in a racially motivated barroom brawl: Hill, 6-foot-8-inches tall had been
barhopping in Tijuana with a friend and his older brother. They were accompanied by four
young American women, three of whom are Latinas and one who was African American. A
Mexican in a baseball cap approached one of the women, a Latina, and asked her to
dance. When the woman said "no," he scolded her for dating black men and used a racial
slur. She in turn told her companions.

Hours later, the two groups exchanged words. A Mexican male swung at Hill's friend, but
hit Hill instead. A fight broke out and the night club bouncers jumped on Lamont, beating
him with flashlights. Allegedly Tijuana police also hit the victim. Hill died of asphyxia by
strangulation. Five Mexicans, all nightclub employees, were later charged with aggravated
murder.

Meanwhile, Mexican authorities termed the incident aberration. According to them, fights
break out nearly every weekend night in Tijuana, but rarely end in death. To add insult to
injury, Mexican authorities sent the Oakland man's decomposing body back home in a
makeshift hearse without air-conditioning, arriving in a deteriorated

state.

So what does this have to do with Los Angeles? We could write off the incident by repeating
what Jake said in the film, "Chinatown," and say "it's only Chinatown," substituting "it's
only Tijuana. But, that's the problem: racism cannot be turned on and off as the situation
suits us.

We have incidents such as the one in Tijuana right here in our backyard.

Many Latinos and blacks get in fights, each justifying their grievances by repeating racist
constructs that have victimized the "other" throughout history.
The absurdity of this kind racism would be laughable if not so tragic. I am currently
researching a book on Chihuahuan history. Chihuahuenes like almost nortenos have a
mythical notion of race, with some thinking themselves criollos or at least mestizos. In
researching Mexican history, I have found that officially the mulatto population of

Chihuahua in 1810 was about 10 percent. That means that logically it can be assumed that
least a quarter of the population of the Mexican state had some African blood since
censuses were generally based on whether a person looked Indian, black, Spanish, or
mestizo.

Looking further back into history, we learn that Spanish colonial officials constructed racial
categories to maintain and dispense privileges according to color. Of course, if you had
money, you could always become white. Race limited the mobility of the castas as the
mixed bloods were referred to and the worse thing that you could be in Mexican colonial
society was an Indian. Being a mestizo took on prestige as the colonial period progressed
because it meant that you were more Spanish than Indian. Accordingly, if you were an Afro-
mestizo, it meant you were less black. By the end of the 300 hundred year ordeal, things
were so messed up that the only thing that remained was the notion that

si tenias el parecido de espanol (if you had the appearance of being a Spaniard), you were
prettier, more intelligent, and trustworthy than if you had the appearance of an Indian.

This gave way to a ridiculous colonial mentality among Mexicans and other Latinos where
we repeat to injustices of the past. Some hate their color, and we mirror our insecurities in
so many different manners. A child is born: "Que bonita pero prietita" ("How pretty but
dark"). Mothers telling their daughters not to go out into the sun because they'll get too
dark. However, the tragedy is that this expression mirrors real life. Go to Mexico City, and
color reflects the economic status of the population. Even here in LA, we are prisoners to
this past.

So now we come a full circle to how "Hahn Won the West." I religiously read Time among
other magazines, and there is a consistent disparate treatment of Latinos. In the article it
goes out of its way to soft pedal the race issue (in as far as Hahn is concerned) and goes
out of its way to mention that Villaraigosa flunked the California Bar and that

he had children out of wedlock. During and after the presidential campaign I saw little
reference to the fact that Vice-President Dick Cheney twice "flunked" out of Yale. Much
was made of the fact that Hahn's father gave him a legacy. However, that legacy went
beyond politics. He could attend the best law school and work if he wanted to or not work if
he wished. Villaraigosa had to attend an evening, working class law school, something that
is more prevalent among poor Latinos and other minorities than among white politicians
with a "legacy."

All of this makes the Lamont Hill case so tragic, so absurd. We all contribute to this
sickness called racism. Our Latino politicos should know better, and should not have
contributed to a "How the West was Won" mentality. This said, we should move on and we
as a community should be outraged at what happened to Lamont Hill. We should get off
the trip of dwelling on the fact that the older African American political establishment,
paranoid about their own falling status and power, and look to making sure that we
recognize racism within our own community. We have been victimized by it for too long.

(111) “Murder in Arizona: It’s Only the Third World,” Jun 24 2000

History is remembered, like a falling tree in the forest, if we hear or read about it. All too
often if we have not heard about something, it does not exist. Thus, when we hear about
the fallen tree, it is often too late to save it. In a matter of speaking, this is what is
happening in southern Arizona where the US Border Patrol is abetting the terrorist acts of
armed vigilante ranchers against Mexican migrant workers.

Public reaction to these events has been mixed, with the number shootings and murders of
Mexican migrants, for the most part, surprising those who have heard

about them. The picture of ranchers on horseback hunting Mexicans seems like a page out
of the Old West. Even the most callous of us are moved by stories of Mexican migrants
dying of thirst in the Arizona desert. However, for the most part, the majority does not
appear to have heard about the atrocities. Generally speaking, the American public treats
what is happening in southern Arizona as an aberration rather than accepting as the norm -
- that the violence is part of American culture, and its disregard for the “other.”

The most obnoxious of the wanna be rangers is Roger Barnett, who has boasted that he
has made thousands of arrests of Mexican migrants on “his ranch.” It does not bother him
that 80 percent of “his” ranch is on land leased from Arizona at give away prices. Barnett
and his followers, although they deny it, have sent out a racist "flyer" inviting white
supremacist groups to come to their ranches to help them "hunt" Mexican “aliens.” This
Call has attracted kooks such as Studio City, California, resident Glenn Spencer of
"American Patrol" and Barbara Coe, also of California.

The actions of the vigilantes have gone way beyond the bravado stage. A young Mexican
migrant worker named Miguel Palafox was shot, after which he made his way back to
Mexico for medical treatment. Palafox accused Arizona cowboys on horseback of
shooting him, a fact that the Border Patrol and others deny and blame Mexican bandits for.

Leftist pundits try to explain recent outbreaks of violence, while human rights activists
wonder why the press and people of conscience dismiss human rights violations. Why isn’t
there anyone marching to save the trees?

Many point to the Border Patrol’s increased militarization of the border during the 1980s
and 1990s. And surmise that the successful operations and sweeps in El Paso and San
Diego have forced undocumented workers to brave the hazardous desert of southern
Arizona.

Pressures from right wing extremist groups have also spawned racist nativism. Politicians
in search of scapegoats have used immigration as a wedge issue. All of the above has
encouraged federal authorities to adopt a military solution of preventing “dangerous
people”--criminal aliens from outer space-- from crossing the US-Mexico border. The
beneficiary of all this attention has been the Border Patrol, which has grown substantially
in the last two decades, as it has exploited the fear of the external threat posed by
terrorists and drug traffickers justifying their tactics.

The reasons for this violence are more involved than the above and must be place within a
historical context: Professor Guadalupe Castillo of Pima College, asked a New York
Reporter, why didn’t the national media report what was happening in southern
Arizona. He responded: “The border is a Third World country, and people just don’t give a
damn.”
The situation on the border is much like that in the movie “Chinatown.” No one cares what
happens in Chinatown. Just like few people outside the barrios care about violence in the
hood. Moreover, even Chicano historians ignore what is occurring in isolated places such
as Arizona. Chicano history is written from the viewpoint of two poles, one centered in
Texas and the other in California, with everything in between forgoten.

Violence on the Arizona-Sonora border is not new, however. It is not a phenomenon of the
past two decades. The United States acquired southern Arizona at gun point in 1853. US
minister James Gadsden told Mexico, sell us southern Arizona for $10 million or we’ll take
it. The colonizers subsequently racialized labor, and used Arizona as a staging area to seize
the rest of Sonora.

Acts of violence were wanton. In 1859, a posse hunted down a runaway Mexican servant
for N.B. Appel, a Tubac merchant, and administered him fifteen lashes in public. That
same year, they hunted and whipped seven Mexican peons from the Riverton Ranch. They
cut their hair so close that they shaved off half their scalps.

In the 1870s white cowboys banned Mexicans Tombstone after dark without. Tensions got
so bad in the territory during the 1870s that the Sonoran government refused to extradite
alleged lawbreakers to Arizona. Industrialization of Arizona during the last two decades of
the 19th century worsened relations between the two peoples. Mexican formed
mutualistas, mutual aid societies, to protect their interests.

White miners excluded Mexican miners from many mining camps, as the mine owners
institutionalized a double wage system. In the first part of the century, even the militant
Western Federation of Miners excluded Mexicans. Violence was rampant, and nativist
tried to exclude Mexican labor from Arizona mines by passing anti-immigrant legislation. In
1917, they deported Mexican miners from Jerome and Bisbee. In Bisbee, local authorities
rounded up 1200 strikers, and threw them in bull pens, and then loaded them onto railroad
cars and shipped and dumped them in the middle of the New Mexican desert in the heat of
summer. Most of these miners were Mexican.
As late as World War II, segregation existed in Arizona. It was not until the war that
Mexicans could become apprentices and skilled workers in the Southern Pacific. Mexicans
lived segregated housing and worked in segregated crews.

The border remained porous because the mines and agriculture needed Mexican labor.
The Border Patrol was founded in 1924; its purpose was to prevent the entry of
unauthorized persons and materials into U.S. territory. This mission, however, began to
change with the Cold War and official concerns shifted toward the protection the national
territory from the allegedly foreign threats of terrorism and drugs. This shift did not occur
recently as commonly believed. It began in the 1950s during the Eisenhower
administration when federal authorities increasingly turned toward military solutions as a
way to control the influx of "dangerous" peoples into the United States.

Dwight Eisenhower set a template for dealing with those dangerous people. His Attorney
General Herbert Brownell deployed negative propaganda as a strategy. His message was
that America's frontier with Mexico was out of control. We were being overrun by
dangerous people. Brownell allegedly hinted to newspaper publishers that the best way to
seal the border was to shoot down a couple of “wetbacks,” supposedly to scare the others
away. Through a campaign of fear and gross violation of human rights in the guise of
“Operation Wetback” the US Border Patrol supposedly halted “illegal immigration” across
the entire 2,000-mile US-Mexico frontier.

The man in charge of Operation Wetback was Eisenhower's former classmate at West
Point, retired Gen. Joseph Swing. Ever since Swing INS commissioners have run the Border
Patrol as a semi military group. The name “Operation Wetback” betrays military jargon.
Swing reorganized the command structure, got new equipment, and fitted them out in
smart, forest-green uniforms. He approved the use of a new tactic, the Mobile Task Force,
to clampdown on so-called illegal entrants in the worst problem areas. Swing carefully
orchestrated press coverage of Operation Wetback as if he were launching a military
campaign. Selective secrecy about the number of agents in the task force and their tactics
made the Border Patrol seem even bigger and more menacing than they really were. (That
is the message it wanted to send: it was big and bad). Swing’s campaign heightened anti-
US feelings between Mexicans, and it reinforced a dehumanizing, military mentality to the
Border Patrol.
Swing’s Cold War tactics also set into motion the pretext for future growth of the Border
Patrol. Following the example of the military that created the Soviet threat, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service perpetuated the myth of “dangerous” people
poised on the border. The build-up began in the late 1960s when--in reaction to the era's
social upheaval, particularly the violent inner-city riots, politicians increasingly turned to
law-and-order rhetoric and thinly veiled racial scapegoating for votes. This political hype
spawned the drug war--"the Trojan horse for deeper federal involvement in policing"--and
millions of dollars poured out from Washington to modernize, professionalize, and
militarize local law enforcement over the next decade.

During the 1970s, the INS manufactured statistics, giving the sense that all of Mexico was
poised at the border ready to invade the US. The INS used words such as invasion, and
substituted the name illegal alien for wetback, a term that had become politically
incorrect, but more important racist. The new term was even more insidious. The
euphemisms “illegal” really meant criminals, “aliens” meant creatures from outer space,
emoting a sense of inhuman, or at the very least “a dangerous people.”

As a result, tensions mounted in Arizona. Not surprisingly, the Hanigan case occurred in
this manufacture hysteria. In August 1976 Patrick Hanigan, his brother, Thomas, and their
father, George, captured Manuel Garcia Loya, Eleazar Ruelas Zavala, and Bernabe Herrera
Mata, who crossed their ranch, fronting the Mexican border west of Douglas, Ariz. They
tortured them, using hot pokers, cigarettes, knives and fired a shotgun filled with bird shot
at them. The ordeal lasted several hours before sent them naked and bleeding back across
the border.

The Mexicans, undocumented workers, had entered the country in the hope of finding farm
work. The Hanigans besides being ranchers owned Dairy Queen outlets in Bisbee, Ariz. An
all white jury of fourteen counts acquitted Patrick and Thomas Hanigan in a state court in
1977 of kidnaping, assault and robbery. George Hanigan had died shortly before the state
trial. Upon hearing the verdict, Mexican Consul Raul Avelyera said it "declared open
season on illegal aliens."

This should have ended the matter. However, Chicano organizations, led by a group of
young activists and law students, pressured the Carter Administration to bring about
justice. Activists in Douglas organized demonstrations and a week-long boycott of white-
owned businesses on the U.S. side of the border. A national coalition of Mexican American
groups petitioned the Justice Department for a civil rights probe, accusing the Carter
administration of being insensitive to their civil liberties. Because of the pressure, the
Justice Department announced a new probe of the Hanigan incident.

Chicano leaders stressed there had been at least fifteen killings and more than 150
incidents of alleged brutality against Mexican Americans, mainly by law-enforcement
officials, during the last three years. In Arizona alone, Border Patrol agents had shot and
wounded three undocumented aliens during the eighteen months before 1977.

The Federal court charged the Hanigans with violating the Hobbs Act, a law that governs
interstate commerce. The judge declared a mistrial in the first federal trial in 1980 when a
jury failed to reach a verdict. A retrial took place in February 1981, and Patrick Hanigan,
convicted of obstructing interstate commerce by torturing and robbing three illegal aliens
nearly five years before, was sentenced to three years in prison. A jury acquitted Thomas
Hanigan. The courts upheld the conviction on appeal. (Incidentally, shortly after the trial,
Thomas Hanigan, was arrested for possession with intent to distribute 574 pounds of
marijuana.)

In 1981 an all-white jury in Arizona state court found a former rancher, W.M. Burris Jr., 28,
guilty of unlawful imprisonment and aggravated assault of a Mexican farm worker. It did
not find him guilty of the more serious charge of unlawful imprisonment and
kidnaping. Burris had used a deadly weapon, which should have carried a mandatory five-
year prison sentence. The rancher, suspecting 20-year-old Manuel Hernandez Garcia, an
undocumented worker from the state of Vera Cruz, of stealing chained his employee
around the neck so he would not leave the ranch.

Not all of the victims have been Mexicans. The 1980s brought the increased traffic of
Salvadorans and other Central Americans. Also, in the early 80s the infamous Miracle
Valley affair occurred. The late Asa A. Allen, a radio and television evangelist, founded
Miracle Valley in Cochise County in 1958, situated at the base of the Huachuca Mountains
in southeastern Arizona, three miles north of the Mexican border.

By the beginning of the 1980s tensions flared periodically in the rural community of 1,500
people where the all-black, 300-member Christ Miracle Healing Center and Church. Its
members had moved there from Chicago in 1979. Church members their eighty-five
children out of the elementary school and resisted efforts by State Department of
Economic Security officials to take over the children's medical care. Because of this,
authorities characterized the Church of course as a sect.

Tensions between blacks and whites worsened. In September 1981 a bomb killed a church
member that he supposedly held in his lap while driving in a van. Authorities speculated
that the bomb was to be used to blow up the Sierra Vista jail where authorities were
holding two members. The church filed against county officials, charging civil rights
violations.

The next year, law-enforcement officers blockaded the town when the community resisted
Cochise County deputies when they attempted to serve traffic warrants. Two members of
the congregation were shot and killed during the confrontation, involving about 100
members of a faith-healing group. The officers said the church members were armed with
lead pipes, clubs, tire irons and guns. The Rev. Frances Thomas, the leader of the Christ
Miracle Healing Center and Church insisted that her followers were unarmed. The
blockade had lasted nine hours.

They tried church members in Tucson, some 60 miles from Miracle Valley. A jury
deliberated eight and a half hours before finding two members guilty of assaulting a
reporter and a cameraman. Five members of a church were found not guilty of aggravated
assault. Meanwhile, a judge dismissed a jury and called off a criminal trial involving twenty
members of the all-black church because Cochise County would not pay defense costs for
indigent defendants. Black members of the church did not return to Miracle Valley, for
"fear for their lives." The 300-member Christ Miracle Healing Center returned to Chicago,
its original home.

During the 1980s few heard the falling of the trees outside southern Arizona. Mexico's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported 117 cases of human rights abuses by US officials
against migrants from 1988 to 1990, including fourteen deaths. During the 1980s, Border
Patrol agents shot dozens of people, killing eleven and permanently disabling ten.
To take the focus away from state violence, and to break the growing opposition to the
militarization of the border, the Reagan Justice Department in the mid-1980s, prosecuted
the religious sanctuary movement. This movement specialized, according to authorities,
in the smuggling Central Americans into the United States. The sanctuary movement
began in 1980 as thousands of Salvadorans during the growing civil unrest in their country
sought refuge in the United States. The federal government charged eleven religious and
lay activists in the sanctuary movement. Uncover agents infiltrated immigrant rights
groups. One center was Tucson.

The investigation led to the indictment in January 16, 1985 of sanctuary movement
volunteers on charges that included criminal conspiracy to smuggle, harbor and transport
illegal aliens. They supposedly based the so-called “transporters and smugglers” in
Arizona, and the "Nogales connection" that housed immigrants in Nogales, Mexico, and
directed them across the border. Eventually, some defendants pled to lesser
charges. They acquitted others. Significant was the expenditure of time and effort in
prosecuting these so-called “dangerous people.”

Another expression of the Reagan years, was the creation of elite Border Patrol squads
known as Border Patrol Tactical Teams (BORTACS), which began receiving special
paramilitary training in the mid-1980s. By 1989 Congress had authorized 5,000
federal troops for border duty. They built fences and walls and Border Patrol budget
zoomed. Combat-ready troops were committed, but removed after public outrage over the
shooting of an unarmed Mexican national. The military, however, continued to provide aid
to immigration authorities. Some 600 U.S. Marines and army troops, built and upgraded
helicopter pads and roads. They deployed strategies of counterinsurgency used by the
U.S. military in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. Their objective was to establish and
maintain social control over targeted civilian groups.

During this period, Arizona did not only have the ranchers and the coyotes to contend with
but the U.S. Border Patrol, which critics characterized as a rogue agency. By all accounts,
the most renegade branch was based along the northern expanses of the Sonoran desert.
There numerous cases were reported of agents involved in smuggling drugs while on duty
and murder and assaults. For instance, Armando C. Garcia, Tucson's former chief
detention officer, was placed on three years probation in late 1991 after admitting that he
stole money from immigrants in the Border Patrol lockup. The agency drew scrutiny from
the FBI, Justice Department internal affairs investigators, federal prosecutors and local law
enforcement. During this period, U.S. authorities investigated possible civil rights
violations, summoning eleven agents to a police lineup. The even the press noted violence
between Border Patrol agents.

Some agents profited from the war on drugs. Douglas Agent Ronald Michael Backues
ferried marijuana in his pale green service Bronco. He spent the proceeds on among other
things on steroids for himself and breast implants for his wife. Former Agent Gary Patrick
Callahan trafficked cocaine stolen from smugglers. The courts convicted Veteran Border
Patrol Investigator Willie Garcia for lying in court about an accused heroin smuggler -- a
longtime informant with whom Garcia had once had an intimate relationship. They fired
Thomas A. Watson, a five-year Nogales veteran, for complicity in the cover-up of a fellow
agent's fatal shooting of a suspected trafficker. The courts acquitted Agent Michael
Andrew Elmer of murdering an unarmed suspected drug scout. A civil suit brought by
relatives of the dead man, Dario Miranda,Valenzuela, showed that Elmer shot him twice in
the back as he ran away.

The fire this time came when Arizona ranchers began to detain undocumented workers
crossing “their” land. Mexican officials protested the detentions by ranchers near the
border town of Douglas, Ariz. Ranchers with firearms rounded up groups of migrants on
their land and delivered them to federal law enforcement officials. Immigration and
Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner has encouraged the ranchers by
saying they "have legitimate concerns about the trespassers on their property." While she
condemned what she called "vigilantes," Meissner said there was no evidence to support
reports by Mexican media that ranchers had shot at migrants in recent weeks.

Secretary Madeleine Albright says U.S. authorities would strengthen efforts to monitor and,
if warranted, prosecute the ranchers. Still, she says that the ranchers had the right to evict
trespassers from their land, saying that the problem lies too with Mexican criminal
organizations that make the smuggling of illegal immigrants across the Mexico-U.S. border
big business, conveniently shifting the focus to the “dangerous people”--the drug
traffickers and the coyotes.

As mentioned an anonymous leaflet invited winter vacationers to park their recreational

vehicles on border ranches to help property owners guard against the migrants.
Emboldened by the inaction of local, state and federal officials, Roger Barnett show boated
for the press, calling this an “extremely sensitive and dangerous situation,” an
“overwhelming invasion of thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens and drug traffickers
from Mexico into Cochise County.” He called for the “drastic need for action in the
interests of national security, citizen safety and protection of wildlife resources and
habitat.” Barnett and his brother, Don, have allegedly detained up to 170 migrants in a day.
Understandably, this has brought a reaction from Mexicans. In June a retired oil worker in
northern Mexico offered a $10,000 bounty for anyone who shot a US border patrol agent.

Meanwhile, people are dying trying to cross the Sonoran Desert to get a piece of what we
daily advertise on their TV’s. After walking three days in the searing desert with her 18-
month-old daughter on her hip, Yolanda Gonzalez, 19, from Oaxaca gave the last of her
water to her baby and died during the first days of June. Four Mexicans perished that week.
From October to June of this year, eighteen people have died of exposure and dehydration
in the Sonoran Desert. Expanded Border Patrol enforcement in California and Texas has
funneling thousands through the Arizona desert. Border Patrol policy is however not
without a fault for these deaths. According to Guadalupe Castillo, a longtime Tucson
activist, the stepped-up enforcement is killing border crossers: "They are being pushed into
harsher terrain.” Meanwhile, US officials write off these deaths as “unfortunate
incidents.”

Despite this official callous, community groups such as the Tucson-based Coalition for
Human Rights continue to struggle, very much alone on the Arizona border. Few Chicano
or Latino organizations have so far offered help, other than to express outrage via the
internet, which hopefully will at least allow many of us to know that the trees are falling,
even if we don’t do anything about it.

I visited Tucson, traveling to Bisbee and Douglas on June 2 and 3, 2000. Although I was
skeptical that anyone would care about what happens in that Third World, I drew
inspiration from that so many activists whom I met there three decades ago were still
struggling. Chicanos have maintained multiracial coalitions over the years, and activists
involved in the Hanigan case such as Guadalupe Castillo, Raquel Rubio Goldsmith, and
attorneys Jesus Romo and Isabel Garcia are still fighting injustice. I also found that not all
the ranchers agreed with Barnett and his ilk.

Still, I was disturbed with some of the change: None of the Chicano academics who you
would expect to be defending the human rights of the undocumented workers seemed to
be involved and there was not a critical mass of students present at the vigils. I saw more
brown faces in those green uniforms of the Border Patrol and among the government
functionaries. The head of the Border Patrol is a Tejano and the U.S. Attorney , who
claimed that he brought the Hanigans to justice, is a Chicano. However, interviewing
seemed like deja vu, like interviewing the Los Angeles Police Department on the Ramparts
scandal--just a couple of rogue cops--a couple of bad apples--the system works--yeah!.

(112) “How Else Can We Teach Them A Lesson Capital Punishment,” Jul 5, 2000; “Pena de
muerte: iguales y menos iguales,” 16 de julio de 2000

When the attorneys for Manuel Salazar, a young Chicano on Illinois’s death row, learned
that I would be in the Chicago area in 1992, on a lecture tour, they asked me to help them
build support for a new trial. The “People” had convicted Manuel Salazar in the murder of
officer Martin Murrin, a Joliet police officer in 1984.

Murrin and his partner on the usual grounds of suspicion stopped Salazar and four other
Latinos and blacks. Murrin had harassed Salazar, who panicked and ran carrying a gym bag
with a gun. Cornered at a fence, Salazar threw his bag over the fence. The officer pulled a
throw gun and severely beat Salazar who struggled for the gun. It discharged, killing Murrin.

Salazar, fearing for his life, fled to Texas and then to Mexico, from where US authorities
illegally extradited him (his followers claimed the government kidnaped him). In 1985 the
“People” of Illinois tried Salazar for first degree murder. Salazar claimed he acted in self-
defense, seeking to reduce the murder charge to voluntary manslaughter. The trial was
tainted. Salazar had an incompetent defense: his lawyer was under investigation during
trial and later was suspended by the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
He failed to challenge the trial judge’s instructions on the initial appeal of the case, which
improperly charged the jury. The judge had instructed the jury that they should require the
prosecution to prove, rather than disprove, that the defendant was in enough fear to
warrant a killing.

In 1994 the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the murder conviction in a 6-1 decision,
because
the judge did not tell the jury that prosecutors had to prove any mitigating circumstances
were surrounding Murrin's death. Two years later a jury retried Salazar of manslaughter,
and received credit for the eleven years and 191 days he spent behind bars.

While Salazar languished on death row for some eleven years, he became an
accomplished artist. His new attorneys used this as a way to call attention to his case. It
was something that I emphasized when I sought to involve Chicano artists to raise funds.
Instead, much to my dismay it got me into intense arguments, with some artists turning art
critics, and some academicians objecting to the religious themes in his art.

The support for Salazar did not come easily. Within the Chicano community, opposition to
capital punishment has always been limited to a core of activists. Perhaps, like my artist
friends, and my scholarly brethren, Latinos overall have fail to understand that the politics
of the death penalty trumps all other arguments.

The truth be told, Latinos should be concerned about capital punishment just as they are
with the growing xenophobia in this country. The United States is a nation of immigrants,
and immigration law has always mirrored the tensions with the country. The silent majority
has always had the attitude of comedian Mort Saul, who once said, sure that he was for
capital punishment, how else could you teach them a lesson.

Until now, it has been good politics to support the death penalty. Like the public's hysteria
over immigration, crime is a wedge issue. In 1988 election George Bush Sr. sensed that
Michael Dukakis's opposition to the death penalty was a weakness. He dredged it up in the
debates, and ran incendiary advertisements about Willie Horton, a black man.

Bill Clinton, ever adept at stealing a right-wing issue, did not commit Dukakis's sin. During
his first term as governor of Arkansas in the 1970s, he regularly commuted the sentences
of convicted murders, and he got kicked out of office. By 1992, Clinton staunchly defended
the death-penalty. During the campaign he flew back to Arkansas to preside over the
execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a severely brain-damaged prisoner.

Public opinion has for the moment begun to shift. Historically, Americans have supported
the death penalty because of a desire for retribution, and the belief that this is the only way
to prevent crime. Politicians have exploited the fear of crime, portraying the criminal-
justice system as a revolving door that allows convicted killers to go free. Underneath all
this, Americans have a fundamental faith in the fairness of the American court system.

Thus, Americans justify the death penalty because they assume that they are executing the
right person. They ignored the fact that for every seven executions --close to 500 since
1976-- one other prisoner on death row has been found innocent. This knowledge has
temporarily shaken public confidence that only the guilty sit on death row is, and that the
system works.

In January 2000, Republican Governor George Ryan of Illinois declared a moratorium on

executions. The fact that Illinois had exonerated thirteen death-row inmates since 1976
shook the conservative governor’s faith in the system. A case that weighed on his decision
was that of Rolando Cruz, who the state freed after twelve years on the Illinois Death Row
for the 1983 murder and rape of a ten-year-old girl.

They charged Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez with the murder of the small girl although
police had arrested a repeat sex offender and murderer named Brian Dugan who
confessed to the crime. DNA testing linked Dugan to the crime. At Cruz's first trial an expert
claimed that she could tell a person's class and race by shoe imprints. At the third trial in
1995, a police officer admitted that he had lied when he testified Cruz had confessed in a
"vision" about the girl's murder. The judge declared Cruz not guilty. An investigation led to
criminal charges against the authorities who prosecuted Cruz, and the identification of the
actual killer.

While the Salazar and the Cruz cases expose glaring flaws in the system, other cases make
it more difficult to shift the paradigm. For example, of the twenty inmates on federal death
rows, fourteen are black, four white, one Latino and one Asian. Here, some Mexican
Americans rationalize that the federal government is prosecuting only one of their own,
and after all he was an admitted drug runner.

Take the case of Juan Raul Garza, a migrant farm worker and high school dropout, who is
scheduled to be executed on August 5, 2000, and who is the first inmate to be executed by
the federal government in more than thirty-five years. In 1993 a federal court convicted
Garza of marijuana smuggling and three drug-related murders in Brownsville, Tex.. The
state charged Garza under the 1988 federal "drug kingpin" law, which allowed the death
penalty for anyone convicted of murder in furtherance of an illegal drug enterprise. They
gave garza’s associates, including the triggermen in some murders, lighter sentences in
exchange for their testimony against Garza. The appeal posits that prosecutors sought the
death penalty in Garza's case, based on race.

Of the twenty-seven defendants against whom the George Bush Senior administration
sought the death penalty for drug-related killings, twenty-three were African-American or
Latino. Improprieties occurred at the punishment phase of Garza's trial, when prosecutors
introduced testimony that Garza committed four murders in Mexico. Mexican authorities
had never prosecuted him for the alleged murders. Does it matter? Garza was a drug
dealer.

Consider that Texas and Virginia account for almost half of all executions in the US. In the
Lone Star state, George W. Bush, son and compassionate conservative, has refused to
grant a stay of execution in death penalty cases riddled with evidence of racial bias. When
they asked the Republican presidential candidate, how he could be so certain that in all of
the executions on his watch the defendants were guilty, he replied that nothing like what
had happened in Illinois had happened on his watch. "I'm confident of the guilt of the
person who committed the crime." (Bush has now presided over 135 executions, more
than any governor in US history).

An investigation by the Chicago Tribune casts doubt on George W’s arrogance. It found
that of the 131 cases where they have executed a death row inmate in Texas under
Governor George W. Bush: forty-three included defense attorneys publicly sanctioned for
misconduct, either before or after their work on these cases. Forty involved trials where the
defense attorneys presented no evidence or only one witness during the sentencing phase.
Twenty-nine included a psychiatrist who gave testimony that the American Psychiatric
Association condemned as unethical and untrustworthy. Twenty-three included jailhouse
informants, considered to be among the least credible of witnesses. Twenty-three
included visual hair analysis, which has consistently proved unreliable.

Further, Texas does not have a statewide public defender system. The responsibility of
assigning legal counsel to poor defendants falls to the counties. In capital murder cases,
the judge assigns the defense counsel. Texas ranks 40th among states in the amount of
money it spends on indigent defense.
Not too surprisingly, the abuses of the system have fallen greatest on the poor. Take the
case of Jesse San Miguel, 28, who recently died of lethal injection, after the compassionate
conservative declined to grant him thirty more days to explore whether racially tinged
remarks biased the jury to sentence him to death for a 1991 rampage that left four dead.
San Miguel admitted to shooting four people, including a pregnant teenager, in the cooler
of a Taco Bell. So why should we care about San Miguel?

The issue here is the systemic incompetent representation afforded Latinos in Texas. San
Miguel's defense attorney was incompetent. He quizzed several witnesses about the
"pushy and macho" attitude of Mexican Americans. The prosecutor asked jurors to pay
attention to those who "cross that border" when committing crimes. The Dallas-based
defense attorney asked one witness: "A young Mexican American man does not let anyone
insult or belittle his woman, does he?" trying to show that San Miguel's propensity for
fighting was typical for his peer group, was trying to imply that it was part of the culture. An
expert witness for the state told jurors in several trials that Latinos and blacks were more
likely to be dangerous in the future than whites.

Miguel Angel Martinez, born on August 6, 1973, in Laredo, Texas, is also sitting on death
row. In January 1991, armed police officers arrested Miguel Angel. Police had previously
arrested Miguel Venegas from whom they recovered knives believed to have been used to
commit a crime. Venegas implicated Martinez and another youth, Manuel "Milo" Flores,
son of district judge Manuel Flores. "Milo" was not arrested nor as he been to this day. It
took his lawyers seven months even to speak to Martinez. During this period, his attorneys
kept withdrawing from the case. One attorney refused to continue unless the family gave
him $10,000. Finally, an attorney who had never had a capital case accepted. He was so
incompetent that Miguel Angel attempted to dismiss him. The attorney refused to absent
himself, and the judge concurred, even as he failed to confer with his client.

The court convicted Miguel Angel of capital murder on April 6, 1992. During the hearing to
assess the punishment, the jury appeared deadlocked. A person in the courtroom saw
the prosecutor and the two parents of one of the victims go in the room where the jury was
deliberating over the punishment of Martinez. Thirty minutes after this happened the jury
came out with an unexpected death sentence. There was no change of venue due to the
ineffectiveness and lack of interest by his court-appointed attorney. They began and
completed this capital murder jury trial within five days.
Even as the unsuccessful appeal went forward, the charade continued. On December 6,
1993, the Venegas escaped from a detention center. Friends had told police of the
planned escape of Venegas. "Milo" Flores was never arrested. On December 14, 1994, the
Court of Criminal Appeals rejected every error that the defense raised. Although the Court
issued a 31-page opinion, it made only a six-page portion public. On October 30, 1995, the
U.S. Supreme Court, refused to consider the Martinez case. By that, officially making his
conviction and sentence final. The question is, did Martinez receive a fair trial?

Texas executed Leonel Herrera in 1993 for a 1982 murder though another man confessed
to murdering two South Texas police officers. The court sentenced Herrera to death. Eight
years later, on the verge of his execution, a lawyer signed an affidavit saying that Herrera's
brother had confessed the killings. Texas courts refused to reopen the case because the
new evidence had come long after their 30-day limit for additional evidence. Herrera's case
went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled six to three that Texas's time
limitation was constitutional. The case sharply divided the high court. Justice Blackmun
said caustically from the bench that "the execution of a person who can show that he is
innocent comes perilously close to simple murder."

Despite George W.’s certainty, his judgment was tested in June 2000 when the U.S.
Supreme Court ordered Texas courts to provide a new sentence hearing to death-row
inmate Victor Hugo Saldano. The court ruled that the prosecution used racially
discriminatory evidence violating the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution's
14th Amendment. It put into question the cases of six other Texas death row inmates. A
Texas court had allowed a psychologist to testify about Saldano's "future dangerousness"
based on factors that included the fact that Saldano was a Latino. The Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals had previously upheld Saldano's death sentence, stating that the
prosecution's use of ethnicity as a factor to be considered in death sentencing was not a
"fundamental error" requiring reversal.

Despite this decision, the Roman circus went on. Texas executed three inmates in three
days, and with eight more scheduled before the end of June 2000. Bush poised himself to
surpass its record of thirty-seven executions in a single year (1997). At the time, Texas had
ten Latinos awaiting execution.
A disturbing trend is the execution of juveniles. In wanting to teach them a lesson the
public has called for harsher sentences. Between 1992 and 1997, 47 states passed laws
making it easier to try children as adults. Of the thirty-eight death penalty states, nineteen
execute 16- and 17-year-olds and four execute those seventeen and older. In 1988, the
U.S. Supreme Court held that executing children under the age of sixteen violated the
Eighth Amendment's ban against "cruel and unusual punishment." This principle has
been challenged as of late. Former Gov. Pete Wilson, the architect of California's recently
passed Proposition 21, said the age for the death penalty should be lowered to fourteen.
Texas legislator Jim Pitts proposed lowering the age to eleven.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the number of youths under the age of 17,
committed to adult prisons, has more than doubled, rising from 3,400 in 1985 to 7,400 in
1997. More than a quarter of these youths in adult prisons are between the ages of 13 and
16.

These statistics go to the moral fibre of the country. I will always remember what a rabbi at
my first teaching job at a Yeshiva, (I was the only goy at the school) told me. That God
judged a society on how well it took care of its old and its children. This is why the
dismantling of the juvenile justice system shows that we do not live in a compassionate
society. It has shifted foci away from the individual child's needs, to the seriousness of the
crime and teaching them a lesson. Age, intent, why he is in trouble, and extenuating factors
do not matter. Just get rid of the kid.

The United States the honor with the collapsed state of Somalia as the only countries in the
U.N not to ratify the organizations 10-year-old U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child,
which forbids the death penalty against youths under eighteen. Similarly, it has not signed
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which more than 144 countries
have signed, because it also bans the execution of those who commit crimes under the
age of eighteen. In the 1990s, Amnesty International reported nineteen executions of child
offenders. The United States executed ten of these children.

Currently about seventy death row inmates (all male) were sentenced as juveniles, about
2% of the total death row. Texas again leads with 37% of these juveniles being from the
Lone Star state. We have executed twelve men for crimes committed as juveniles since
1976. Since 1985 only the USA, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
Yemen have executed juveniles. According to Amnesty International, in 1999 the US along
with China, Congo, Iran and Saudi Arabia accounted for 85% of the world's executions.

A Scripps-Howard Survey found that 57% of Texans polled do not share George W’s self
righteousness and believe Texas has executed someone who was innocent of the crime.
Three quarters of them believe that the state should declare a moratorium on death
sentences in cases that DNA testing might affect. The survey also showed support for
capital punishment was based on race, supported by 81% of whites, 55% among Latinos
and 44% among blacks.

In conclusion, because of space I have focused on Texas in this essay. Suffice to say that
California, which enjoys a more tolerant reputation that the former confederate state, is
not too far behind. Witness the passage of Proposition 21, which effectively lowers the age
of the youthful offender. Like Texas and other states California has scuttled or at least
handicapped its once vaunted juvenile justice system. California also has the largest death
row in the nation with 560 inmates. About 100 of these are Latinos; about 200 blacks.
Justice is just us.

The purpose of the essay is to attempt to generate discuss within the Chicano/Latino
community. I do not place too much hope on the current trends that show that a
substantial number of Americans are beginning to soften on their faith that the system is
executing only the guilty. The truth be told, a determining factor in this softening has been
the inclusion of DNA evidence. It does not bother them. It does not bother George W. Bush
that capital punishment is morally questionable, or that its meting out was racially
motivated, or that the defendant received inadequate legal representation. The American
public is fickle, witness its softening on the abortion question where it is going to the right.
All it takes to change Americans is a little recession, another evil empire.

(113) “How Else Can We Teach Them A Lesson Capital Punishment,” Jul 5, 2000; “Pena de
muerte: iguales y menos iguales,” 16 de julio de 2000

When the attorneys for Manuel Salazar, a young Chicano on Illinois’s death row, learned
that I would be in the Chicago area in 1992, on a lecture tour, they asked me to help them
build support for a new trial. The “People” had convicted Manuel Salazar in the murder of
officer Martin Murrin, a Joliet police officer in 1984.

Murrin and his partner on the usual grounds of suspicion stopped Salazar and four other
Latinos and blacks. Murrin had harassed Salazar, who panicked and ran carrying a gym bag
with a gun. Cornered at a fence, Salazar threw his bag over the fence. The officer pulled a
throw gun and severely beat Salazar who struggled for the gun. It discharged, killing Murrin.

Salazar, fearing for his life, fled to Texas and then to Mexico, from where US authorities
illegally extradited him (his followers claimed the government kidnaped him). In 1985 the
“People” of Illinois tried Salazar for first degree murder. Salazar claimed he acted in self-
defense, seeking to reduce the murder charge to voluntary manslaughter. The trial was
tainted. Salazar had an incompetent defense: his lawyer was under investigation during
trial and later was suspended by the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
He failed to challenge the trial judge’s instructions on the initial appeal of the case, which
improperly charged the jury. The judge had instructed the jury that they should require the
prosecution to prove, rather than disprove, that the defendant was in enough fear to
warrant a killing.

In 1994 the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the murder conviction in a 6-1 decision,
because

the judge did not tell the jury that prosecutors had to prove any mitigating circumstances
were surrounding Murrin's death. Two years later a jury retried Salazar of manslaughter,
and received credit for the eleven years and 191 days he spent behind bars.

While Salazar languished on death row for some eleven years, he became an
accomplished artist. His new attorneys used this as a way to call attention to his case. It
was something that I emphasized when I sought to involve Chicano artists to raise funds.
Instead, much to my dismay it got me into intense arguments, with some artists turning art
critics, and some academicians objecting to the religious themes in his art.

The support for Salazar did not come easily. Within the Chicano community, opposition to
capital punishment has always been limited to a core of activists. Perhaps, like my artist
friends, and my scholarly brethren, Latinos overall have fail to understand that the politics
of the death penalty trumps all other arguments.
The truth be told, Latinos should be concerned about capital punishment just as they are
with the growing xenophobia in this country. The United States is a nation of immigrants,
and immigration law has always mirrored the tensions with the country. The silent majority
has always had the attitude of comedian Mort Saul, who once said, sure that he was for
capital punishment, how else could you teach them a lesson.

Until now, it has been good politics to support the death penalty. Like the public's hysteria
over immigration, crime is a wedge issue. In 1988 election George Bush Sr. sensed that
Michael Dukakis's opposition to the death penalty was a weakness. He dredged it up in the
debates, and ran incendiary advertisements about Willie Horton, a black man.

Bill Clinton, ever adept at stealing a right-wing issue, did not commit Dukakis's sin. During
his first term as governor of Arkansas in the 1970s, he regularly commuted the sentences
of convicted murders, and he got kicked out of office. By 1992, Clinton staunchly defended
the death-penalty. During the campaign he flew back to Arkansas to preside over the
execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a severely brain-damaged prisoner.

Public opinion has for the moment begun to shift. Historically, Americans have supported
the death penalty because of a desire for retribution, and the belief that this is the only way
to prevent crime. Politicians have exploited the fear of crime, portraying the criminal-
justice system as a revolving door that allows convicted killers to go free. Underneath all
this, Americans have a fundamental faith in the fairness of the American court system.

Thus, Americans justify the death penalty because they assume that they are executing the
right person. They ignored the fact that for every seven executions --close to 500 since
1976-- one other prisoner on death row has been found innocent. This knowledge has
temporarily shaken public confidence that only the guilty sit on death row is, and that the
system works.

In January 2000, Republican Governor George Ryan of Illinois declared a moratorium on

executions. The fact that Illinois had exonerated thirteen death-row inmates since 1976
shook the conservative governor’s faith in the system. A case that weighed on his decision
was that of Rolando Cruz, who the state freed after twelve years on the Illinois Death Row
for the 1983 murder and rape of a ten-year-old girl.

They charged Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez with the murder of the small girl although
police had arrested a repeat sex offender and murderer named Brian Dugan who
confessed to the crime. DNA testing linked Dugan to the crime. At Cruz's first trial an expert
claimed that she could tell a person's class and race by shoe imprints. At the third trial in
1995, a police officer admitted that he had lied when he testified Cruz had confessed in a
"vision" about the girl's murder. The judge declared Cruz not guilty. An investigation led to
criminal charges against the authorities who prosecuted Cruz, and the identification of the
actual killer.

While the Salazar and the Cruz cases expose glaring flaws in the system, other cases make
it more difficult to shift the paradigm. For example, of the twenty inmates on federal death
rows, fourteen are black, four white, one Latino and one Asian. Here, some Mexican
Americans rationalize that the federal government is prosecuting only one of their own,
and after all he was an admitted drug runner.

Take the case of Juan Raul Garza, a migrant farm worker and high school dropout, who is
scheduled to be executed on August 5, 2000, and who is the first inmate to be executed by
the federal government in more than thirty-five years. In 1993 a federal court convicted
Garza of marijuana smuggling and three drug-related murders in Brownsville, Tex.. The
state charged Garza under the 1988 federal "drug kingpin" law, which allowed the death
penalty for anyone convicted of murder in furtherance of an illegal drug enterprise. They
gave garza’s associates, including the triggermen in some murders, lighter sentences in
exchange for their testimony against Garza. The appeal posits that prosecutors sought the
death penalty in Garza's case, based on race.

Of the twenty-seven defendants against whom the George Bush Senior administration
sought the death penalty for drug-related killings, twenty-three were African-American or
Latino. Improprieties occurred at the punishment phase of Garza's trial, when prosecutors
introduced testimony that Garza committed four murders in Mexico. Mexican authorities
had never prosecuted him for the alleged murders. Does it matter? Garza was a drug
dealer.
Consider that Texas and Virginia account for almost half of all executions in the US. In the
Lone Star state, George W. Bush, son and compassionate conservative, has refused to
grant a stay of execution in death penalty cases riddled with evidence of racial bias. When
they asked the Republican presidential candidate, how he could be so certain that in all of
the executions on his watch the defendants were guilty, he replied that nothing like what
had happened in Illinois had happened on his watch. "I'm confident of the guilt of the
person who committed the crime." (Bush has now presided over 135 executions, more
than any governor in US history).

An investigation by the Chicago Tribune casts doubt on George W’s arrogance. It found
that of the 131 cases where they have executed a death row inmate in Texas under
Governor George W. Bush: forty-three included defense attorneys publicly sanctioned for
misconduct, either before or after their work on these cases. Forty involved trials where the
defense attorneys presented no evidence or only one witness during the sentencing phase.
Twenty-nine included a psychiatrist who gave testimony that the American Psychiatric
Association condemned as unethical and untrustworthy. Twenty-three included jailhouse
informants, considered to be among the least credible of witnesses. Twenty-three
included visual hair analysis, which has consistently proved unreliable.

Further, Texas does not have a statewide public defender system. The responsibility of
assigning legal counsel to poor defendants falls to the counties. In capital murder cases,
the judge assigns the defense counsel. Texas ranks 40th among states in the amount of
money it spends on indigent defense.

Not too surprisingly, the abuses of the system have fallen greatest on the poor. Take the
case of Jesse San Miguel, 28, who recently died of lethal injection, after the compassionate
conservative declined to grant him thirty more days to explore whether racially tinged
remarks biased the jury to sentence him to death for a 1991 rampage that left four dead.
San Miguel admitted to shooting four people, including a pregnant teenager, in the cooler
of a Taco Bell. So why should we care about San Miguel?

The issue here is the systemic incompetent representation afforded Latinos in Texas. San
Miguel's defense attorney was incompetent. He quizzed several witnesses about the
"pushy and macho" attitude of Mexican Americans. The prosecutor asked jurors to pay
attention to those who "cross that border" when committing crimes. The Dallas-based
defense attorney asked one witness: "A young Mexican American man does not let anyone
insult or belittle his woman, does he?" trying to show that San Miguel's propensity for
fighting was typical for his peer group, was trying to imply that it was part of the culture. An
expert witness for the state told jurors in several trials that Latinos and blacks were more
likely to be dangerous in the future than whites.

Miguel Angel Martinez, born on August 6, 1973, in Laredo, Texas, is also sitting on death
row. In January 1991, armed police officers arrested Miguel Angel. Police had previously
arrested Miguel Venegas from whom they recovered knives believed to have been used to
commit a crime. Venegas implicated Martinez and another youth, Manuel "Milo" Flores,
son of district judge Manuel Flores. "Milo" was not arrested nor as he been to this day. It
took his lawyers seven months even to speak to Martinez. During this period, his attorneys
kept withdrawing from the case. One attorney refused to continue unless the family gave
him $10,000. Finally, an attorney who had never had a capital case accepted. He was so
incompetent that Miguel Angel attempted to dismiss him. The attorney refused to absent
himself, and the judge concurred, even as he failed to confer with his client.

The court convicted Miguel Angel of capital murder on April 6, 1992. During the hearing to
assess the punishment, the jury appeared deadlocked. A person in the courtroom saw
the prosecutor and the two parents of one of the victims go in the room where the jury was
deliberating over the punishment of Martinez. Thirty minutes after this happened the jury
came out with an unexpected death sentence. There was no change of venue due to the
ineffectiveness and lack of interest by his court-appointed attorney. They began and
completed this capital murder jury trial within five days.

Even as the unsuccessful appeal went forward, the charade continued. On December 6,
1993, the Venegas escaped from a detention center. Friends had told police of the
planned escape of Venegas. "Milo" Flores was never arrested. On December 14, 1994, the
Court of Criminal Appeals rejected every error that the defense raised. Although the Court
issued a 31-page opinion, it made only a six-page portion public. On October 30, 1995, the
U.S. Supreme Court, refused to consider the Martinez case. By that, officially making his
conviction and sentence final. The question is, did Martinez receive a fair trial?

Texas executed Leonel Herrera in 1993 for a 1982 murder though another man confessed
to murdering two South Texas police officers. The court sentenced Herrera to death. Eight
years later, on the verge of his execution, a lawyer signed an affidavit saying that Herrera's
brother had confessed the killings. Texas courts refused to reopen the case because the
new evidence had come long after their 30-day limit for additional evidence. Herrera's case
went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled six to three that Texas's time
limitation was constitutional. The case sharply divided the high court. Justice Blackmun
said caustically from the bench that "the execution of a person who can show that he is
innocent comes perilously close to simple murder."

Despite George W.’s certainty, his judgment was tested in June 2000 when the U.S.
Supreme Court ordered Texas courts to provide a new sentence hearing to death-row
inmate Victor Hugo Saldano. The court ruled that the prosecution used racially
discriminatory evidence violating the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution's
14th Amendment. It put into question the cases of six other Texas death row inmates. A
Texas court had allowed a psychologist to testify about Saldano's "future dangerousness"
based on factors that included the fact that Saldano was a Latino. The Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals had previously upheld Saldano's death sentence, stating that the
prosecution's use of ethnicity as a factor to be considered in death sentencing was not a
"fundamental error" requiring reversal.

Despite this decision, the Roman circus went on. Texas executed three inmates in three
days, and with eight more scheduled before the end of June 2000. Bush poised himself to
surpass its record of thirty-seven executions in a single year (1997). At the time, Texas had
ten Latinos awaiting execution.

A disturbing trend is the execution of juveniles. In wanting to teach them a lesson the
public has called for harsher sentences. Between 1992 and 1997, 47 states passed laws
making it easier to try children as adults. Of the thirty-eight death penalty states, nineteen
execute 16- and 17-year-olds and four execute those seventeen and older. In 1988, the
U.S. Supreme Court held that executing children under the age of sixteen violated the
Eighth Amendment's ban against "cruel and unusual punishment." This principle has
been challenged as of late. Former Gov. Pete Wilson, the architect of California's recently
passed Proposition 21, said the age for the death penalty should be lowered to fourteen.
Texas legislator Jim Pitts proposed lowering the age to eleven.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the number of youths under the age of 17,
committed to adult prisons, has more than doubled, rising from 3,400 in 1985 to 7,400 in
1997. More than a quarter of these youths in adult prisons are between the ages of 13 and
16.
These statistics go to the moral fibre of the country. I will always remember what a rabbi at
my first teaching job at a Yeshiva, (I was the only goy at the school) told me. That God
judged a society on how well it took care of its old and its children. This is why the
dismantling of the juvenile justice system shows that we do not live in a compassionate
society. It has shifted foci away from the individual child's needs, to the seriousness of the
crime and teaching them a lesson. Age, intent, why he is in trouble, and extenuating factors
do not matter. Just get rid of the kid.

The United States the honor with the collapsed state of Somalia as the only countries in the
U.N not to ratify the organizations 10-year-old U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child,
which forbids the death penalty against youths under eighteen. Similarly, it has not signed
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which more than 144 countries
have signed, because it also bans the execution of those who commit crimes under the
age of eighteen. In the 1990s, Amnesty International reported nineteen executions of child
offenders. The United States executed ten of these children.

Currently about seventy death row inmates (all male) were sentenced as juveniles, about
2% of the total death row. Texas again leads with 37% of these juveniles being from the
Lone Star state. We have executed twelve men for crimes committed as juveniles since
1976. Since 1985 only the USA, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
Yemen have executed juveniles. According to Amnesty International, in 1999 the US along
with China, Congo, Iran and Saudi Arabia accounted for 85% of the world's executions.

A Scripps-Howard Survey found that 57% of Texans polled do not share George W’s self
righteousness and believe Texas has executed someone who was innocent of the crime.
Three quarters of them believe that the state should declare a moratorium on death
sentences in cases that DNA testing might affect. The survey also showed support for
capital punishment was based on race, supported by 81% of whites, 55% among Latinos
and 44% among blacks.

In conclusion, because of space I have focused on Texas in this essay. Suffice to say that
California, which enjoys a more tolerant reputation that the former confederate state, is
not too far behind. Witness the passage of Proposition 21, which effectively lowers the age
of the youthful offender. Like Texas and other states California has scuttled or at least
handicapped its once vaunted juvenile justice system. California also has the largest death
row in the nation with 560 inmates. About 100 of these are Latinos; about 200 blacks.
Justice is just us.

The purpose of the essay is to attempt to generate discuss within the Chicano/Latino
community. I do not place too much hope on the current trends that show that a
substantial number of Americans are beginning to soften on their faith that the system is
executing only the guilty. The truth be told, a determining factor in this softening has been
the inclusion of DNA evidence. It does not bother them. It does not bother George W. Bush
that capital punishment is morally questionable, or that its meting out was racially
motivated, or that the defendant received inadequate legal representation. The American
public is fickle, witness its softening on the abortion question where it is going to the right.
All it takes to change Americans is a little recession, another evil empire.

(114) “'Chinatown' en Arizona: INMIGRACION,” La Opinion. Jul 9, 2000. Vol. 74, Iss. 298; p.
1B. “Murder in Arizona: It’s Only the Third World,” Jul 9, 2000

Carey McWilliams in his epic history of Mexican Americans, North From Mexico, tells the
story of the famous Texas gunman, King Fisher, who when asked how many notches he
had on his gun, replied: “Thirty-seven--not counting Mexicans.” What is happening in
southern Arizona pretty much reminds us that the Wild West still lives, and for the most
part, Mexicans still don’t count.

Tragically the national media, local authorities, and the US Border Patrol are abetting the
racist and terrorist acts of vigilantes like Roger Barnett, a southern Arizona rancher, who
wears a pistol in a holster on his hip and boasts that he along with his brother Don of
making 3000 arrests of Mexican migrants on “his ranch.” The Barnett brothers have
allegedly detained up to 170 migrants in a day. What the media fails to report is that some
80 percent of “his ranch” is leased from the state of Arizona at give away prices. The
Barnetts hold the migrants at gunpoint often on what is public roads or even state
highways handing them over to the border patrol often after hours in the hot sun.
Barnett, bragged to a Washington Post reporter that he does not speak much Spanish, "but
I'll tell you, the Mexicans know the game is up when they see the gringo and his dogs
coming up on them," adding, "We have guns to protect ourselves." “But I don't pull my gun
unless I plan to use it."

Barnett has told reporters that it was an “extremely sensitive and dangerous situation,” an
“overwhelming invasion of thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens and drug traffickers
from Mexico into Cochise County.” He called for the “drastic need for action in the
interests of national security, citizen safety and protection of wildlife resources and
habitat.” "They're on my land, they're trespassing, and I have a right to protect my
property." As for not calling the Border Patrol when he spots migrants, as other ranchers
do: “If I got to fix the down fences, I'm going to have the pleasure of catching them."

Barnett and his followers have allegedly sent out a racist "flyer" inviting white supremacist
groups to come to their ranches, park their RV’s, and to help them "hunt" Mexican
“aliens.” This Call has attracted kooks such as Studio City, California, resident Glenn
Spencer of "American Patrol" and Barbara Coe, also of California, who have in turn invited
Barnett to California to take part in a July 4th celebration in Los Angeles.

Human rights activists uttered sighs of relief on the passing of the Reagan-Bush years.
They expected some measure of enforcement of the nation’s civil rights laws. They were
disappointed, however, when the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service
Commissioner Doris Meissner encouraged the ranchers by saying they "have legitimate
concerns about the trespassers on their property." While she condemned what she called
"vigilantes," Meissner said there was no evidence to support reports by Mexican media that
ranchers had shot at migrants in recent weeks.

Secretary Madeleine Albright says U.S. authorities would strengthen efforts to monitor and,
if warranted, prosecute the ranchers. Still, she says that the ranchers had the right to evict
trespassers from their land, saying that the problem lies too with Mexican criminal
organizations that make the smuggling of illegal immigrants across the Mexico-U.S. border
big business, conveniently shifting the focus to the “dangerous people”--the drug
traffickers and the coyotes.
So far the media has treated Barnett and his vigilante pals as heros. Both the New York
Times and Time Magazine portray them as defending their land from the hordes of invading
Mexicans. There is little editorial comment or discourse analysis of the effects of what is
happening. Few have decried the shooting of a young Mexican migrant worker named
Miguel Palafox was shot by vigilante ranchers, making his way back to Mexico for medical
treatment. Palafox accused Arizona cowboys on horseback of shooting him, a fact that the
Border Patrol and others deny and blame Mexican bandits for.

One would think that new sources would be a bit more sensitive to statements such as
when Mexicans “see the gringo and his dogs coming up on them,” or “I don't pull my gun
unless I plan to use it." But, nothing surprises me. My friend Professor Guadalupe Castillo
of Pima College, a veteran of the war on the border and a leader in Derechos Humanos,
recently asked a New York Reporter, why didn’t the national did not report what was
happening in southern Arizona. Didn’t it care? The reporter responded: “The border is a
Third World country, and people just don’t give a damn.”

The truth is, the First World does not care about violence outside its universe. It only cares
about the violence that affects it. The violence on the border is analogous to what is
happening in the ghettoes and the barrios. Rogue cops and vigilantes have a purpose, and
get away with behavior that would not be tolerated in “America.” Take the case of William
Masters II who in 1995 while walking in a Mexican barrio in Sun Valley, California, in the
early morning, came upon two Chican taggers, pulled his gun and killed one and wounded
the other. Civic leaders heralded Masters as a hero, and not did even charge him with
manslaughter. Like with King Fisher, the killing of a Mexican did not even warrant a notch.

From my vantage point, I believe that even the left is missing the point in trying to explain
what is happening in southern Arizona. Sure, the present militarization of the border plays
a role. Successful operations and sweeps in El Paso and San Diego have forced
undocumented workers to brave the hazardous desert of southern Arizona. Pressures
from right wing extremist groups have also spawned the racist nativism of Americans, and
politicians in search of scapegoats have used immigration as a wedge issue. In the
process, the Border Patrol, similarly to the prison industry, has grown substantially in the
last two decades, exploiting the fear of the external threat posed by terrorists and drug
traffickers, justifying tactics against peaceful migrants in search of what most Americans
have through a historical accident.
It is important to remember that violence on the Arizona-Sonora border is not an
aberration. It is not a phenomenon of the past two decades. Mexican immigration is not the
cause of this tension. It dates from 1853 when US minister James Gadsden figuratively
pointed a gun at Mexicans and told them, sell us southern Arizona for $10 million or we’ll
take it. Subsequently, the colonizers racialized labor, and used Arizona as a staging area
for its imperialist designs.

Mexicans really didn’t count for much under American colonial rule. Acts of violence were
part of the border culture. In 1859, a posse hunted down a runaway Mexican servant for
N.B. Appel, a Tubac merchant, and administered him fifteen lashes in public. That same
year, Anglos hunted and whipped seven Mexican peons from the Riverton Ranch. They cut
their hair so close that they shaved off half their scalps.

In the 1870s white cowboys banned Mexicans fromTombstone after dark without. Tensions
got so bad in the territory during the 1870s that the Sonoran government refused to
extradite alleged lawbreakers to Arizona. Industrialization of Arizona during the last two
decades of the 19th century worsened relations between the two peoples. Mexicans
formed mutualistas, mutual aid societies, for protection.

White miners excluded Mexican miners from many mining camps, as the mine owners
institutionalized a double wage system. In the first part of the century, even the militant
Western Federation of Miners excluded Mexicans. Violence was rampant, and nativist
tried to exclude Mexican labor from Arizona mines by passing anti-immigrant legislation. In
1917, the the coppaer barons deported Mexican miners from Jerome and Bisbee. In
Bisbee, local authorities rounded up 1200 strikers, and threw them in bull pens, and then
loaded them onto railroad cars and shipped and dumped them in the middle of the New
Mexican desert in the heat of summer. Most of these miners were Mexican.

As late as World War II, segregation existed in Arizona. It was not until the war that
Mexicans could become apprentices and skilled workers in the Southern Pacific. Despite
the war, the border remained porous. The mines and agriculture needed Mexican labor.
The Border Patrol, founded in 1924, began to change with the Cold War. During the
Eisenhower administration federal authorities increasingly turned toward military
solutions a way to control the influx of "dangerous" peoples into the United States. His
Attorney General Herbert Brownell allegedly proposed to newspaper publishers that the
best way to seal the border was to shoot down a couple of “wetbacks.” Operation
Wetback” was launched with over 3 million Mexicans deported.

The man in charge of Operation Wetback was Eisenhower's former classmate at West
Point, retired Gen. Joseph Swing. Swing initiated the Mobile Task Force, to clampdown on
so-called illegal entrants in the worst problem areas. Following the example of the military
that created the Soviet threat, the Immigration and Naturalization Service perpetuated the
myth of “dangerous” people poised on the border.

During the 1970s, the INS manufactured statistics, giving the sense that all of Mexico was
poised at the border ready to invade the US. The INS used words such as invasion, and
substituted the name illegal alien for wetback, a term that had become politically
incorrect, but more important racist. The new term was even more insidious. The
euphemisms “illegal” really meant criminals, “aliens” meant creatures from outer space,
emoting a sense of inhuman, or at the very least “a dangerous people.”

In August 1976 Patrick Hanigan, his brother, Thomas, and their father, George, captured
Manuel Garcia Loya, Eleazar Ruelas Zavala, and Bernabe Herrera Mata, who crossed their
ranch, fronting the Mexican border west of Douglas, Ariz. They tortured them, using hot
pokers, cigarettes, knives and fired a shotgun filled with bird shot at them. The ordeal
lasted several hours before sent them naked and bleeding back across the border.

The Mexicans, undocumented workers, had entered the country in the hope of finding farm
work. An all white jury acquitted Patrick and Thomas Hanigan in a state court in 1977 of
fourteen counts of kidnaping, assault and robbery. George Hanigan had died shortly before
the state trial.

The matter would have died if it had not been for Chicano activist organizations that the
civil rights movement of the 1960s had energized. Led by a group of young activists and law
students, the pressured the Carter Administration to bring about justice. A national
coalition of Mexican American groups petitioned the Justice Department for a civil rights
probe, accusing the Carter administration of insensitivity to their civil liberties. The Justice
Department subsequently announced a new probe of the Hanigan incident.
A Federal court charged the Hanigans with violating the Hobbs Act, a law that governs
interstate commerce. The judge declared a mistrial in the first federal trial in 1980 when a
jury failed to reach a verdict. A retrial took place in February 1981, and Patrick Hanigan,
convicted of obstructing interstate commerce by torturing and robbing three illegal aliens
nearly five years before, was sentenced to three years in prison. A jury acquitted Thomas
Hanigan. The courts upheld the conviction on appeal. (Incidentally, shortly after the trial,
Thomas Hanigan, was arrested for possession with intent to distribute 574 pounds of
marijuana.)

In 1981 an all-white jury in Arizona state court convicted former rancher, W.M. Burris Jr.,
28, of unlawful imprisonment and aggravated assault of a Mexican farm worker. It did not
find him guilty of the more serious charge of unlawful imprisonment and kidnaping. Burris
had used a deadly weapon, which should have carried a mandatory five-year prison
sentence. The rancher, suspecting 20-year-old Manuel Hernandez Garcia, an
undocumented worker from the state of Vera Cruz, of stealing chained his employee
around the neck so he would not leave the ranch.

Racism was not confined to Mexicans. During this period, white residents of Cochise
County literally ran black members of 300-member Christ Miracle Healing Center and
Church out of the state. Under the pretext that the congregation was a cult, local
authorities harassed them. In 1982 law-enforcement officers blockaded the town and
when the community resisted Cochise County deputies, the authorities attacked them.
Two members of the congregation were shot and killed during the altercation. The
blockade had lasted nine hours.

Authorities tried church members in Tucson, some 60 miles from Miracle Valley. A judge
dismissed the case against twenty members of the all-black church because Cochise
County would not pay defense costs for the indigent defendants. Black members of the
church did not return to Miracle Valley, for "fear for their lives."

During the 1980s, Border Patrol agents shot dozens of people, killing eleven and
permanently disabling ten. To take the focus away from state violence, and to break the
growing opposition to the militarization of the border, the Reagan Justice Department in the
mid-1980s, prosecuted the religious sanctuary movement. This movement specialized,
according to authorities, in the smuggling Central Americans into the United States. The
investigation led to the indictment in January 16, 1985 of sanctuary movement volunteers
on charges that included criminal conspiracy to smuggle, harbor and transport illegal
aliens. They supposedly based the so-called “transporters and smugglers” in Arizona, and
the "Nogales connection" that housed immigrants in Nogales, Mexico, and directed them
across the border. Eventually, some defendants pled to lesser charges. They acquitted
others. Significant was the expenditure of time and effort in prosecuting these so-called
“dangerous people.”

The Reagan administration created the Border Patrol Tactical Teams (BORTACS), a special
paramilitary group. By 1989 Congress had authorized 5,000 federal troops for border duty.
They built fences and walls and Border Patrol budget zoomed. Combat-ready troops were
committed, but removed after public outrage when a marine shot an unarmed Mexican
national. The military, however, remained a player. Some 600 U.S. Marines and army
troops, built and upgraded helicopter pads and roads, training the BP in strategies of
counterinsurgency.

By all accounts the Border Patrol like the Los Angeles Police in the Ramparts scandal can
be properly characterized as a rogue agency. Numerous cases of involving agents in the
smuggling of drugs while on duty and murder and assaults are documented. For instance,
Armando C. Garcia, Tucson's former chief detention officer, was placed on three years
probation in late 1991 after admitting that he stole money from immigrants in the Border
Patrol lockup. The agency drew scrutiny from the FBI, Justice Department internal affairs
investigators, federal prosecutors and local law enforcement. During this period, U.S.
authorities investigated possible civil rights violations, summoning eleven agents to a
police lineup.

Douglas Agent Ronald Michael Backues ferried marijuana in his pale green service Bronco.
He spent the proceeds on among other things on steroids for himself and breast implants
for his wife. Former Agent Gary Patrick Callahan trafficked cocaine stolen from smugglers.
The courts convicted Veteran Border Patrol Investigator Willie Garcia for lying in court
about an accused heroin smuggler -- a longtime informant with whom Garcia had once had
an intimate relationship. The BP fired Thomas A. Watson, a five-year Nogales veteran, for
complicity in the cover-up of a fellow agent's fatal shooting of a suspected trafficker. The
courts acquitted Agent Michael Andrew Elmer of murdering an unarmed suspected drug
scout. A civil suit brought by relatives of the dead man, Dario Miranda Valenzuela,
established that Elmer shot him twice in the back as he ran away.
As mentioned, Mexican Americans and other human rights activists naively expected more
of the Bill Clinton. They believed that the Democrats would be more sensitive to the
rhetoric of the King Fishers of southern Arizona. Unfortunately, the only thing that has
happened is that you see more brown faces in charge. The head of the BP is a Tejano and
the U.S. attorney is also a Mexican American. Indeed, he prosecuted the Hanigans.

The inertia has angered and frustrated many activists and onlookers on both sides of the
border. Understandably, this has brought a reaction from Mexicans. In June a retired oil
worker in northern Mexico offered a bounty of $10,000 to anyone who would shoot a BP
agent. Chicano and human rights groups are planning mobilizations. They plan a
mobilization for July 29 in San Ysidro, California, and tensions are reaching the breaking
point.

After all this is the 21st Century, and one would expect law enforcement authorities to
comprehend the effects of Barnett’s Wild West swagger and the practice of "hunting" for
humans. No matter what color or residency status, a human being should not be forced to
suffer the attitudes of the King Fishers of this world. The truth is that Mexican American and
other minorities will not tolerate this treatment.

With this said, I realize that not all the ranchers agree with Barnett, and that stories like
that of Yolanda Gonzalez, 19, who in the first days of June, after walking three days in the
searing desert with her 18-month-old daughter on her hip, from Oaxaca gave the last of her
water to her baby and died, still move good people. Four Mexicans perished that week,
who like Yolanda were trying to get what Americans have through an accident of history.

(115) “Latinos and Spanish Speaking Gringos: Hasta la vista, baby!” Jul 10, 2000; “LOS
ANGELES: Los latinos y la izquierda,” La Opinion, 30 de julio de 2000

For my part, I believe the failure to respect Latinos, as well as what is the relationship
between civil rights and Latinos, is ripe for reexamination. No matter how one cuts it, if
Mexican Americans and other Latinos seem fickle in goo-gooing when gringo politicians
come courting, it is a product of the left=s negligence and ignorance. As far back as the
mid-1960s, I preached to anyone who would listen in the California Democratic Council
that Mexican Americans were not naturally conservative just because they had strong
family values or many of them were Catholics. The building of a political ideology takes
education. It has to be seeded, and it takes the development and maintenance of a
political language. Yet, historically, Democrats, like Republicans, have preferred to play
the role of the gringo speaking Spanish, taking for granted that Latinos will vote against
Republicans.

Instead of helping Latinos to develop politically, the left has simplistically told Mexican
Americans --Democrats good, Republicans bad. An important factor contributing to the
alienation between the various groups is the lack of ideological bonding. One of the main
factors encouraging the lack of bonding has been that the groups have been spatially
separated.

For example, the Jewish American community, an important player in left coalitions,
around World War II in Los Angeles lived in close proximity to Mexicans. Leftist Jews lived
alongside Mexicans in Boyle Heights and contributed to the ideological development of the
Mexican American community. However, with the flight of Jews from places Boyle Heights
to the westside, the bonding weakened as did the sharing of historical memories. In
contrast, middle-class neighborhoods such as the Baldwin Hills put Blacks into much
closer proximity to Jewish Americans, who sponsored the rise of black politicians such as
Mayor Tom Bradley. Space and the arrival of East Coast Jews, who did not share a
knowledge of Mexicans furthered the gap between the two groups. Literally, Jews and other
white progressives lived on the westside and Mexicans on the eastside, with Mexicans left
out of much of the mainstream civil rights coalitions formed in the 1960s.

Much of the black population also came from the east coast and midwest where there
were no Mexicans or Central Americans. Blacks coexisted with Latinos and were
numerically equal to Latinos until the dramatic growth of the Latino community in the
1970s. This growth threatened Black and Jewish interests, and tensions developed over
redistricting and a feeling grew among Latinos that certain districts belonged to them.

Because the political brokers and the liberals excluded Mexican Americans during the
Mayor Tom Bradley, Mexican American politicos also developed an our time has come
mindset. They wanted control of institutions much the same way Blacks did during the
1970s and 1980s. Term limits opened the door of opportunity. The lack of a strong Latino
political community gave rise to individual political aspirations.

The new Latino politicos created a new coalition, which begs to be critically analyzed.
Along with alliances with labor, Chicano politicos often joined forces with Mayor Richard
Riordan to get elected. This resulted in more Chicanos elected to the City Council, but,
simultaneously, these alliances supported Riordan=s corporate takeover of the city, the
schools, and transportation. It was a marriage of convenience without any serious
ideological bonding.

How is the left responsible for this state of affairs? A universe that trains future politicos
and gives a voice to minority thinkers is the media. Especially influential is the left media
because the conservative culture of the mainstream estate does not offer the developing
writer to mature politically. Ironically, the left media that had loudly and frequently
criticized the lack of affirmative action was and is guilty of not hiring Latinos. Because of
limited space, I will only focus on three examples: the LA Weekly, The Nation and Pacifica
Radio.

The Weekly covers Latinos. It has to--one of every two Angeleno is a Latino. However,
English-speaking gringos write most of the stories on Latinos. At The Weekly, Harold
Myerson is an important voice on the left. He frequently writes about Latinos, and is
influential in developing the critique of the city politics. Given the immense Latino
population one would expect a larger Latino presence within the newspaper.

The lack of a critical presence of Latinos in The Weekly=s community has seriously
retarded its understanding of Latinos. Its lack of bonding with that community makes its
coverage and editorial content in great part impressionistic, anecdotal, and subjective.
Take Myerson, who a serious scholar of LA politics. He has contributed to the myth that
Latinos are conservative. According to Myerson, a new Democratic coalition of immigrant
and second and third generation Latinos, energized by labor activists, is driving Latinos in
increased numbers to the polls. He adds that the old black led liberal coalitions has given
way to a new labor and Latino immigrant axis that is Alargely positioned to the right of the
older coalition on these issues but to the left of the Republicans on workplace issues such
as the minimum wage and on the improvement of public education.@
My problem with Myerson is the lack of skepticism in his analysis. A greater inclusion of
Latinos would have sharpened his own knowledge of the infighting that took place around
Proposition 187 (passed in 1994), and efforts within that community by Latino and non-
Latinos to tone down the opposition to 187. Further, there was criticism of the Democratic
party and labor in 1996 for sacrificing affirmative action and the anti immigrant provisions
in the 1996 federal welfare reform bill, and prioritizing the election of Bill Clinton. Some
Latinos are still bitter at labor and Democratic candidates downplaying their support of
Proposition 227, the anti bilingual education measure, in 1998, in favor of Proposition 226,
which would have required employers and labor unions to obtain a worker's permission
each year before withholding wages or union dues for political purposes. Most some labor
candidates quietly declined to carry controversial anti-227 literature. More important,
Myerson ignores the failure of the Internationals, housed on the East Coast, hoarding large
pension funds running into the billions of dollars, of abandoning immigrant worker projects
such as the California Immigrant Workers= Association.

The Nation, an influential left magazine among policy makers, simply does not believe that
the Southwest exists. Even under Carey McWilliams, who wrote the first comprehensive
history of Mexicans in the United States, the Nation failed consistently to give a voice to
Latino issues. When it featured a Latino writer, Gregory Rodriguez, a fellow at the
conservative Pepperdine University think-tank, his views on bilingual education came from
the right, something The Nation would not have done to Black Americans.

Currently civil war of the lefties is raging at KPFK in Los Angeles and at KPFA in the Bay
area. Both stations belong to the Pacifica Network, and what is happening there is
symptomatic of the problem. Demographers expect the Latino population from 1998 to
2010 to account for almost half of all the population growth in the U.S. and 62 percent to
the year 2050. One would think that Pacifica, a giant among independent alternative
media, because its five stations, in New York (WBAI), Washington (WPFW), Houston
(KPFT), Los Angeles (KPFK) and Berkeley, Calif. (KPFA), are smack in the middle of this
growth, would want to attract this audience.

Not so! Neither side talks about mentoring young Latino and Latina voices and getting
more Latinos to listen. Other than supporting the dismissed Latino volunteers, not much
has been heard from the Chicano community, which sees it as a war of the vanguards who
want to control the message and the messenger, and their right to speak for their little
brown brothers and sisters.
Would it matter if there was a critical mass of Latinos at these alternative newspapers,
magazines and radio stations? Most certainly, this mass would challenge today=s
mainstream thought and its preoccupation with a positivist objectivity that supports
established interests.

In order to fully understand the hypocrisy of the left in its failure to promote affirmative
action from within one must understand their political culture. White radicals and liberals
have never thought of Mexicans as equal partners largely because of a historical ignorance
of them. Latinos until recently lacked a national presence, partly due to the heavy
immigrant Latino population. Their presence is limited. For example, in 1991 five
states accounted for seven out of eight applicants for citizenship; over 54 percent resided
in a single state, California, and half the top ten Metropolitan areas of residence were in
California. Applicants from Los Angeles Long Beach, overwhelmingly Mexican, accounted
for over 34 percent of the nation's total.

Immigration has magnified racial diversity and intragroup differences. Immigration

therefore was peripheral to civil rights politics until Chicanos thrust it into the mix. In the
last three decades immigration has demanded the inclusion of new issues more often
unfamiliar to the left. Further, immigration has contributed to a fragmentation, i.e., a 1986
opinion poll showed 52 percent of black Americans favored immigration at current or
increased levels, while 39 percent wanted the levels decreased. This has accounted for the
fact that both African Americans and liberals have belatedly formed progressive stances
on immigration.

Further, the dramatic growth of the Latino middle-class, which some Latino scholars and
writers have celebrated as an example of Latino ingenuity. This lack of a sense of their own
civil rights history has taken attention away from the fact that, according to the 1990
census, five Southern California counties housed more than a fifth of the nation's Latino
population. Although they developed a substantial middle class, Latinos are "the largest
group of poor people in the United States [that] is not . . . on welfare. They are the working
poor, whose earnings are so meager that despite their best efforts, they cannot afford
decent housing, diets, health care, or child care."

Add to this that radicals in particular are obsessed by revolution--transformation--to them

reform is a dirty word. They are romantics who supported Central Americans during their
civil war. However, when the wars ended, most went on to other beehives. I remember
appearing on a program at KPFK, hosted by the then head of the local Lawyers Guild. One
guest was a 15-year-old Mexican kid, who was a leader of a walkout of Latino students (a
walkout of some 30,000 middle and high school students), protesting Proposition 187. The
attorney literally had a mental orgasm, asking the student, vulnerable because of his
immigration status, if this was the beginning of a militant movement.

If the Latino community does vote for Bush, it will not be because we are genetically or
culturally conservative. It is because of a lack of political education, which the vanguard
left=s elitism has failed to contribute to. One of the purposes of affirmative action was to
integrate minorities at all levels of society. Evidently, the left does not believe that
affirmative action applies to it.

No doubt, some may accuse me of pessimism. They will claim that we have made
tremendous gains and that both political parties are now accepting us speaking Spanish.
Still, as of 1997, only 54.7 percent of U.S. Latinos had graduated from high school and only
7.4 percent from college. We had the largest number of school dropouts, and
consequently more Latino youth found their way into gangs and ran afoul of the law. In
1990, we made up about 11.5 percent of the U.S. population, and accounted for
13.3 percent of all prisoners. This stat rose to 15.8 percent by 1996.

Despite all this, I am not ready to say Hasta la vista baby! to the left. A radical critique is
vital and we must fight for control not only of mainstream institutions but also alternative
media and organizations that have made a living of critiquing our poverty. It is time that we
spoke for ourselves and not through Spanish-speaking gringos or cigar smoking Mexicans.

(116) Latinos and Spanish Speaking Gringos: Hasta la vista, baby!

The intensity of the wooing of the Latino vote by presidential candidates, and listening to
George W. Bush and Al Gore speak Spanish, with “little brown ones” fluttering around
them, reminds me of what Mexicans used to say in Texas: never to trust a gringo who
speaks Spanish or a Mexican who smokes a cigar. (Both were likely to be politicians).

Bush has been a regular visitor to California and has included the Latino community at
many of his stops, something that would have been rare four years ago, and nonexistent a
decade ago. Just in the last couple of weeks he has visited the conventions of the National
Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Bush includes a smattering of Spanish in his speeches: "I like to be seen in neighborhoods
sometimes where Republicans aren't seen . . . I like to fight the stereotype that somehow
we don't have the corazon (heart) necessary to hear the voices of people from all political
parties and from all walks of life," he drawled at the National Council of La Raza confab.
Bush prominently displays his nephew, 24-year-old George P. Bush, son of his brother,
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and his Mexican-born sister in law, Columba.

The possibility of Latinos taking Bush seriously and garnering a sizeable Latino vote
disgusts many of my liberal friends, who ask me (as if I knew what all Mexicans thought),
why Latinos were doing the unthinkable and backing a Republican for president, which is
an assumption at best. I must admit as a once lifelong Democrat, who grew up with a
portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the pantheon of saints on my grandmother’s
dresser, the prospect disconcerts me.

Nevertheless, after the hundredth time of being asked the same question by liberal and
leftist alike my defensiveness turns to hostility. It is as if these liberals (and radicals, both
are more often alike) think that Mexicans should automatically vote Democrat or even
better, Ralph Nader, who has yet to articulate a coherent position on immigration. Like
Mexicans should know their class interests in a country where very few Americans know
them.

As irritating is the response of Latino pundits and cigar chomping Mexican American
politicians that Latinos are not a monolithic bloc--da! They pompously point out that
Cuban-Americans typically back Republicans by 2-to-1 margins. Texas Latinos tend to be
more flexible in willing to vote Republican, while California Latinos slammed by
Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot initiative that denied many public services to illegal
immigrants, vote 2 to 1 for Democrats.

The truth be told, the reasons go much deeper, and betray the inability of gringos of
whatever political persuasion to come to grips with the race question. Their chauvinism
and ideological bias promote a paradigm that fits all Latinos. According to the paradigm,
on policy issues, from affirmative action to defense spending, Latinos and Asians are more
conservative than blacks. Latinos are rural and Catholic. As proof of this conservatism,
they say that Latinos often fail to support black candidates for office, forgetting that when
given a choice Latinos prefer Latino candidates, and that the truth be told Blacks also
prefer black candidates, and not all black leaders and organizations support Latinos on
issues such as immigration. The fact is that it has only been recently that Blacks and
Latinos have been communicating without white intermediaries, and some liberals and
radicals feel excluded. To them, all Asians are Asians, no matter if they are from Japan,
China, Korea, or the Philippines. Just like anyone with a Spanish surname is Mexican.

Their reductionist logic compels them to expect Mexicans, for instance, to behave like
African Americans when in truth there are differences. Despite their racism, whites have
always felt guilty about blacks who had and have for some time had a national presence.
Liberals and radicals have always felt close (paternalistic) to Blacks. With Latinos they
have been more ambivalent, with whites feeling less comfortable around them. In isolated
cases there has been contact between Latinos and whites, but for the most past it has
been with gringos speaking Spanish.

No matter how one cuts it, if Mexican Americans and other Latinos seem fickle, it is a
product of the left’s negligence and ignorance. As far back as the mid-1960s, I preached to
anyone who would listen in the California Democratic Council that Mexican Americans
were not naturally conservative just because they had strong family values or many of
them were Catholics. The building of ideology takes education. It has to be seeded, and it
takes the development and maintenance of a political language. Instead, like Republicans,
Democrats and those to the left of them have preferred to play the role of the gringo
speaking Spanish, taking for granted that Latinos will vote against Republicans.

Bush may fail quizzes on foreign policy but he receives an “A” for using Spanish language
commercials. One tag line in his election as governor was: "Vote for Bush-Who cares if he's
not a Democrat?" in Spanish. He has also broken with nativist such as former California
governor Pete Wilson and exhorted others to change their policy on immigration. Moreover,
the Bush challenge has Democrats and even Greens learning Spanish and proudly
displaying their cigar chomping Latinos.

All of this is predictable. I would not expect less. My disappointment comes with the left, or
what is left of it. I have sincerely attempted to fit within this left community. However, the
left has historically disrespected Latinos, whether in featuring Latino writers on the pages
of the LA Weekly or national magazines like The Nation or on the airways of Pacifica Radio.

In the case of the Weekly, it covers Latinos because they are one of every two Angelenos.
However, English-speaking gringos write most of these stories. In The Nation the
Southwest seems not to exist, and when they raise issues concerning Latinos, Latinos
themselves do not have a voice. At KPFK in Los Angeles and at KPFA in the Bay area,
coverage of Latinos was token even before the current civil war of the lefties.

Indeed, the Pacifica Civil War is symptomatic of the problem. From 1998 to 2010
demographers expect the Latino population to account for almost half of all the population
growth in the U.S. and 62 percent to the year 2050. One would think that Pacifica, a giant
among independent alternative media, would be sensitive to this demographic change,
especially since the radio network's five stations, in New York (WBAI), Washington
(WPFW), Houston (KPFT), Los Angeles (KPFK) and Berkeley, Calif. (KPFA), are smack in the
middle of this growth. Dissidents claim that Pacifica’s management in a drive to increase
its listening audience is corporatizing the network's alternative culture and politics.
Management responds that it is merely trying to widen its audience and professionalize its
staff. Neither side is talking about mentoring young Latino and Latina voices and getting
more Latinos to listen. For the vanguard affirmative action is for other people.
Pacifica, which once advertised itself as “community radio," has removed "militant
African-American or Latino programming, or programming dealing with hemp issues."
Other than supporting the dismissed Latino volunteers, we have not heard much from the
Chicano community since it was never part of the Pacifica community. Mostly they see it
as a war of vanguards elites who want to control the message and the mesenger, as well as
their right to speak for their little brown brothers and sisters. At KPFK, for instance, it
matters little that one of two of the listening audience in the Los Angeles area is Latino, and
most of them are Mexican and Central American.

For my part, I believe the failure to respect Latinos, as well as what is the relationship
between civil rights and Latinos, is ripe for reexamination. My friend, Harold Myerson of the
LA Weekly, has posited that a new Democratic coalition of immigrant and second- and
third-generation Latinos, energized by labor activists, is emerging, driving Latinos in
increased numbers to the polls. Myerson suggests that the old black-led liberal coalitions
are ungluing as support for welfare, crime, and racial policies crumble. According to
Myerson, a new labor and Latino-immigrant axis has emerged that is “largely positioned to
the right of the older coalition on these issues but to the left of the Republicans on
workplace issues such as the minimum wage and on the improvement of public
education.” I think Harold makes generalizations based on assumptions that don’t stand
up.

Myerson forgets certain key points: first, the coalition was not there with Proposition 187
(passed in 1994). Indeed, sectors of the Democratic party and labor remain anti-
immigrant, and, for the sake of electing the lesser of the evils in 1996, labor sacrificed
affirmative action and the

anti-immigrant provisions in the 1996 federal welfare reform bill, prioritizing the election of
Bill Clinton. Some Latinos are still bitter about labor and Democratic candidates
downplaying their support of Proposition 227, the anti-bilingual education measure, in
1998, in favor of Proposition 226, which would have required employers and labor unions
to obtain a worker's permission each year before withholding wages or union dues for
political purposes, with some labor candidates quietly declining to carry anti-227
literature.

.Part of the explanation for the alienation between Latinos and liberals and even radicals is
the latter two’s chauvinism. Basically they do not respect Latinos. A partial explanation for
this is that many Latinos are immigrants, and what the white left knows about them is in
great part impressionistic, anecdotal, and subjective. I have been involved on the left for
over forty years, and, during this period, I have found few white leftist who know the history
or know much about Mexican Americans.

Before 1970, very few did research on Mexican Americans, Carey McWilliams’ North From
Mexico, the notable exception. Substituted for historical knowledge are myths and
stereotypes. This has greatly contributed to ideological bias, and even racism.
An important factor in contributing to the alienation between the various groups is the lack
of ideological bonding. Playing into this is the generation gap. Jews are on average much
older than blacks, while blacks as a group are older than Latinos. From this one can predict
a higher income and lower crime rates for the older groups. These factors also separate the
groups spatially.

In Los Angeles, just after World War II there was considerable interaction between Jews
and Mexicans. Leftist Jews lived alongside Mexicans in Boyle Heights and contributed to
the ideological development of the Mexican American community. However, with the flight
of Jews from places Boyle Heights, the bonding ceased as did the sharing of historical
memories. The development of areas such as the Baldwin Hills put middle-class Blacks
into much closer proximity to Jewish Americans, who sponsored the rise of black
politicians such as Mayor Tom Bradley. Space and the arrival of East Coast Jews, who did
not have a knowledge of Mexicans furthered the gap between the two groups. Literally,
Jews and other white progressives lived on the westside and Mexicans on the eastside, the
latter was left out of much of the mainstream civil rights movement.

Much of the black population also came from parts of the east coast and midwest where
there were no Mexicans or Central Americans. A growing class differentiation has
weakened the cohesion between blacks and black militant criticism of Israel and the shift
to the right of Jews has in recent times contributed to an alienation between the two
groups. Moreover, the dramatic growth of the Latino community has also threatened Black
and Jewish interests, and tensions have developed over redistricting and the growing
feeling among Latinos that certain districts belong to them.

The fact that Latinos lack a national is in part due to the heavy immigrant Latino
population. Immigration has magnified racial diversity and intragroup differences.
Immigration is redefining civil rights politics. Immigration has incorporated new issues that
are often unfamiliar to the left. The mythology and imagery of immigration have always
been powerful ideological forces in American life. During the 1980s, these forces produced
some striking shifts in public policies and attitudes in favor of expanded immigration on the
left.

In 1991 five states accounted for seven out of eight applicants for citizenship; over 54
percent resided in a single state, California, and half the top ten Metropolitan areas of
residence were in California. Applicants from Los Angeles-Long Beach, overwhelmingly
Mexican, accounted for over 34 percent of the nation's total. It cannot be denied that this
immigration has contributed to a fragmentation, i.e., a 1986 opinion poll showed 52
percent of black Americans favored immigration at current or increased levels, while 39
percent wanted the levels decreased.

Some will accuse me of being too pessimistic. They will counter my arguments by saying
that over the last eighteen months, Los Angeles unions have created perhaps the best
local working that at the national level, this coalition forced the Republican Congress to
approve a minimum-wage increase. Likewise, the state and local AFL-CIO's successful
campaigns for a higher statewide minimum wage and for a "living wage" ordinance in Los
Angeles both won broad support. Surely, organized labor is much more sympathetic to
labor than it was a decade ago. However, I have to remind the reader that the economist
goal of labor for their rank and file does not represent the whole enchilada.

The existing unequal partnership between Latinos and the left has contributed to a
lessening of bonds of Latinos to liberal issues, encouraging many to look at the Spanish-
speaking gringos with suspicion. After a while politicos, liberals and leftist all become
indistinguishable. In this context, it is understandable that few Mexican Americans
mourned the decline of the 1960's coalition. Furthermore, the continued indifference of
the left has forced Latinos to look elsewhere for support for a remedy for their social and
economic and electoral progress.

In Los Angeles, for example, the individual political aspirations of Latino politicos have
created a new coalition. Unlike Myerson’s romantic portrayal, I find it highly negative. Along
with labor, Chicano politicos often join forces with Mayor Richard Riordan to get elected.
This has resulted in more Chicanos elected to the City Council, but at the same time these
alliances have supported Riordan’s corporate takeover of the city, the schools, and
transportation. The truth be told, this new marriage of convenience is between the elites of
the various groups, without any ideological bonding. Because the political brokers
excluded Mexican Americans under Mayor Tom Bradley, Mexican Americans have
developed a we’ll do it in our own way mentality, vying for control of institutions much the
same way blacks did during the 1970s and 1980s.

The left shares a responsibility for this state of affairs, for failing to nurture Mexican
Americans and supporting the development of a left social agenda. For the most part the
left has consisted of vanguard parties, which in the name of party building have pulled a
few Mexican Americans away from groups such as the farm workers, taking them to a
higher level of consciousness by having them sit at card tables, selling the party
newspapers, to Bill Press of CNN who bills himself as from the left. Listening to Crossfire,
the closest that Press has come to being correct on a Latino issue is his stance on Elan
Gonzalez.

There are other characteristics about radicals that irritate many Latinos. Radicals think
about revolution--transformation--to them reform is a dirty word. Radicals support Central
Americans during their civil war. However, since the end of the wars, they have gone on to
other beehives. For example, I remember appearing on a program at KPFK, hosted by the
then head of the local Lawyers Guild. One guest was a 15-year-old Mexican kid, who was a
leader of a walkout of Latino students (a walkout of some 30,000 middle and high school
students), protesting Proposition 187. The attorney literally had a mental orgasm, asking
the student about the ideological content of the movement. I shook the Guild president
when I suggested that he should not expect these students, many of whom were
vulnerable because of their immigration status, to do anything that his generation had
been afraid to do.

Like other groups, Latinos expect respect. They realize that reforms are necessary, and
they do not want their issues belittled. The left and its vanguard attitude, however, have the
effect of shutting them out. I have already mentioned the progressive media. My criticism
of it extends to the universities where liberal faculties under the guise of faculty
governance white radical professors actively support the decisions of conservative faculty
to discriminate against Latinos. Witness the fact that only 3 percent of the California state
universities tenured faculties are of Mexican extraction; they cannot lay these statistics at
the feet of administration.

Despite the system Latinos are carving their niche in the nation's middle.
However, according to the 1990 census, five Southern California counties housed
more than a fifth of the nation's Latino population. Although they developed a substantial
middle class, Latinos are "the largest group of poor people in the United States [that] is
not . . . on welfare. They are the working poor, whose earnings are so meager that despite
their best efforts, they cannot afford decent housing, diets, health care, or child care." As
of 1997, only 54.7 percent of U.S. Latinos had graduated from high school and only 7.4
percent from college. They have a large number of school dropouts, and consequently
Latino youth frequently find themselves in gangs and afoul of the law. They make up about
11.5 percent of the U.S. population, and accounted for 13.3 percent of all prisoners in
1990. This stat rose to 15.8 percent by 1996.

I will not deny that there are differences between those on the left and Republicans.
George W. Bush, for example, has chosen Linda Chavez as his leading adviser on
immigration issues. Chavez’s qualification rests on her being a Clarence Thomas clone.
Chavez also boasts of her Spanish American, not her Mexican. ancestry, and of being half
white. In contrast, a key adviser to Vice President Al Gore is Maria Echaveste, currently a
deputy White House chief of staff. While on Labor Department, she cracked down on
sweatshop abuses by the garment industry.

(117) Reply to Michael Lind, “The Diversity Scam,” New America Foundation, In The New
Leader, July 1, 2000,
http://newamerica.net/publications/articles/2000/the_diversity_scam

The problem with “The Diversity Scam” by Michael Lind is it is not well researched. Like
most articles on Latinos it is strung together by a series of myths and half truths, which
have been repeated so often that people believe them.
Without belaboring the issue the article lacks objectivity, which is evidenced in his
previous work. For example, in The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the
Fourth American Revolution, (1995), Lind describes himself as a "liberal nationalist." Lind
argues that the United States is rapidly losing its identity to the cult of multiculturalism, his
windmill, affirmative action.

A more recent example is his most recent book, Vietnam: The Necessary War:A
Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict. In May of this year,
Richard Falk in The Nation, wrote, “Michael Lind has written a wild, dangerous book that
pretends to offer a sober, scholarly rethinking of the Vietnam War...” Falk observes that
the book has a “perverse tone”and expresses its biases in “a most manipulative
manner...” Much of the same criticisms can be made of “The Diversity Scam.”

The piece begins with Al Gore’s talking to upper-middle-class Latinos at San Diego,
promising the audience “to fight for racial preference policies that discriminate in favor of
American citizens of Latin American descent.” The point that Lind makes is that Gore is
pandering to Latinos. Although I am no fan of Gore, a serious scholar would also point out
that from the beginning of the Republic politicians have promised and delivered programs
to special interest groups, from European immigrants, to African-Americans, to G.I.’s, but
more often to corporations. How does Gore differ from Bush standing before a chamber of
commerce, and promising to repeal the capital gains tax? Or, Richard Nixon cultivating the
Latino middle-class by expanding access to SBA loans to minority business people? Is
Lind, in Falk’s words, being “manipulative?”

The answer is, yes. Take Lind’s crude attempts to set blacks-Latinos-and-Asians and
homosexuals against each other. Lind does what he accuses Gore of. He tells African
Americans that the should be upset by Latinos special preferences. Lind equates racism
with slavery, saying that Mexican Americans and other Latinos are recent arrivals, and
therefore did not share in that history, which just isn’t so.

After distorting history, Lind writes “The Klu Klux Klan is not forcing Mexican-American high
school students to do relatively poorly on college entrance exams.” Not content in playing
blacks off against Latinos, he throws in the Asian, who he says has also suffered
discrimination, but unlike Mexicans, Asians are making it. “Despite the history of harsh
anti-Asian discrimination in the United States, Asian-American students do better than
Latinos--and better on the average than old-stock white Americans.”

Lind then makes a quantum leap in logic and ignores the dramatic differences within the
Asian groups, just like generalizes about Latinos. Middle-class Asians, like middle-class
Latinos, do much better than poor Asians and poor Latinos, who often come to the United
States from rural or overcrowded urban areas. Moreover, racism is much more complex
than Lind’s reductionist model leads us to believe. His biases ignore the preponderance of
research, which suggests that teacher perceptions of social skills, and academic ability
play an important role in influencing development.

Aside from a lack of sociological insight, Lind’s article lacks historical substance. Mexican
Americans have been in what is the US for hundreds of years. Most have native American
blood, and the families of some Mexican Americans like myself have been in territorial
limits of this nation state since 1750. However, this is just surface of a very complex
history, because, like in my case, my wife comes from Durango, Mexico.

It is surprising that Lind, a sixth-generation Texan, chooses to ignore a history of conflict,

which includes a goodly number of lynchings. Moreover, he ignores the Texas War (1836)
and the Mexican American War of 1847, which seized over fifty percent of Mexico’s land,
and perpetuated racial stereotypes of Mexicans, which affect the most recent of Mexican
and Central American immigrants who are all presumed to be Mexican until proven
innocent.

Is this omission a product of Lind’s historical amnesia, bias or just plain manipulation of
history? I would conclude that it is a bit of all three. In 1997 Lind published The Alamo: An
Epic. Instead of being guided by recent revisionist works on the Alamo like Jeff Long’s Duel
of Eagles: The Mexican and U.S. Fight for the Alamos (1990) and Andres Tijerina’s Tejano’s
Under the Mexican Flag, 1821-1836 (1994), Lind wrote a love poem about the Alamo, and
may I add takes poetic license with the truth. A year later Lind double dips and publishes
an essay in the prestigious The Wilson Quarterly, titled: “The death of David Crockett.”

Having served as an expert witness in several civil rights suits and even a plaintiff, it is
important to note that evidence of historical discrimination toward a particular class of
people is vitally important to those cases. Because of a lack of space, I will not recount
that history other than to say that the reader has instant access to the history of Latinos
and Chicanos by just clicking on amazon.com. Next, the courts have not taken this subject
lightly, and there is overwhelming court precedent that concludes that Chicanos and
Latinos have historically suffered discrimination as a class. The burden of proof is thus on
Lind.

Ignoring historical evidence, Lind fails to define preferential treatment is. As mentioned, he
begins his article by playing off blacks and Latinos, and then seems to say that blacks are
also abusing the process because its middle-class and not the poor are benefitting from it.
In this instance, Lind becomes the champion of a class analysis. He manipulates the facts,
saying that it is liberal discourse that omits “class,” and concentrates on gender and race.
While I am no fan of liberals, where is Mr. Lind’s evidence? Any discourse analysis of
current political views clearly shows that conservatives have refused to discuss class
interests in this country, accusing anyone who raises them of promoting class conflict. We
don’t have to go any further than Lind’s benefactor William Buckley or the US Congress.
Every time the Democrats bring up that the Republican tax policies favor the rich,
Republicans angrily accuse Democrats of promoting class warfare.

Nevertheless, I do believe that Lind’s raising of the class issue merits discussion. For
example, Lind is right about the term Latino, it is confusing. In my opinion, it is so broad
that it includes many people who should not be part of the protected class. And, I believe
that even within the distribution of preferences class should play a determining role.
However, given the nature of American society, I do believe that it is important to promote
a strong Latino middle-class, because it is this sector that has a responsibility for the less
fortunate, and should be in the vanguard of protecting of civil liberties. I do not believe that
Lind understands this point.

In fairness to Mr. Lind, in the instance of his use of the word Latino, I do not believe that he
is trying to be manipulative. He just lacks an understanding of Latinos. He confuses
concepts, for example, he raises the terms Hispanic and Latino, giving the impression that
the former was the original term but that US Latinos changed it to the latter as part of an
Orwellian plot. What Lind does not recognize is that US Latinos lack the power to change
very much in this society, and it is only recently that gringo politicians have showed up at
their gatherings. The terms Hispanic and Latino, although romanticized by the middle-
class, are social constructs of the marketplace, of politicians like Richard Nixon, who
shrewdly devised his “Hispanic Strategy.”
Throughout the article, Lind brings up the question of quotas without defining the term.
Interestingly, he attacks the 1965 Immigration Act, which, according to him, created this
mess. However, he fails to recognize that the 1965 Act replaced a system of quotas based
on ethnic and racial preferences, euphemistically called national origins, for a more
equitable system based on family preferences. The truth be told, the 1965 Act actually
took privileges away from Latinos, who up to this point were not on a quota.

Lind’s argument would lead us to believe that all of the nation’s problems are due to the
1965 Act. At the same time, he makes another quantum leap in logic, writing that the
Latino and Black middle-classes are the sole beneficiaries of affirmative action. One would
think that if he were interested in a class analysis he would try to find out why these
workers came to the US and how their children are faring.

First of all, not all Latino students are going to elite schools, very few are, and those who do
go are at the top of their classes. Unlike the children of the ruling elite, they are not given
special privileges in the admission to places like Harvard. For the past thirty-two years, I
have taught at California State University at Northridge. Over 85 percent of my students are
first generation college students, most are immigrants. Over 90 percent are from working-
class families. This is although they come from cesspools masquerading as schools,
separate but hardly equal. An undeniable statistic is that close to 90 percent of teachers at
white schools are state certified, while as low as 38 percent of teachers in the inner city
schools are certified.

Consequently, statements such as “Lowering or abandoning measures of academic merit

would be a catastrophe . . . ” personally offend me. I do not deny that Latinos as a group
are statistically underperforming. Yet, my epistemological skepticism leads me to ask
about the under performing institutions of this country. During and after World War II, the
federal government gave veterans and others special preferences, raising the media
school age for white Americans from 9.9 to 12.1 years. The California State Colleges
charged $6.50 a semester then. Today, most Latino students continue to go to the state
colleges, but tuition now approaches $2,000 a year. The overwhelming number attend
community colleges that are the least endowed. In my opinion, the heavy investment in
education, from 1942-1960, paid off, and we should make a similar investment today for all
of our residents.
One last example of Mr. Lind’s tendency to manipulate the facts is his championing of the
“multiracial” category in the census. Again, he accuses the civil rights lobby of a
conspiracy to make anyone with one-drop of African or Latino blood members of a minority
group. This is ridiculous. Today, many Latinos are attempting to deal with the mixed
bloods, which American society makes a problem. Race is a construct of American
society.

Lind is simply nasty in insinuating that black and civil-rights lobbyists oppose the inclusion
of gays and lesbians for fear of abolishing “preferences for blacks and Latinos.” Personally,
I believe that we should abolish any kind of discrimination, and I believe that everyone
deserves equal protection, which includes schooling and equal access to the law. While I
realize that some blacks and some Latinos are timid about opening another debate on the
Civil Rights Act, the motive is not a selfish one, but because they do not trust born-again
conservatives such as Lind.

It is ironic that Lind would talk about out preferences. In 1995, when he allegedly
renounced his conservative past, he was embraced by the left, which was enamored by his
simplistic class analysis, although it trivialized culture, and lacked a critique of capitalism.
He was given access to the liberal media that knighted him, even while excluding minority
voices. So it is even more surprising that Lind would accuse the liberal media of race-
conscious orthodoxy.

My point here is that Lind is fighting a strawman. The question goes way beyond a race-
conscious vs. a race-neutral perspective. I would argue that even on the left, journals lack
race-consciousness or practice affirmative action. I would further argue that because
these journals lack “race-conscious” policies, people like Mr. Lind make false
assumptions about US Mexicans and Central Americans. The lack of race-conscious
policies is what dividing Americans, for the reality is that poverty in the US follows racial
and gender lines.

Rodolfo Acuña to Michael Lind, Sept 29, 2000 c/o of The New Leader
 Just a brief response to your reply in The New Leader. There is often a difference
between what we think we say and what we really say. Perhaps this has led to a
misunderstanding on both our parts. However, I have read some, not all, of your writings,
and I have found them anti-immigrant. For example, Earl Shorris in his response says that
he found your epic The Alamo: An Epic fairminded and sympathetic toward Latinos. I did
not and let me tell you why.

My father was a tailor, and I met John Wayne through one of my father’s customers,
Pedro Armendariz. I also attended Loyola high school with Michael Wayne. I doubt that
anyone would at the time have accused John Wayne of being a racist. He married four
Latinas, one the daughter of the Mexican ambassador. He owned a ranch in Durango,
Mexico, and he drank tequila. Unknown to most, he contributed to early Mexican American
civil rights organizations like the often red-baited Spanish-speaking Congress and the
Sleepy Lagoon defendants. When Wayne produced The Alamo, he intended it to be
positive toward Mexicans, to tell both sides. The result is one of the worse movies, even
racist that I have ever seen. There is a thin line between racism and paternalism, and that
line is often blurred, which is how I view The Alamo: An Epic.

In your response you say that we should treat Mexican Americans like all other
immigrants. You make the point that we are not all old stock, and even quote Gregory
Rodriguez as an authority. Well, I in part am old stock. One of my ancestors was General
Jose Urrea, who participated in the defense of Texas against the invaders. My mother’s
family, the Elias family of Sonora, Mexico, helped root Tucson, and at one time owned
rancho Nogales. Over the years, we have mixed with the native peoples, migrating back
and forth over the border. Despite Gregory Rodriguez’s statement, (who is not a historian,
but a theology major, who does not have a following even among conservative Latinos), the
wars between Mexico and the US were wars of conquest, which had political, economic
and social fallout. Briefly, Mexico would be another country with Texas and California, and
the wars left a historical memory that still affects the most recent arrivals. In Los Angeles
anyone with black hair and brown eyes is suspect of being Mexican.

Perhaps my religious upbringing has stayed with me, even apostates are never free
of guilt. However, I feel, much like the German Jew did years ago, that the more established
members of that community owed it to those less fortunate. I consider education a right,
and I want all people to have the same benefits that I had. Today, it is really not a matter of
getting into college but being able to afford tuition. When I attended Los Angeles State
College, I paid $6.50 a semester in tuition. Today the toll is close to $2,000 at the same
institution, and a book that cost $2.00 costs $50.00. Is this discrimination? To say the
least, it is a policy question, which I do not believe that people such as you help by raising
the affirmative action smoke screen.

The Right has stretched the notion of affirmative action beyond recognition. No one
has ever said that we should give unqualified people preference over qualified individuals.
However, it is reasonable to expect state universities to accept minority students who are
in the top 12 percent on an equal footing with white students who graduate in the top 12
percent. Logically and as to fairness, the schools should be equal and the educational
experiences should be equal no matter who attends those schools. Thinking rationally, the
state should not allow the situation where it certifies 92 percent of the teachers at a
predominately white school and only 38 percent at a minority school. Moreover, people
like you irritate those of us who fight the good fight when you do not mention that 20
percent of first year students at elite institutions like Harvard are special admits--their
parents are either alumni or donors. You do not attack corporate welfare with the same
vigor as you condemn perceived abuses in favor of minorities. I try to be fair. I try to be
consistent. Neither of my sons received a free ride--they were the sons of a PhD--and
through considerable sacrifice I paid the full cost of their schooling. Therefore, I resent
your painting all of us with the same brush.

As for your remarks about the Immigration Act of 1965. I responded to what you put
on paper. Expecting any reviewer to read every bit of trivia written by an author is
unreasonable, especially a person as prolific as you have been. My argument involved
“national origins” versus “family preferences”-- terms that you chose not to use or
address. I also cannot see how you can make the assumption that the 1965 amendment
“unwittingly created a new political constituency for the misguided racial quota
system . . . ” I find that assumption simplistic. That constituency would have been there
whether they would have passed the act or not. For example, if they had not passed it,
Latinos would not have been placed on a quota. Would conditions in Mexico have
improved if they had not passed it? If they had not passed it, would the US have ceased to
intervene in Central America? The truth is that I responded to what you wrote and was
published in the July/August issue.

Next, I hardly defended the “one-drop” rule. My point was that it was not the
product of any Orwellian plot by Latinos. Mexicans suffered Spanish colonialism and its
numerous racial categories, ranging from peninsulars, to criollos, to mestizos, to indios. I
remember when I started my college career, a fraternity approached me, which told me
that because I had green eyes, the brothers would pledge me if I listed myself as Spanish.
What would that make my sister with brown eyes, black hair, and brown skin? True, I
suspect the motive behind the reclassification. As a historian, I remember American policy
favored mulattos over pure blacks, a policy that still creates distance between American
and Caribbean blacks. The reality is that unlike you or Gregory Rodriguez, I am working with
the scars of interracial unions. I counsel these kids and help them find their own way.

Whether you want to admit it or not, race is still a factor in our society. One evening
when I was lecturing at Ann Arbor, a young lady approached me, telling me that she had
just gotten out of a mental institution. I knew that she wanted to talk and asked her what
had happened. She explained that when she was eighteen she learned that she was
Mexican. Her parents had adopted her and they brought her up in a family who did not like
Mexicans and she had internalized this. In the end, she said that she could cope with being
Mexican, but could not cope with not being white. Lastly, in February 1999, my foundation
had a fund-raiser, featuring One Man’s Hero, a film about the San Patricios. About 2,000
tick holders showed up. About three hundred were half-Mexican and half-Irish. Many of
them came up to me and thanked me for showing the movie, many because they had
always been encouraged to forget their Mexican heritage. I doubt that these scars were
self-inflicted.

You say that you support Federal anti-discrimination laws but that you oppose
racial preferences. Then why don’t you say something about these laws being made
ineffective by the Supreme Court? Recent decisions make it almost impossible to sue
institutions of higher learning or other employers, for race or age discrimination. In 1991 I
decided to sue the University of California for discrimination. I approached at least twelve
attorneys who told me: “Rudy, you got a great case, but the UC has deep pockets. You will
not even get back expenses and may have to pay its attorney fees if you lose!” Well, I sued.
The UC unsuccessfully spent $5 million in trying to defame me. Because of my reputation
and network of support, I prevailed. Yet how many Mexicans or people of any color has that
kind of support? At California State University at Northridge, almost 30 percent of the
students are Latinos while less than 3 percent of the faculty are Latinos--and it does not
relate to merit.

Lastly, I have read some of your books and a smattering of your articles. As I
already mentioned, they give me the same gut feeling as seeing The Alamo. I do not believe
that I am prejudiced toward you because you are a white Texan. I have had some contact
with The Texas Observer collective and like its work, although I do not believe it has not
done much to promote affirmative action in its own ranks--which is the case with most of
the liberal media. I know that I have had a bad experience with the Texas Rangers and have
been discriminated against in Texas--but there are many lawyers like Warren Burnett of
Midland-Odessa who have championed Mexican and human rights causes.

You are probably in touch with Gregory Rodriguez, whom the right is
touting. Eldridge Cleaver once found it more lucrative to turn against his principles than to
remain a radical. As one critic of Rodriguez put it: the best way for a minority writer to make
it is to denounce his mother, the establishment within his community, and claim to speak
for the silent majority. I believe that this is the case with Rodriguez, who even his
benefactor, Dr. David Hayes-Bautista has disowned. He has never worked to improve the
community, but has allied with its enemies to self-promote.

In your case, you are misguided: You write: “The difference between me and my
critics is that Shorris and Acuna want a public and private policy to grant every Latino,
whether disadvantaged or affluent, special educational, economic and political privileges
that are denied to disadvantaged whites solely on the basis of their race.” This is not true.
What I want are quality schools where an equal number of certified teachers to teach in
minority and white schools. What I want is to eliminate class privilege in this country, and I
do not want rich Mexicans, blacks, Asians, or whites to be privileged because of their
family money. Believing that Mexicans are getting special treatment is ludicrous. How
many Mexicans can get away with drug problems and become an US Representative
because the father is a Senator? How many Mexicans can admit to putting the white stuff
down their noses and run for president?

(118) “Mea Culpa,” July 30, 2000; “CONVENCION NACIONAL DEMOCRATA EN S

ANGELES: La politica alternative y el cionalismo,” La Opinion 6, Agosto 2000. La Politica
Alternativa y el Racionalismo: CONVENCION NACIONAL DEMOCRATA EN LOS ANGELES.
La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 06 Aug 2000: 1B

I have tried not to think about the circus scheduled at the Staples Center, and I dread even
commenting on it. It disturbs me that I am compelled to give an excuse as to why I won’t be
at the protests. Not that I am uninvited, one of the shadow conventions even asked me to
keynote its event. The bottom line is that I feel guilty, even though I know that I should not
be. This is so, even though I was once a Catholic, and I always felt that confession
absolved me.

Well, then why am I publicly thumping my chest and chanting mea culpa. Probably
because after some forty-two years as an activist, emotionally I want to support it,
although I have come to the point that I believe the projected kind of protest is irrational,
because it plays by the rules that we are protesting. Like I have said in the past, nos
estamos haciendo pendejos (we are fooling ourselves.

For as long as I can remember my my friends have framed the choice as a lesser of two
evils. Humphrey-Nixon, Ford-Carter, Bush and then Dole-Clinton. Now it is George W and
Gore. At the state level, the choice is Gray Davis. It doesn’t change

The irrationality of the political system and our responses to it has become increasing
gnawing. A mixture of frustration and a feeling good about protesting the establishment
has given way to pessimism. I find myself losing patience with the Independent Progressive
Political Network (IPPN), a left-wing alternative to the nation's duopoly politics, and the
greens. In my soul I know that they are different from Democrats and Republicans, but in
reality they act so--well, so white and middle class. I always have visions of them voting for
the Democrats in the dark of the ballot box.

I cannot blame my emotional state on a mid-life crisis. Too old for that. The rationality of
my early Jesuit education has eroded my political rationality and my trust in the left
community. This has brought on a crisis and raised the dilemma: do I comply with an
irrational strategy, or speak my mind and get branded as irrational, or even worse, a Trot,
Spartacus, or RCP. The truth be told, names and reputations are as important to the left as
they are to the mainstream.

I have come to see that my cooperative behavior as part of the problem. It is based on the
fallacy that I am making a difference by participating in the alternatives to charades such
as Staples.

Conformed behavior is rational, for society defines rational choice, not the individual.
Society equates emotion with being irrational. It reduces rationality to cool calculation.
Further, emotion is based on faith. From the time of Aristotle emotion has been defined as
a barrier to objectivity.

Rationalism in philosophy is primarily a theory of knowledge. Unlike empiricism, which

holds that all knowledge comes from perception, rationalism maintains that the most
important part of our knowledge comes from intellectual insight. I have always had a
problem with these simplistic definitions, and base my rationality both on what I have
perceived and intellectual insight. With age I have become more critical of the humanist
tradition, which seeks to mesh diverse social, political, and philosophical viewpoints. I
have become much more skeptical of alternative politics.

It is no longer convenient for me to believe that these politics make a difference. I believe
that one must philosophically challenge the premise of alternative politics. At the same
time, I greatly respect the young people who led the demonstrations in Seattle. However, I
also admired the idealism of youth during the 1960s, and realize that youth grow up, and
that their interests do not always coincide with poor people of color. My intellectual world
is structured to believe that overall societal goals include a solution to the problems
confronted by Latinos, which was so with some of the Seattle vanguard. Yet, I know that
most will graduate and their sojourn will become part of a nostalgic past.

I cannot share the optimism of old leftist who believe that Los Angeles will become another
Seattle, or, at least, another Washington D.C.. LA is a different kind of city. It is a Latino city
and I don’t see the presence of large numbers of Latinos at the Shadow Conventions, other
than a sprinkle of Latino politicos and labor leaders. I could get cute and make a pun--they
are not even in the shadows of the shadow. There is some black presence but not a hell of
a lot.

I attended a Border Summit called by Armando Navarro this past weekend in San Ysidro.
The discourse showed that even among those sectors that would normally demonstrate,
there was a reluctance to join white led groups. At Seattle there was little need to make
these coalitions. Los Angeles is, however, a Latino city.

At Seattle, there was a heavy presence of trade unions. As I have said LA is different. The
most militant sector of labor that which is more prone to demonstrate, is run by Latinos.
The leadership is territorial. It is heavily bound up in Democratic politics through the Latino
caucus that will be represented at the Staples Center Convention. Unlike the Shadow
Conventions, they won’t be in the shadows at the Staples, and consequently their
rationality is bound up in interests and a faith--no matter how ill founded--in the
Democratic Party.

Moreover, Latino politicos have an interest in not wanting Latinos at the forefront of any
demonstration. In 1994 when a mass demonstration of 150,000 Latinos and US Mexicans
walked down then Brooklyn Ave to the civic center waving Mexican flags, and holding signs
denouncing Proposition 187, many of these politicos worried that there would be a
backlash. Many panicked when 30,000 Mexican and Central American students walked
out of the schools protesting Proposition 187. Tellingly, there has not been a major protest
since then. And, I don’t see any change this time around, since there has been almost no
outreach to Latinos--in the City of Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles.

Another difference is the Rodney King uprisings of the early 1990s. LA is a different city,
marked by youth gangs. Although you would expect these gangs to be concerned about the
growing repression against all youth, with the passage of Proposition 21 and the Ramparts
executions, most of the gangs are isolated and very territorial. Many left it be known during
the King uprisings that they would not tolerate outsiders on their turf. This greatly confines
the area of protest.

No matter how you cut it, LA is different because it really has only one newspaper--the LA
Times. The others function in the shadows. In 1984, when a coalition that I belonged to
tried to organize a protest march on the opening day of the Olympics--we were almost
totally shut out of the news.

Aside from all of the above, the main reason that I won’t be at the Staples Center, is my
experience in San Diego for the Republican Convention. We held our shadow conventions.
Chicanos, blacks, feminists, gays, white radicals, greens and others, juntos pero no
revueltos (together but not mixed together). We heard our friends talk to us. We spoke to
our friends. Then at an assigned hour, we marched to a bullpen, just across from the
convention, and for an hour we were allowed, like changos, to yell at the Republican
delegates. We were totally enclosed by a chain link fence. After our time was up, we
marched back to our staging areas, yelling Chicano power. The only group that would not
go along with the arrangement was La Union del Barrio, who everyone thought was
irrational, but that probably history will judge as the most rational group there.

At one time, I saw the need for coalitions and worked toward them. However, you cannot
expect everyone to come together because we wish it. We also have to ask, are alternative
politics really an alternative? I personally hope that the demonstrations far exceed those
in Seattle, but let’s remember, it is part of the alternative politics that defines us as
rational.

(119) “Pleastanville EU: Europe Becomes A Continent of Immigrants,” Oct 8, 2000[1][1]

[1][1] This is a three part article that I wrote about European xenophobia when I returned
after a three week stay. I had been stationed in Germany during the 1950s and saw a stark
contrast between then and 2000. The article was much too long and could not get it
 Pleasantville, U.S.A., is a movie about America as many want to remember it. A
town without violence or poverty where everyone says, “yes sir” or “no ma’am.” Where
father knows best, and mom wears an apron. Everyone obeys the commandments, and no
premarital sex is tolerated. Everyone looks alike, and everyone knows each other. Time
stands still, and emotions do not rise above the “oh, gosh” level. The movie is about how
we want to remember America as. It drips nostalgia for the world that was, before the
cracks began to appear as spots of color.

A recent European trip shows that fiction is often more real than our nostalgia. In
the mid-1950s, although the big war had ended some ten years before, Europeans were
still rebuilding their cities. The rubble marred the landscape, and everything seemed
orderly, like Pleasantville, the only blotches were the American soldiers. The Germans
while walking in their forests Sunday mornings, seemed like they were constantly picking
up trash that American soldiers had tossed.

Recently I revisited Pleasantville. Like in the movie cracks marred the landscape: In
every city and hamlet discarded chewing gum formed blotches on sidewalks. Along side
the blotches a trail of cigarette filters evidenced an American cultural presence. Graffiti, on
the walls and on the arms of youth, defaced the landscape. Other American cultural
symbols such McDonald’s, Burger King and music help widen the cracks. The forests were
not as clean as I remembered, food wrappers strewn around, although not in the quantities
found in the United States.

Part of my own memory was that Europe was multilingual, and they still are. Many
speak English as second-language. At the same time the Germans have become as
culturally uptight as the Parisians. In traveling along the Rhine, people were courteous
almost to the point of rudeness. Tourism was different from other parts of Europe, with
most of the tourist coming from Germany itself. Koreans with cameras also seemed to
replace Japanese with cameras. Well off Italians traveled in packs, oblivious to
deprecating glances. Few Americans ventured there and I saw almost no people of color.

Admittedly, part of my problem is my sixth sense (some would call it over

sensitivity) I developed as a member of a minority in the United States. As a light-skinned
Mexican I have always observed the disdainful attitude shown to Mexicans when I was a
child--noticing whether the hotel or sales clerk was more helpful to others than to my sister
or others close to me, constantly reading body language. Since I was lighter than the rest I
was not as easily stereotyped, and I was often privy to unguarded remarks.

published so I just sent it out through the internet. This is an abridged version that had
been eited down.
 Obviously the cracks are unsettling to Europeans. As I mentioned, the Germans
have become increasingly linguistically and culturally uptight, circling the wagons, some
refusing to speak English when the obviously understand it. In Baden Baden, a premier
resort in Europe, for example, the hotel clerks were less than helpful, saying that they did
not know where the tourist office was. On the streets few admitted to speaking English. It
took us almost one and a half hours to find the Tourist Office and even then we could not
find a tour of the surrounding Black Forest. In Munich, a street car conductor almost
tossed us off the street car because we had not understood his directions in German. His
anger reminded me of that of some Americans toward foreigners.

Admittedly, xenophobia is not uniquely European or for that matter an American

phenomena. However, these two sectors of the world have a special responsibility and
history because of the distribution of goods and people around the world. Yet it is not
enough to say that everyone is xenophobic or ethnocentric, especially when they are acting
out their hatreds.

The Berlin Wall

To understate it there has been a resurgence of the right-wing extremism

throughout Europe. Many experts attribute the anti-immigrant hysteria to the collapse of
the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and the unemployment that has swept Eastern Europe
coinciding with the arrival of two million immigrants from the former Soviet Union the
following year. The exodus continued through the decade, estimated by some as high as a
million a year. High unemployment, stagnating wages and government cutbacks
contributed to a European version of nativism. Radical right-wing political parties have
exploited the uncertainties and scapegoated the unwanted immigrant. Yielding to these
fears West Europeans tightened their immigration laws and replaced the Berlin Wall with a
wall of troops to keep out refugees.

This great awakening of emotions have created a dilemma: Memories of the

holocaust are fresh in the minds of Europeans, and labels like neo-fascist and racist still
have meaning. Being a Christian people they needed to rationalize their sins and relieve
their guilt by reinventing history or developing a historical amnesia of the past.

Zealots throughout the European Union draw on the ideas of Alain de Benoist, the
godfather of the French "New Right." Benoist has helped create a cultural and political
climate where right-wing ideas can be expressed without fear of comparison to the Third
Reich. Although a rabid anticommunist, Benoist says "Better to wear the helmet of a Red
Army soldier, than to live on a diet of hamburgers in Brooklyn." Using a populist rhetoric
reminiscent of Pat Buchanan he denounces the capitalist free market and its consumer
society. More important, Benoist trumpets "the right to difference."
 According to Benoist, the corrosive “single model” of the US threatens the
disparate cultures and it wants to transform everyone and everything into one big global
commodity. His disciple Jean-Marie Le Pen would later say: "I love North Africans, but their
place is in North Africa." (Le Pen’s National Front is hardly a fringe group, and gained 15
percent of the vote in legislative elections in France recently).

Le Pen is not an aberration: In 1991 France's prime minister, Edith Cresson

suggested deporting undocumented immigrants by the planeload. Jacques Chirac, leader
of the neo-Gaullist right, talked of noisy, smelly immigrants. Former conservative
president, Valery Giscard d' Estaing, warned of an "invasion." Characteristically, France
refused to honor the Schengen agreement that stipulated passport-free travel among its
signatory countries.

A 1997 poll showed that 48 per cent of French people surveyed were fairly or very
racist. Contempt for foreign workers is, however, not limited to the French, it is universal
among the European Union nations. It is not limited to countries with high unemployment
rates either. Austria has a joblessness rate of 4.4 percent; foreigners make up 9 percent of
the population. Spain has an unemployment rate of 17.8 percent, but only 1.2 percent of
the population is foreign. Spain, until recently, has been tolerant. Prodded by France, it has
waged a major war to stem the flow of northbound Moroccans.

Indeed, the European Community has pressed Spain to stem the flow of
undocumented immigrants. This has led to the imposition visa restrictions on travelers
arriving from North Africa. According to most sources, the anti-Moroccan hysteria is not a
heritage of the regime of Francisco Franco. Recently rioters in the Spanish town of El Ejido
shouted “Moors out of here” attacking with baseball bats and iron bars migrant workers
and burning their homes, cars and businesses. The four-day rampage led to at least fifty-
two injuries and twenty-three arrests. This riot came on the heels of a law that allowed
80,000 undocumented immigrants to get residency. (Spain has a booming economy and a
low birth rate. Economists estimate that Spain will need as twelve million foreign workers
in the next half century to sustain its booming economy.)

The truth is, however, that racist nativism was evident before the fall of the Berlin
Wall. Nearly eighteen million foreigners lived in the 15 European Union (EU) nations in
1995. Ten million foreigners--in a total population of 374 million--were from lesser-
developed countries. Not all of these came from the former Soviet Union.

Colonialism: The Chickens Come Home to Roost

Every country in the European Community has benefitted from a colonial past.
Great Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and France had the largest colonial
empires, and the rest were wanna-be’s. Centuries of exploitation kept what we know as
the Third World dependent, a condition that they have never gotten out of. The collapse of
colonialism after World War II drove former subjects to their former colonial
“mothers.” Britain, France, Spain and Portugal held onto the illusion of an empire and
gave special rights of entry to the people of their former colonies that they revoked in the
1960's when many of these groups became part of the European community.

As a child I learned that the sun never set on the British flag. This is evident in
Britain where many Ugandans, Hindus, Kenyans, Middle-Easterners fill the streets, former
colonial subjects, many of whom are all technically citizens. Each has their own history.
For example, British companies took the East African Asians, most of whom are Gujarati,
to Africa as bonded laborers to work on railroads in places like Uganda. Britain encouraged
others to become merchants, and sustain Colonial rule. World War II changed Africa,
marking the decline of colonialism. As African countries got their independence, hundreds
of years of oppression came to the surface, and many leaders turned to African
nationalism and drove many Asians to England.

By 1968 Britain reversed its once inclusive policy toward its former subjects and
began to impose controls on passport holders from Independent Commonwealth
countries. A series of laws followed that revoked the right to citizenship to its former
subjects. By the late 1970's an estimated 90,000 Gujarati Hindus resided in Great Britain;
today a half-million live there. The government is seeking to send back asylum-seekers
from Nigeria. Like the French, the English are developing a historical amnesia, and
declaring "the right to difference."

Still, England is a favorite destination. Many economic immigrants want to take the
extra gamble and cross the channel to Britain. Opportunities are better, as is the possibility
of blending in. According to news sources, Chinese immigrants say they can disappear into
Europe's largest Chinese community--about 150,000 in London--where the bosses speak
their language. They claim that Britain is a more open, less policed society than Germany
or France. Britain does not require a national identity card as do other European countries.

Britain is also trying to discourage undocumented immigrants and to make its

borders less penetrable. On top of visa requirements introduced in the 1980's and fines on
airlines carrying improperly documented passengers, the government has introduced a
$5,000-a-head fine on employers hiring undocumented immigrants and, in April, $3,000-a-
head fines on truck drivers transporting them.

Most of us tend to forget that the Dutch once had one of the world’s largest
empires. The Dutch like to be perceived as a liberal people. In Amsterdam the free scent of
marijuana gives the impression of a lay back society, and regular tours to the home of Anne
Frank remind everyone that they supposedly resisted Hitler. Yet in once-liberal countries
like the Netherlands, the gates are clanking shut. Like England, history has contributed to
the immigrant question.
 In the 16th century the Dutch got Surinam (1667), which became part of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands until 1975 when it got its independence. Surinam is racially
mixed. A third are Creoles, a third are from India, called East Indians, and 15% are
Indonesians, mainly Javanese. The latter two are descendants of plantation workers
arriving in the late 19th century, early 20th. About 10% are Maroons or full-blooded
descendants of African slaves. Only 3 percent are American Indians. Dutch is the official
language. Today a third of the population of Surinam lives in the Netherlands, an estimated
300,000.

Nearly all the Surinam are Dutch citizens, and only a few have returned home. As
former colonial subjects, the Surinamese grew up speaking Dutch, were taught Dutch
history, and cultural factors perhaps eased their transition into Dutch society. In income,
employment and general prospects, the Surinamese rank ahead of the Turks and the
Moroccans, but they rank well below the native-born Dutch.

The Dutch Indonesian migration of the 1940's and 1950's was one of the largest. It
numbered 300,000, 180,000 of whom were Eurasian. They were according to some
sources effectively absorbed. However, by the last two decades of the 20th century,
immigration from poorer countries increased. The Dutch classify them as former colonial
subjects, refugees from war zones, economic migrants, and sometimes "guest workers."
According to official figures, of the 15.5 million inhabitants of the Netherlands, roughly 1.7
million are first or second-generation immigrants.

The Dutch pride themselves on not being like the Germans. Yet its citizens have not
dealt especially well with the migration. A transformation of Dutch immigrant policy from a
tolerant to intolerant came in the 1970's to the 1980's. The arrival of Turks (at least
260,000) and Moroccan (more than 220,000) tested their liberalism.

Today, according to one study, ethnic minorities make up almost one-fourth of the
population of Rotterdam. About one-sixth of the children in Dutch schools are from
immigrant groups. Unemployment among the Surinamese immigrants, the better off the
immigrants, is around 16 percent, as opposed to 5.4 percent for native-born Dutch. A 1997
study of immigration to the Netherlands estimates that by 2015, the number of first and
second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands will top 2.5 million.

****

The Netherlands, like the rest of the industrial world, has become a racially diverse nation
with about 10 percent of the population made up of immigrants or their descendants.
Tensions are such that six Turkish immigrants died in a fire in The Hague, the Netherlands'
capital; arson was suspected.

The Guest Worker (Gastarbeiter):

During the reconstruction of northern Western Europe (which included the

Scandinavian countries) after World War II, there was an acute labor shortage.
Industrialized countries invited foreign workers to come as "guest workers" to remain
during the good times. Although most northern European countries had guest workers, the
German experience was the most extensive. It was also the most sensitive since Germans
were the most vulnerable to the accusation of racism. As one columnist put it, they have
six million reasons why. Yet in the summer of 2000, tensions in Dusseldorf reached a crisis
level, and extremists planted a bomb at the train station, apparently targeting foreigners.
The bomb exploded and it injured nine immigrants, six of them Jews, as they returned
home from a German-language class. On the same weekend a number of attacks
followed, the worst occurring in the eastern town of Eisenach, where neo-Nazi skinheads
kicked two African asylum-seekers, spat upon them and pursued them, shouting "Sieg
Heil!" A rash of other attacks on foreigners followed, which led Green Party to urge
Germans to speak out against skinhead and neo-Nazi violence. Despite the immensity of
the actions, the silence among Germans was deafening.

Germany until the 1990's had a generous policy of political asylum. However, it
changed because of pressure from the right, which has led to a tightening up of these laws.
The irony is that German workers owe their high standard of living to the foreign workers,
who made it possible for heavy industry to remain in Germany for two decades after the US
began subcontracting its industrial work and dismantling its factories.

Looking back, after the Second World War, large numbers of East German
refugees, who had come to the west because of the partition of Germany into east and
west and the cession of parts of Germany to Poland, fled to West Germany. There was
antipathy toward the largely Protestant Germans in Catholic areas such as Bavaria.
However, they eventually assimilated them.

Because of the rapid industrialization, West Germany was forced to take in

unskilled gastarbeiters in the 1950s and 1960s. To be exact, the Gastarbeiter program was
initiated in 1955. One of the first contracts was with Italy. In 1960, Germany signed
contracts with Greece and Spain and a year later with Turkey, in 1964 with Portugal, and in
1965 with Morocco and Tunisia, and finally in 1968 with former Yugoslavia. The contracts
except those with Morocco and Tunisia resulted in unplanned and unanticipated mass
migrations. Like in the US, the foreign workers did not return to their countries of origin.
 The first wave often lived in factory-owned housing. Most were solos, men without
families, who sent wages home to their families in Yugoslavia, Turkey, Morocco or Algeria,
and sometimes Spain and Italy. The workers themselves expected to return, but gained a
feeling of permanency over the years. As they did, they refused to accept cheap lodging in
often primitive dwellings. They competed with the German majority for housing and jobs. In
1973 government policies spurred by the recession also changed and the West German
government policy subsidized workers wishing to return home. They allowed those who
stayed to bring their families to Germany, leading to large numbers of guest workers
sending their children to German schools. Moreover, they had children born in Germany.

Fourteen million migrants had come to Germany, between 1955-73, of which

eleven million were repatriated. Meanwhile, new minorities migrated to Germany. Africans,
repatriates from Poland, Rumania and the Soviet Union, and migrants seeking political
asylum were added to the mix. Because many lived in families, they formed communities,
and they established their own cultural infrastructures.

****

Significantly, the Turkish population increased after 1973, while the number of
Spanish migrants decreased, and the number of Greeks remained constant. In the 1980s,
the number of migrants coming from other than Turkey or from the European Union more
than doubled. A deindustrialization process has been underway since the mid 1980s,
laying off thousands of workers. Meanwhile, the recessions in the late 1980s and again
after 1993 hit ethnic minority members harder than Germans. As a result, in 1995 the
unemployment rate in West Germany among foreign-born was 16.2 per cent, while the
unemployment of Germans was 9.3 per cent.

The attitude of Germans toward different minority groups varies. I learned that 51
percent of West Germans opposed further immigration, and I was disappointed that
almost two-thirds of East Germans opposed immigration. (Guess that a Marxist education
helped little). According to another poll, the most accepted minority members are Italians,
whereas the highest social distance existed toward migrants seeking political asylum.
Even more than fifty years after the holocaust the social distance toward Jews still exists,
and is higher than toward Italians. In contrast to the negative attitudes toward the asylum
applicants, 27.2 per cent find it pleasant to have a Turk as a neighbor, but only 14.7 per
cent as a member of the family. Social distance to minorities increases with the age, but
declines with years of schooling.

Of the four million foreigners in Germany today, about 1.7 million are Turkish guest
workers. The term Gastarbeiter suggests that no one accepts the foreigner as a
permanent. This encourages racist sentiments among Germans. Meanwhile, the German
government gives mixed signals: it preaches tolerance but does not show that the Turks
are permanent fixtures, with some politicos expressing doubt that integrating them into
German society is possible. Thus, the Turks do not have adequate political rights, housing,
schooling, job opportunities, and overall security.

Although hundreds of Germans routinely pour into the streets angrily to denounce
racial attacks, authorities know a total of 41,500 Germans to belong to eighty neo-fascist
groups. They class some 6,400 as violent militants. The misperception is that immigrants
have overcrowded Germany, which is a myth. Indeed, immigration is vital to the nation's
economic health. According to a government report, the net population gains due to
immigration last year was just over 200,000. Yet because of the country's low birth rate,
even if that number is maintained every year, Germany would still lose 15 percent of its
population by 2050.

Germans formed much of the anti-immigrant mind-set in 1980 and 1981. Helmut
Kohl and his CDU party made reducing immigration one of their campaign issues. Their
nationalistic and racist rhetoric stirred up a lot of anti-Turk feeling in Germany. In office,
Chancellor Kohl, in 1982, announced that he wanted to reduce the foreign presence in
Germany by one million over the next three years by reducing family reunification, and
keeping out refugees. Kohl’s party sent leaflets entitled "Dealing with the Foreigner
Problem" to every German household, which is reminiscent of the rhetoric of a FAIR
(Federation for American Immigration Reform) pamphlet or a Pete Wilson campaign
leaflet.

Germans still stick to the idea that one either is born German or is not German.
Thus, three million ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe are automatically entitled to German
passports. The German-born children of foreigners do not, and need a work permit to get a
job. Sixty percent of Germany's foreigners have lived there for more than ten years. Over
two-thirds of foreign children were born there. Even so, Germany does not see itself as a
country of immigrants. Its government actively promotes repatriation, and pays a small
sum to families who return "home.” Fewer than 1% of Germany's Turks, the biggest
immigrant group, are citizens.

****

The Rise of Herr Haider

The Austrian Freedom Party, the strongest far-right party in Western Europe,
recently received 28 percent of the popular votes (only a shade less than the two
mainstream parties), allowing a populist leader, Jorg Haider, to broker a deal with the
People’s Party to join the government. Haider who once praised Hitler became a lightening
rod for criticism, and many nations boycotted the new government. How did Haider get
there? He exploited popular frustrations over globalization, and feelings of economic
insecurity and rising levels of job turnover. Ironically, Austria’s unemployment was below 5
per cent for fifty years.

His election encouraged a rash of racist incidents. For example, Austrian police
openly abused and insulted foreigners. In March 2000 the state charged a 31-year-old
Vienna police officer with brutalizing of a young African man. The police officer allegedly hit
the 18-year-old around the genitals with a baseball bat before arresting him on suspicion
of drugs possession. The judge adjourned the case allegedly for a lack of evidence. In
1999, 140 police stormed the home of black residents looking for drugs. They found
nothing but conducted painful anal searches on African males. Police arrested and fined a
Romanian woman for begging, while they gave Britons a slap on the hand for begging on
the same day.

Britain and the rest of the EU hypocritically denounced Herr Haider.

Simultaneously, the British Home Office announced plans to demand cash bonds from
visitors from the Indian subcontinent. Admittedly, Haider's politics are loathsome, but is
the rest of Europe and even the US is not any better? The Economist, on April 5, 1997,
wrote: “The threat of massive immigration into Western Europe has receded, but not the
fear of it.”

The African Invasion: Closing the Borders

The main challenge to Pleasantville, however, comes not from Eastern European and the
former Soviet Union immigrants. Like the Italians before them, they will absorb them. Even
nativist intellectuals realize that the former Soviet bloc has a stable population; like their
western brethren, they are not having babies. Immigration will decline, given two decades
of economic recovery and an absence of ethnic strife. This will lessen the push factors.
Besides racial features most share with their hosts a common race, religion, education
and culture.

The big fear is a dozen miles across the Mediterranean in what some Spanish civil
servants call Europe's "southern flank.” The world's poorer countries are growing twice as
fast as Europe's did at its peak in the late 19th century. Most experts suggest that the
population of the western world will probably stabilize below two billion, while poorer
countries will rise from about four billion to over eight billion in forty years. If only a fraction
of these migrates to Pleastantville, northerners will label it an invasion.

The push factors are obvious: the lack of jobs, lack of land, lack of water, and
hundreds of years of colonialism. The fact that they can earn from ten to thirty times as
much as they can earn back home will weigh heavily on their decision to move. Further, the
expectations of Third World people will rise via education and television. Cheap air fares
will make the journey within their reach. Finally, the availability of jobs will pull the
southerners north.

Africa is the fastest growing region of the world. The income gap between Africa
and Europe widens. As Africa grows younger, Europe grows older. By 2025 Turkey alone will
have twenty million more people than united Germany. Sudan’s population will equal that
of France, and, Egypt as many people as Spain and Italy combined.

In France, about 3.5 million immigrants, making up more than 5% of the nation's
population, live there with documents. No one knows how many undocumented foreigners
live there. French border police intercepted and turned back 68,000 people in a year.
France has created a new, 6,700-member police unit to stop the undocumented entrants.

French treatment of the North African population of Paris or Marseilles has been
brutal. France's colonial experiences and class-based attitudes have conditioned their
attitudes toward these brown skinned people. Marseilles is the gateway to France for tens
of thousands of immigrants, mostly North Africans, from across the Mediterranean. "We
are no longer in our own country there. It's a sort of extraterritorial land," said a local
National Front official.

The number of apprehensions is growing. An estimated three million to five million

undocumented immigrants live in the European Union. About seven million live in the
United States, whose population is smaller than Western Europe. About 500,000
undocumented immigrants try to get into the EU each year.

With increased police activity, comes an increased criminalization of the other. The
result is that rational thought and behavior have also suffered. Europeans fear that
undocumented migrants, having slipped into Portugal or Spain, will make it all the way to
the North Sea. This has produced a hysterical response from Europeans, with former lower
status Europeans such as the Italians and the Spaniards joining the pecking game. When I
was a soldier in Germany during the 50's I was discriminated because they thought that I
was Italian. This prejudice toward Italians continued through the 1950's when they
deported the Ninos. Today Italy is the scene of intense anti-foreign frenzy. It is now
clamping down on undocumented workers, and acts of violence have been recorded. In
1995, a passing motorist handed a gift-wrapped package to two Gypsy children begging at
an intersection in Pisa, Italy. When the children unwrapped the package, it exploded. The
13-year-old girl lost a finger and the 3 1/2-year-old boy lost an eye. Meanwhile, Gianfranco
Fini, leader of Italy's National Alliance regularly baits foreigners and draws about 15
percent of the vote nationwide.

At a time that Haider’s Freedom Party is welcomed into Austria's government,

bands of Spanish marauders burned down the houses of Moroccan migrant workers.
Racism and mistrust of foreigners are deeply rooted in the European Union. When I was a
student, a professor of Iberian Studies would say that Africa began at the Pyrenees. Spain
as a whole, sits in the shadow of North Africa's crisis. In the Almeria region, Algerians form
the largest group of immigrants after Moroccans, along with growing numbers from sub-
Saharan Africa. It matters little whether the foreigners have papers or not. Racism is
generalized.

The Dutch Organizations United for Inter Cultural Action has compiled a list of
more than 2,060 people who have died trying to reach Europe since 1993. The list fails to
list victims at sea or who have died undetected in airtight trucks. Also not evident are the
atrocities of the coyotes, the smugglers. Ironically, the penalties for human trafficking, in
most European countries, are lower than for drugs trafficking. The short trip from Albania
to Italy may cost as little as $500 to $1,000. The undocumented from China's Fujian
province to London pays from $18,000 to $30,000.

Conclusion:

The anti-foreign hysteria is standing in the way of European prosperity and will
ultimately lead to an accelerated exporting of jobs. Germany today finds itself in the
position where the nation's high-technology industries must rely on skilled foreigners to
remain competitive in the world market. The Federation of German Employers claim that
the nation lacks as many as 1.5 million skilled workers. As a result, some reforms have
been forthcoming, and the children of guest workers born on German soil may get German
citizenship.

The truth be told, Italy would have to add about nine million immigrants by 2025,
about 300,000 a year, just to keep its population at 1995 levels. Germany would need to
import fourteen million people, 500,000 a year. France two million and the European Union
as a whole would have to import about thirty-five million. Finally, if the Europeans want
to keep their ratio of older people to active workers at the 1995 levels, the union will need
135 million immigrants by 2025. It seems then that encouraging immigration would be
rational, rather than adopting a zero immigration policy.

The fact is, however, that no country in the world would allow free immigration. The
people of Pleasantville would not tolerate it. This resistance will cause tensions and even
violence in Pleasantville, depending on good times or bad times. Europeans will blame the
foreigner for the violence and they will pass tough controls supposedly to assure the safety
of those others. As one columnist put it, “To reduce racism at home, many countries need
to have racist controls on immigration.” The way rich countries react will depend partly on
their past. Western Europe can absorb millions more, but it does not have a history of
immigration, except in the immediate past. Its colonists lived abroad.

Looking at the round gum marks on the pavement and the spent cigarette filters, I
realized that Pleasantville EU it was becoming more American, despite the harangues
against McDonald’s. The spots here like in the US are used to divert attention away from
the fact that the most labor-intensive industries, i.e., textiles, metal manufacturing,
engineering, food processing, are being sent to Third World countries to maximize profits.
The rationale is that it will keep foreigners at home. Supposedly, “poor countries grow rich
faster than the already-wealthy, all to the good. If foreign trade and investment do not
narrow the gap between rich worlds and poor, then vast movements of humanity will try to
do so instead.”

Trade unions in Pleasantville EU often join the hysteria. In my own invention of

history I always placed European trade unions several notches above the American. Now
their class critique seems as shallow, washed away by a populist rhetoric, as their
American counterpart. Reading European columnist we hear the wisdom of Alan
Greenspan, that unemployment and low wages are good for the economy because
corporate profits rise. Euroland is heeding Greenspan’s advice. Germany and its partners
are reforming their firms by changing working practices in response to international
competition. Assaults on unions and regulation on how many hours anyone can work are
part of the package. The most successful of the reformers are Britain and the Netherlands,
followed by Germany. Naturally, tax-reform means increased corporate welfare.

In September 2000 the French announced tax reductions of $15.5 billion. The
theme is keep business alive. Germany previously slashed taxes for citizens and
businesses by $27.3 billion. Taxes are labeled repressive. All this comes at the expense of
social benefits, which Europeans enjoy at a much higher level than in the US. The citizens
of Pleasantville EU applaud these measures perhaps because they believe that the
blotches, the filters, the graffiti, and the foreigner will go away, remembering the days
when everyone remembered the words of the “Lorely.”

The Second Wave: Europe A Continent of Immigrants

Western European nativism is predictable. Although culturally similar and racially the
same, they have considered each other to be strangers. Looking back, after the Second
World War, large numbers of East German refugees, who had come to the west because of
the partition of Germany into east and west and the cession of parts of Germany to Poland,
fled to West Germany. There was antipathy toward the largely Protestant Germans in
Catholic areas such as Bavaria. However, they eventually assimilated them--but not at the
time.

During the reconstruction of northern Western Europe (which included the

Scandinavian countries) after World War II, there was an acute labor shortage.
Industrialized countries invited foreign workers to come as "guest workers" (gastarbeiters)
to remain during the good times. Although most northern European countries had guest
workers, the German experience was the most extensive. It was also the most sensitive
since Germans were the most vulnerable to the accusation of racism. As one
columnist put it, they have six million reasons why.

Because of the rapid industrialization, West Germany was forced to take in

unskilled gastarbeiters in the 1950s and 1960s. To be exact, the Gastarbeiter program was
initiated in 1955. One of the first contracts was with Italy. In 1960, Germany signed
contracts with Greece and Spain and a year later with Turkey, in 1964 with Portugal, and in
1965 with Morocco and Tunisia, and finally in 1968 with former Yugoslavia. The contracts
except those with Morocco and Tunisia resulted in unplanned and unanticipated mass
migrations. Like in the US, the foreign workers did not return to their countries of origin.

The first guest workers wave often lived in factory owned housing. Most were solos,
men without families, who sent wages home to their families in Yugoslavia, Turkey,
Morocco or Algeria, and sometimes Spain and Italy. The workers themselves expected to
return, but gained a feeling of permanency over the years. As they did, they refused to
accept cheap lodging in often primitive dwellings. They competed with the German
majority for housing and jobs. In 1973 government policies spurred by the recession also
changed and the West German government policy subsidized workers wishing to return
home. They allowed those who stayed to bring their families to Germany, leading to large
numbers of guest workers sending their children to German schools. Moreover, they had
children born in Germany.

Fourteen million migrants had come to Germany, between 1955 and 1973, of which
eleven million were repatriated. Meanwhile, new minorities migrated to Germany. Africans,
repatriates from Poland, Rumania and the Soviet Union, and migrants seeking political
asylum were added to the mix. (The third wave). Because many lived in families, they
formed communities, and they established their own cultural infrastructures. In 1995,
foreign immigrants were largely found in large industrial centers like Cologne, 19.1
percent. Frankfurt/Main, 29.4 percent, Munich, 22.5 percent, and Stuttgart, 23 percent.

****

Most significant, the Turkish population increased after 1973, while the number of Spanish
migrants decreased, and the number of Greeks remained constant. In the 1980s, the
number of migrants coming from other than Turkey or from the European Union more than
doubled. A deindustrialization process accelerated in the mid 1980s, laying off thousands
of factory workers. Meanwhile, the recessions in the late 1980s and again after 1993 hit
ethnic minority members harder than Germans. As a result, in 1995 the unemployment
rate in West Germany among foreign born was 16.2 per cent, while the unemployment of
Germans was 9.3 per cent.
 The attitude of Germans toward different minority groups varies. I learned that 51
percent of West Germans opposed further immigration, and I was disappointed to learn
that almost two-thirds of East Germans opposed immigration. According to another poll,
the most accepted minority members are Italians, whereas the highest social distance
existed toward migrants seeking political asylum. Even more than fifty years after the
holocaust the social distance toward Jews still exists, and is higher than toward Italians. In
contrast to the negative attitudes toward the asylum applicants, 27.2 per cent find it
pleasant to have a Turk as a neighbor, but only 14.7 per cent as a member of the family.
Social distance to minorities increases with the age, but declines with years of schooling.

Of the four million foreigners in Germany today, about 1.7 million are Turkish guest
workers. The term Gastarbeiter suggests that no one accepts the foreigner as a
permanent. This encourages racist sentiments among Germans. Meanwhile, the German
government gives mixed signals: it preaches tolerance but does not show that the Turks
are permanent fixtures, with some politicos expressing doubt that integrating them into
German society is possible. Thus, the Turks do not have adequate political rights, housing,
schooling, job opportunities, and overall security.

Germans formed much of their anti-immigrant mind-set in 1980 and 1981. Helmut Kohl
and his CDU party made reducing immigration one of their campaign issues. Their
nationalistic and racist rhetoric stirred up a lot of anti Turk feeling in Germany. In office,
Chancellor Kohl, in 1982, announced that he wanted to reduce the foreign presence in
Germany by one million over the next three years by reducing family reunification, and
keeping out refugees. Kohl’s party sent leaflets entitled "Dealing with the Foreigner
Problem" to every German household, which is reminiscent of the rhetoric of a FAIR
(Federation for American Immigration Reform) pamphlet or a Pete Wilson campaign
leaflet.

.****

It must be emphasized that the anti-Turkish sentiment is not peculiar to Germany. It is

widespread throughout Europe, or better said where they are present in large numbers.
Religion in this case plays a part. Turkish women continue to use their veils. Turks as a
whole have not assimilated either by choice or an unwillingness of the majority to accept
them as Western Europeans. Significantly, Turkey has not enjoyed the prosperity of Italy,
Spain or Greece, and unlike these countries and Portugal, Turkey has not received its green
card, and is not part of the European Union.

The Last Waves: The Great Fear

There has been a resurgence of the right wing extremism throughout Europe during the
1990's. Many experts attribute the anti-immigrant hysteria to the collapse of the Berlin Wall
in November 1989, and the unemployment swept Eastern Europe coinciding with the
arrival of two million immigrants from the former Soviet Union the following year. This
exodus continued through the decade. Radical right wing political parties exploited the
uncertainties of the decade and denounced the unwanted immigrant. Even moderate
politicians engaged in this baiting, and they tightened immigration laws and replaced the
Berlin Wall with a wall of troops to keep out immigrants.

As with the two previous waves, this migration did not occur by accident. The
breakup of the Soviet Union was the immediate cause. The history of European meddling in
the affairs of Eastern European was the determining cause. We can trace the instability in
the Balkans to the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I. Before this there was no
Yugoslavia and no Czechoslovakia, and other nation states. The Great Powers created
them. About a fourth of the borders were established around the time of World War I (1910
1922), and another third emerged after World War II, most of these new borders were in the
Eastern half of the continent.

World War II further unsettled the region, and the Cold War took away any hope of
stabilizing Eastern Europe. Tensions between the US and the Soviet domination drained
economic resources from these artificial nation-states. Encouraged by western
propaganda, the Soviet empire broke up in a couple of years, something that it took the
Roman and the Ottoman empires a couple of centuries. Thousand-year-old ideological
and ethnic divisions between Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims erupted.

The present literature suggests that the scapegoat of choice in Western Europe are today
political and economic refugees from the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. From the fall
of the Berlin Wall to the present an estimated four million migrants have entered the
European Union. (Add to these number refugees from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan or Iraq Some
fleeing persecution in their countries).

Many of these asylum seekers are Jews. Most of the 6,300 Jews in Dusseldorf, the
site of this summer’s bombing arrived in the last decade, lured to Germany by generous
grants. Therefore, the Jewish community that numbered less than 30,000 at the time of the
collapse of the Berlin Wall, is now more than 100,000 (far short of the half million of pre-
Hitler Germany). Add to these Rumanians, Albanians, Turks, Gypsies, and refugees from
the chaos of NATO's military intervention in Kosovo (Serbs, Bosnians and Croatians).

Feelings against the asylum seekers were so high this last September that the
Swiss voted in a referendum to limit immigration to 18 percent for non Swiss, including
asylum seekers. (Some estimates place the percentage of foreigners at 23 per cent). This is
ironic since the tiny Alpine country owes its prosperity to foreigners. As the Swiss bankers
and business persons go home, the foreigners seem to wake up. The night clerks at the
hotels, the waiters and the taxi drivers. The referendum also called for action against
foreigners living there and whom authorities had already refused residency. It called for
police roundups and holding foreigners in detention camps. It called of new border
installations, placing checks at railway stations and having holding centers at airports.

The targets of the ballot were the large number of Balkan war refugees. Critics
posited that the economy was booming, the number of asylum seekers was small and
unemployment was below 2 per cent. The Swiss government and the Swiss business
community both opposed the referendum. Because of government and business
opposition the referendum failed, self-interest trumped racism, and 63 percent of Swiss
voters voted against setting a limit on the number of foreigners.

The Swiss have for some time been dependent on immigrants, and, for sometime it
has looked upon immigrant workers as intruders. Their reaction to the Balkans refugees
remind us of the Italian film ABread and Chocolate,@ released in the US in 1978. The
Franco Brusati movie tells the story of an Italian guest worker named Nino, struggling to
cope in a Teutonic world, and the degrading situations he experiences, in trying to achieve
his dream of bringing his family to Switzerland. It also portrays the lot of Greek refugees
and Turks who compete with Italians and Spaniards for work. Much has happened since
the 1970s. First, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece were net exporters of immigrants then.
Today, Italian immigration has slowed to a trickle, as northern Italian industry has
revitalized itself. Even the Spaniards have stopped coming in large numbers, with Spain
now attracting immigrants of its own. Of the original guest workers only the Turks continue
to migrate in large numbers.

The greatest challenge to white hegemony, however, comes in the fourth wave of
immigrants. The population of the western world will bottom out below two billion, while
poorer countries will rise from about four billion to more than eight billion in the next forty
years. Spanish civil servants call Africa Europe's "southern flank.” The income gap
between Africa and Europe is widening rapidly. Africa grows younger, while Europe grows
older. The Sudan=s population will equal that of France, and, Egypt will have as many
people as Spain and Italy combined within the next four decades. As the specter of
Africans ‘invading’ Pleasantville EU grows, the drum beats of the ‘the right to difference’
will grow louder: "We are no longer in our own country. It's a sort of extraterritorial land.’

Fears of the fourth wave are racist and deceiving simultaneously. Chicano activist friends
who have visited Spain recently say that they felt comfortable in Spain and did not
experience racism. However, Spain has always been in the shadow of North Africa. Recent
news accounts portray tensions there and attacks on Algerians and Moroccans in the
Almeria region. The European Union has pressed Spain to stem the flow of undocumented
immigrants. The antipathy toward the North African has risen as a consequence, i.e.,
recently rioters in the Spanish town of El Ejido shouted, ‘Moors out of here,’ attacking
migrant workers with baseball bats and iron bars and burning their homes, cars and
businesses. The four-day rampage led to at least fifty-two injuries and twenty-three
arrests.
 French treatment of the North African population of Paris or Marseilles has also
been brutal. France's colonial experiences and class-based attitudes have conditioned
their prejudice toward these brown skinned people. Marseilles is the gateway to France for
tens of thousands of immigrants, mostly North Africans, from across the Mediterranean,
and the hysteria is strongest there.

The lack of jobs, lack of land, lack of water, and hundreds of years of debilitating
colonialism form the push factors. The fact that Africans can earn from ten to thirty times
as much as they can earn back home weighs heavily on their decision to move. Further,
education and television have raised the expectations of Africans. Cheap air fares will
make the journey within their reach. Finally, the availability of jobs will pull the southerners
north.

A pretext for this hysteria is that Europe is overcrowded or that the newcomers are
taking jobs away from the native born. This is a myth. As mentioned, immigration is vital to
Europe=s continued economic health. Like the US and Western Europe as a whole has a
low birth rate. For example, even if Germany would maintain a net growth of 200,000
immigrants a year, by 2050 Germany would still lose 15 percent of its population.

The fact is that foreign workers have significantly contributed to the prosperity of all
of Europe. The Federation of German Employers says that the nation lacks as many as 1.5
million skilled workers. Germany today finds itself in the position where the nation's high
technology industries must rely on skilled foreigners to remain competitive in the world
market. Germany would need to import fourteen million people, 500,000 a year to meet its
labor needs. Italy would have to add about nine million immigrants by 2025, about 300,000
a year, just to keep its population at 1995 levels. It is incredible but France only has about
3.5 million immigrants, making up just over 5% of the nation's population. Yet France has
created a new, 6,700 member police unit to stop the undocumented entrants. If France
wants to maintain its present growth, it must import two million immigrants by 2025. The
European Union as a whole would have to import about thirty-five million. This makes talk
of a zero immigration policy irrational.

Like Americans, Europeans blame the foreigner for violence. They will pass tough controls
supposedly ‘to assure the safety of those others.’ As one columnist put it, ‘To reduce
racism at home, many countries need to have racist controls on immigration.’ In the
process, like Americans, Europeans reinvent history, blaming the immigrant. As with the
US, the immigrant is used to divert attention away from changes in the economy. Most
labor intensive industries such as textiles, metal manufacturing, engineering, food
processing are already sending to Third World countries to maximize profits. The pretext is
that the runaway industries will keep foreigners at home. ‘Poor countries grow rich faster
than the already wealthy, all to the good. If foreign trade and investment do not narrow the
gap between rich worlds and poor, then vast movements of humanity will try to do so
instead.’
 In reality it is a ruse to concentrate capital in the hands of the few. The fable goes
that Western European governments must reform their labor practices in response to
international competition. Assaults on unions and regulation on how many hours anyone
can work are part of the package. The immigrant hysteria makes possible the elimination of
social programs. Just like the so-called dominoes Europe is adopting the program, with the
most successful reformers being Britain and the Netherlands, followed by Germany.

For instance, in September 2000 the French announced tax reductions of $15.5 billion over
a three-year period. The theme is keep business alive. Germany previously slashed taxes
for citizens and businesses by $27.3 billion over a similar period. The press labeled taxes
repressive. All this came at the expense of social benefits, which Europeans enjoy at a
much higher rate than in the US.

Drawing from my experience in the US, I would say that the immigrant hysteria is no
worse in Western Europe than the US, despite the victory of the Austrian Freedom Party,
the strongest far right party in Western Europe, which recently received 28 percent of the
popular votes, allowing Jorg Haider, to broker a deal Party to join the government.
(Irrationally, Austria=s unemployment has been below 5 per cent for fifty years. Austria has
a joblessness rate of 4.4 percent, and foreigners make up 9 percent of the population).

****

German authorities admit that 41,500 Germans belong to eighty neo fascist groups of
which 6,400 are violent militants. A recent poll showed that 51 percent of West Germans
were anti-immigrant, with close to two of three East Germans expressing like antipathy.
However, with this said, neo-fascism, as the press calls it, must be put into the American
context.

In 1994 Proposition 187, the anti illegal immigration initiative, polarized California
voters along racial lines, and it won big time among white voters while losing among every
ethnic group. Significantly, one in five voting for 187 said that Governor Pete Wilson had a
major influence on their choice. Wilson like Haider and Le Pens stirred the anti-immigrant
hysteria for his own political purposes. His anti-immigrant campaign indeed gave him the
margin of his electoral victory that year. Proposition 187 won among whites 59% to 41%. It
failed 78% to 22% among Latinos, 54% to 46% among Asian Americans and 56% to 44%
among blacks.

Until the 1980s, America's postwar white supremacists were a ragtag collection of
local Ku Klux Klansmen and neo Nazis with little exposure to people or events overseas.
However, in this age of globalization, white supremacists have gone international, too.
Fueled by the Internet and cheap jet travel, neo Nazi leaders are exchanging speakers and
literature and forming chapters of their groups abroad. Between they think 100,000 and
200,000 Americans have similar ties. German intelligence officials say 70 percent of the
nearly 400 German neo Nazi sites are now on American servers. The Ku Klux Klan has also
ventured abroad, setting up chapters in Britain and Australia and giving talks in Germany.
There is a thin line between these groups and more conventional racist nativist groups
such as the Federation of American Immigration Reform and Voices of Citizens Together.

Overall, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported nearly 8,000 hate crimes in
the US in 1998, more than half were racially motivated. Racist nativist regularly harass
immigrants, who are beaten, raped and even murdered. One of the border vigilante groups
regularly hunts undocumented Mexicans and other Latinos on the Arizona-Mexican border.
This excludes crimes against African Americans, homosexuals, and women.

Although the US record is not any better and sometimes worse than Western
Europe, I think, the violence will get worse there. My assumption is based on several
factors: First, immigration is a much older phenomenon in the US than in Europe. Because
of this immigration policy is more liberal, and citizenship is easier to obtain here. Second,
the presence of a large African American population has historically politicized many
Americans to civil rights issues. It created, for example, the context of the reforms of the
Immigration Act of 1965. Third, the presence of many Latinos in the US checks more
assertive forms of behavior toward them. For example, the Republican party paid a price
after 187, and this discouraged the pandering of many politicos to nativist themes. Also,
witness the change in attitudes toward immigration by many trade unionists. This presence
also raises the plausibility of legal and physical retaliation. Fourth, the presence of a
Mexico just across the border whose government is becoming more sensitive to the racism
in the US. Lastly, the overwhelming presence of Latinos in the Catholic Church has given
the cause of immigrants moral authority, unlike Europe where the Church is a native
Church.

(120) “The 2000 Election,” Dec 2000, Rough Draft. DOBLE ESTANDAR En la Politica
Estadounidense: Eleccion 2000,” La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 24 Dec 2000: 1B.

I guess everybody has an opinion about this last election, and I guess the closer
that we get to the coronation of George W. Bush, the more difficult it will get to criticize the
process. Americans treat their elections much the same way they do sports events--once
the game is over--the outcome is accepted, not withstanding bad officiating, they accept
the results. However, politics are not sport events and should not be treated as such. The
stakes are too high.

Personally, I had no interest on the outcome. I cynically voted for a dead man
because I thought that he was the best qualified.

I simply could not get myself to vote for Ralph Nader. Maybe I am petty but back in
1994 many of us wanted him to make a statement on Proposition 187. People close to him
told me that it wasn’t his issue. Well, then maybe his candidacy was not my issue.
 Al Gore sounded good toward the last, especially when it came to doing something
about getting rid of the labor busting practice of “permanent replacements”that makes it
almost impossible to go on strike.

But, Gore blew it in his rhetoric about the military and how they deserved more
money. Just the simple facts that Russia has a military budget of about $65 billion and the
US over $300 billion tells me a lot. Then there is the tragedy of the Russians not being able
to recover a submarine with all those kids inside it.

As for George W. Bush. My parents brought me up better than voting for a man with
simple solutions, especially when they involve making the rich richer.

The fact is that the election was full of flaws that went beyond judgement calls. All
those hanging chads were designed to be that way, and it was factored into the equation by
the politicians. George W. said he had a secret weapon in Florida, and it went beyond his
brother Jeb.

A December 3 investigative piece by the Miami Herald made an analysis of Florida’s

5,885 precincts and concluded that Al Gore should have won by a slim 23,000 votes rather
than Bush officially winning by 537 votes. This was pretty much in line with the election day
exit polls.

Some 185,000 ballots were discarded. A goodly number of these were in African
American and poor urban precincts.

Sure the US Supreme Court raised the issue of due process, and violations of the
Fourteenth Amendment. But, again how can I trust nine justices in black robes, who have
all but scuttled the anti-discrimination laws, crippled the voting rights acts, and regularly
deny that men and women about to be executed have due process.

With all this said, the thing that gets me the most upset is the reasoning of
Americans who voted for Bush. Many of these characters voted for measures such as
California’s Proposition 209, which scuttled affirmative action. Pundits like former
Secretary of State Bill Bennett and Lynne Cheney, the vice-president-elect’s wife, regularly
pollute the air waves, talking about merit.

I guess merit does not apply to the rich whose money qualifies them. George W. I’m
sorry. President-elect George W. Bush has a resume that could not get him hired as an
assistant professor at most universities. It certainly would not have qualified him to be
president of a university. Prior to being elected governor of Texas six years ago, he had
never been elected to office. Because his father was president, he entered business with
limited capital, and made a mess out of it. He then got a baseball team, and dreamed of
being the baseball commissioner (a job that the other owners did not think he was
qualified).
 Many counter this argument by pointing out that Ronald Reagan did not have
much political experience. Come on! Look at Reagan’s age, and then the governorship of
California versus Texas. In Texas it is a ceremonial job. The power is in the hands of the
Lieutenant Governor. Not that I liked Reagan. But the only thing that they have in common
is that if both would have achieved their original dreams--Bush of becoming a baseball
commissioner and Reagan of becoming a good actor--the workers and their families would
have been much better for it.

Maybe I could be more tolerant if the system were more tolerant.

I criticized Bill Clinton not so much because he played around. What I criticized him
for was using a woman and then calling her “that woman.” But, he paid the price, and so
did many of us who hoped for something better.

I have to remind my students that Clinton was white but he was poor white. So, his
“youthful indiscretion” could not be forgiven. I really doubt if the press would have had the
courage to take on a John F. Kennedy and they sure tip toed around President-elect Bush’s
past.

George W. says that he did not reveal his DUI (Driving Under the Influence) because
he did not want to embarrass his daughters. Well, “drunken Mexicans” as they call us do
not have that luxury. Routinely, we are jailed at least overnight for DUI’s. How many of us
would be trusted to lead the nation?

For an educator--which I have been most of my life--it is difficult to forget the

teachers who have lost their teaching credentials for being caught drunk driving, or the kids
who have been kicked out of school for smoking a joint. A Chicano teenager got shot and
killed a couple of years ago in Sun Valley in the San Fernando Valley for tagging. The
cowboy who murdered him did not get a day in jail.

Finally it is the double standard in the media that really galls me. Normally I would
say that delving into some person’s family life is out of bounds. However, Laura Bush, the
president-elect’s wife, at the age of 17 ran a stop signal and killed another 17-year-old. The
assumption is that she was speeding.

It was tragic, and under normal circumstances would not be brought up. However,
others are held to other standards. Laura Bush was not held, nor was she charged for the
accident. Somehow parts of the accident report are missing. And, even the tabloids played
this one down--in contrast to how they treated Hillary.

I guess the lessons to be learned from the first presidential election of the new
millennium is that the meaning of due process has not changed much since the 14th
Amendment was passed in the 1860s. Equal protection then meant equal protection of
corporations, and African-Americans, for whom the amendment was originally passed, did
not qualify as persons.

Further, qualifications and merit only apply to the poor. Money automatically gives
you palanca (pull) if you are rich.

Lastly youthful indiscretions are only for the rich. The poor are addicts, drunks and
reckless--sins that cannot be forgotten since there is no such thing as “youthful
indiscretions” for the poor.

For these reasons, I am disturbed that there are Mexican Americans and other
Latinos who voted for President-elect Bush. The reasoning behind the whole process that
got George W. elected exudes disparate treatment, and cries out for a remedy. In the
meantime, God Bless Jesse Jackson, I wish we had a Chicano counterpart

(121) Rough Draft, Who speaks for the Latino student? Dec 25, 2000

It seems as if I am constantly harping on the theme of who is an organic spokesperson for

the large Mexican/Latino communities of this region. What qualifies a person to speak for
the Latino communities? Is it based solely on the color of the self-appointed leader=s skin
color, how well he or she speaks Spanish, and/or whether he or she eats menudo? Or,
should it be based on some kind of history of service and vision that the person has for
those communities. It is a question that we have not yet resolved.

The debate will take on a broader implications as the United States approaches a
war with Iraq and then as it wars with other countries in the years to come. On my own
campus of California State University at Northridge, students and faculty have been
protesting President Jolene Koester=s signing of an agreement with the ROTC, allowing it a
physical presence on campus. Latino students were especially upset about the ROTC’s
Hispanic Access Initiative that targets Latino students exclusively for recruitment. It is an
initiative that Latino educators have criticized because this recruitment begins in the high
schools and continues through their university experience.

Supporters of the initiative justify the Hispanic Access Initiative because former Secretary
of the Army Louis Caldera created it in an attempt to get more Latinos in the Army. They
cynically point to the fact that Caldera, a former California Assemblyman, has received
awards from numerous organizations including Ventura County=s League of United Latin
American Citizens. Apparently, they believe that Caldera’s support for the ROTC trumps
the voice of a bunch of students who have never been elected to office and are not
recognized by the media and the ruling institutions of this country as leaders.
Indeed, Caldera’s career reads like a Latino success story. Born in El Paso, Texas, Caldera
is the eldest son of Mexican immigrants. He was raised in Whittier, California and
graduated from the US Military Academy. After a tour in the Military Police Corps, Caldera
graduated with a J.D. from the Harvard Law School and an MBA from the Harvard Business
School. He practiced law in Los Angeles, California at the prestigious firm of O’Melveny &
Myers. In the early 1990s, with the support of many of the downtown’s elite, he was elected
to three terms in the California State Assembly. In 1998, Clinton appointed Caldera
Secretary of the Army where his mission was to recruit more Latinos into the army.

Personally, I have always found Caldera to be articulate but also somewhat arrogant. Like
many of my colleagues, I believe that the right to speak for a group comes from working
and bonding with the group. It comes from the old fashion way of working for it. It is not
something that comes to you by the process of osmosis. So, when Caldera first ran for
office, I questioned his credentials because he was running in a district that he knew little
about and had previously shown little interest in.

After he was elected, his actions raised eye brows. He became notorious for sponsoring
and pushing a bill requiring first time applicants for drivers= licenses to prove they are U.S.
citizens or legal residents. It was a bill supported by the nativist Federation for American
Immigration Reform. I agreed with Assemblywoman Martha Escutia, D Huntington Park,
who argued that ''Voting for this bill is going to lead us down a slippery slope toward blatant
discrimination.'' Yet Caldera defended the bill and argued that they patterned it on a New
Jersey system that has been in effect for fifty years. Caldera showed that he had little
understanding of the phenomenon or history by defending the bill: ''It will apply to
everyone, . . . so I don't believe it will result in discrimination . . .

This measure will help enforce our immigration laws.''

Caldera carried this vision or lack of it to Washington where he preached that Latinos by
not being recruited into the army were being locked out of the American Dream. One of his
solutions for a decline in enlistments was to recruit undocumented immigrants living in the
United States. Caldera stated that a group of recruiters in North Hollywood, Calif., had
asked: "Why can't we take these students who aren't citizens but want to serve and help
them become citizens?" On another occasion addressing the Latino Leadership
Conference in Los Angeles U.S. Army Recruiting Command Caldera deplored that so many
young people were missing the opportunity to gain from military service. He said that the
services had to learn to recruit en español to fill their thinning ranks.

After leaving Washington, D.C. as secretary of the Army, Caldera returned to California
where they appointed him vice-chancellor for Advancement of the California State
University system where seventeen campuses are heavily Latino. Significantly, most of
those appointed by Caldera to work for him are non-Latino. Moreover, it has to be pointed
out that Caldera did not qualify for the job because of his long involvement with education
or knowledge of it.

CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed correctly points out that the CSU system is heavily
diverse, and as such it will become a major battleground for the hearts and minds of Latino
students. Surely, many of the CSU presidents will rely on the advice of Caldera as what to
do about the aggressive military recruitment of Latino students on the campuses. For
them, Caldera is the legitimate voice of the Latino community, the fact that his vision is
closely allied to their interests makes him even more compatible.

I have been in the CSU system as a student and a professor for more than forty-five years. I
remember being the only student of Mexican extraction in my classes, and I remember San
Fernando Valley State College (CSU Northridge), having less than a hundred Mexican
Americans in 1969. Changes came about because of people with a vision for the
community insisted that the Latinos be given equal opportunity to high education not the
military. People like Caldera are the beneficiaries of these sacrifices. So, I believe it is
reasonable that the CSU should listen to the people who have made the sacrifices, and I,
for one, am offended that the US government is spending $8,000 to $11,000 to recruit a
single student when the money would be better spent keeping them in college. More
important, I am offended that CSU administrators dismiss voices such as mine.

(104) “Popi,” January 2000 Internet.

http://911review.org/Wget/aztlan.net/acuna.htm http://hpn.asu.edu/archives/2000-
February/000105.html
(105) “The Making of the Miami Myth Machine,” April 2000 http://www.change-
links.org/MythMachine.htm . “MITO Y REALIDAD: Los Cubanoamericanos de Miami,” La
Opinion. Apr 23, 2000. Vol. 74, Iss. 221; p. 1B

(106) (114) “Rampart causo solo silencio: Liderazgo Latino de Los Angeles,” La Opinion.
Jun 7, 2000. Vol. 74, Iss. 266; p. 11A

(107) “The Word Chicano”, May, 2000. “El rompecabezas de la identidad chicana,” La
Opinión, 28 de mayo de 2000

(108) The Making of the Political Pocho. La Prensa de San Diego. June 9, 2000,
http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/june09/pocho.htm

***109) “Murder in Arizona: It’s Only the Third World,” Jun 24 2000

“'Chinatown' en Arizona: INMIGRACION,” La Opinion. Jul 9, 2000. Vol. 74, Iss. 298; p. 1B.
“Murder in Arizona: It’s Only the Third World,” Jul 9, 2000

(110) “Murder In Arizona ... It is Only the Third World” June 2000
http://oldweb.uwp.edu/academic/sociology/pg/latinos/acuna.htm (also in La Opinión)

It’s Only the Third World

(111)“Identidad: Politica De Los Latinos,” La Opinion, 16 julio 2000

(112) “Los Latinos y la Izquierda,” La Opinion, 30 julio 2000

(113) “How the West Was Won,” June 2000. Appeared in "El olvido salvaje," La Opinion, 17
de junio de 2000. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/message/362
(114) “'Chinatown' en Arizona: INMIGRACION

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 09 July 2000: 1B.

115) “How Else Can We Teach Them A Lesson Capital Punishment,” Jul 5, 2000; “Pena de
muerte: iguales y menos iguales,” 16 de julio de 2000

(116) La identidad política de los latinos: ¡Hasta la vista 'baby'! La Opinion, Domingo, 16 de
julio de 2000. Latinos and Spanish-speaking Gringos Hasta la vista, baby! Parts I and II

(117) Pena de muerte: iguales y menos iguales, 16 de julio de 2000

(118) LOS ANGELES: Los latinos y la izquierda,” La Opinión, 30 de julio de 2000

(119) Latinos and Spanish Speaking Gringos: Hasta la vista, baby!

(120) “Latinos and Spanish Speaking Gringos: Hasta la vista, baby!” Jul 10, 2000; “LOS
ANGELES: Los latinos y la izquierda,” La Opinion, 30 de julio de 2000

(121) “CONVENCION NACIONAL DEMOCRATA EN LOS ANGELES: La política alternativa y

el racionalismo,” La Opinion, Domingo, 06 de agosto de 2000

(122) PENA DE MUERTE: IGUALES Y MENOS IGUALES

Acuna, Rodolfo F. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 27 Aug 2000: 1B.

(123) “Pleastanville EU: Europe Becomes A Continent of Immigrants,” Oct 8, 2000

(124) Rodolfo F. Acuña, “The Election that Just Passed,” 12-2000

(125) October 12, 2000, Letter to Editor, Letters@labusinessjournal.com, Joel Kotkin’s

September 4, 2000-article

(126) “The 2000 Election,” Dec 2000, Rough Draft. DOBLE ESTANDAR En la Politica
Estadounidense: Eleccion 2000,” La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 24 Dec 2000: 1B.

(127) Rough Draft, Who speaks for the Latino student? 12 25 2000

(128) ELECCION 2000: El doble estándar en la vida política estadounidense,” La Opinion,

Domingo, 24 de diciembre de 2000

(129) LOS LATINOS Y LA POLITICA: LA MAYORIA TIMORATA

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 11 Mar 2001: 1B.

(130) Revised 4 11 01, The Thin Line

(131) Heroes Olvidados PEARL HARBOR

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 27 May 2001: 1B.

(132) LA OPORTUNIDAD PERDIDA: La verdad es que un numero significativo de jovenes
negros apoyo a Villaraigosa. A diferencia de sus padres, no estaban dispuestos a pasar por
alto los preocupantes paralelos entre las tacticas de Hahn y las de Sam Yorty

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 10 June 2001: 1B

(133) How the West Was Won, June 2001

(134) “Commentary: Narrow National Interest: Foxes and the Mexicans La Prensa, San
Diego, September 14, 2001, http://laprensa-
sandiego.org/archieve/september14/comment2.htm

(135) “Oscar no era ningun Superman,” La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 26 Aug 2001: b1.

(136) Me voy de soldado raso . . . (I’ll Going as a Buck private”), Rough Draft Sep 24, 2001.
In “Acting like John Wayne of world isn't patriotic,” HoustonChronicle.com, Sept. 27, 2001.
EL VENDAVAL PATRIOTICO, La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 30 Sep 2001: 1B.

(137) MINORIAS ETNICAS: Me estoy volviendo blanco

Acuna, Rodolfo. La Opinión [Los Angeles, Calif] 28 Oct 2001: 1B.

Rodolfo Acuña, “INMIGRACION: Chinatown en Arizona,” La Opinión, Domingo, 09 de julio

de 2000

En el sur de Arizona, rancheros "vigilantes" armados siguen brutalizando a trabajadores

migrantes mexicanos. La Patrulla Fronteriza, que ha jurado servir y proteger, colabora con
los actos terroristas de los rancheros. La figura central, el ranchero Roger Barnett, se jacta
de haber hecho miles de arrestos de migrantes mexicanos en tierras de Arizona, la mayor
parte arrendadas a precios de oferta. Recientemente, los rancheros dispararon contra
Miguel Palafox, un joven trabajador mexicano. Palafox volvió con dificultad a México para
conseguir tratamiento médico, y acusó que vaqueros de Arizona a caballo le habían
disparado. La Patrulla Fronteriza y otros niegan esta acusación, culpando a los "bandidos
mexicanos".

La creciente militarización de la frontera durante los años 80 y 90 empeoró aún más la

violencia histórica en el sur de Arizona. Operaciones y barridas exitosas de la Patrulla
Fronteriza en El Paso y San Diego han obligado a trabajadores indocumentados a desafiar
el peligroso desierto del sur de Arizona. Mientras tanto, políticos, muchos de ellos
demócratas, han obligado a la Patrulla Fronteriza a contratar agentes que, a menudo, son
racistas y se integran por la emoción de la caza. El precio es que estos políticos miran
hacia otro lado cuando los rancheros violan los derechos humanos.

Los medios de comunicación, que se supone revisan estos excesos, se han mantenido en
silencio. Un periodista de Nueva York le dijo al profesor Guadalupe Castillo, de Pima
College: "La frontera es un país del Tercer Mundo y a la gente no le importa un comino". La
situación en la frontera se parece mucho a la de la película Chinatown. A nadie le importa
lo que sucede en Chinatown. La consecuencia es que la gravedad de las violaciones a los
derechos humanos no se filtra desde el sur de Arizona de la misma manera que lo haría un
informe sobre las violaciones de los derechos humanos en Los Angeles y San Antonio.

Los actos de violencia no sólo ocurren en el sur de Arizona. Son históricos, remontándose
a cuando, en 1853, Estados Unidos adquirió el sur de Arizona a punta de pistola. El
ministro James Gadsden amenazó a México, diciendo: "Véndannos el sur de Arizona por
10 millones de dólares o se lo quitaremos". Durante el siglo XIX la violencia no se pudo
controlar y continuó en el siglo XX. Por ejemplo, en 1917, los dueños de las minas
deportaron a los mineros mexicanos de Jerome y Bisbee. Sólo en Bisbee las autoridades
locales acorralaron a 1,200 huelguistas, la mayoría mexicanos, los arrojaron en barracas y
luego los cargaron en vagones de ferrocarril y los despacharon, botándolos en medio del
desierto de Nuevo México durante el calor del verano.

Se suponía que la Patrulla Fronteriza, fundada en 1924, iba a prevenir la entrada de

personas y materiales no autorizados al territorio de EU. La Guerra Fría hizo variar esta
misión para proteger el territorio nacional de las supuestas amenazas extranjeras de
terrorismo y drogas.

El gobierno de Eisenhower acudió a soluciones militares como una manera de controlar el

influjo de personas "peligrosas" a Estados Unidos. Su procurador Herbert Brownell
pregonó que la frontera de Estados Unidos con México estaba fuera de control. Personas
peligrosas nos estaban ahogando. Supuestamente, Brownell insinuó a los editores de
diarios que la mejor manera de sellar la frontera era matando a un par de "espaldas
mojadas", supuestamente para ahuyentar a los otros.

El general retirado Joseph Swing, antiguo compañero de Eisenhower en West Point,

encabezó la Operación Espaldas Mojadas. Desde entonces los comisionados del Servicio
de Inmigración y Naturalización (INS) han administrado la Patrulla Fronteriza como un
grupo semimilitar. Swing reorganizó la estructura de comando, consiguió nuevo equipo, y
los vistió con elegantes uniformes color verde bosque.

A fines de los 60 empezó el desarrollo moderno de ese organismo como reacción a la

agitación social de la época, recurriendo el país a la retórica del orden público y con
chivos expiatorios raciales apenas velados para conseguir votos. El bombo político generó
la guerra de drogas. En la década siguiente, Washington destinó muchos millones de
dólares para modernizar, profesionalizar y militarizar las agencias de la ley locales.

Durante los 70, el INS fabricó estadísticas, usó palabras tales como invasión y substituyó
el nombre de espaldas mojadas, un término que se había convertido en políticamente
incorrecto pero más importante, racista, por el de "extranjero ilegal" (illegal alien). El
nuevo término era aún más insidioso. Los eufemismos "ilegales" realmente significaban
criminales; alien significa criatura del espacio, implicando un sentido de infrahumano, o
por lo menos "gente peligrosa". En este contexto, en agosto de 1976 ocurrió el caso
Hanigan cuando Patrick Hanigan, su hermano, Thomas, y su padre, George, capturaron a
Manuel García Loya, Eleazar Ruelas Zavala, y Bernabé Herrera Mata, quienes cruzaron su
rancho, cuyo frente daba a la frontera con México, al oeste de Douglas, Arizona. Los
torturaron, usando atizadores calientes, cigarrillos, cuchillos y les dispararon un rifle
cargado con balines. El suplicio duró varias horas antes que los enviaran desnudos y
sangrando al otro lado de la frontera.

Hanigan padre murió antes que pudiera comparecer a juicio. En 1977 un jurado
compuesto sólo por hombres blancos absolvió a los Hanigan de 14 acusaciones. Según el
cónsul mexicano, Raúl Avelyera el veredicto "declaró el inicio de la temporada de caza
contra los extranjeros ilegales". No fue sino hasta 1981 cuando un jurado federal encontró
culpable a Patrick. Thomas, debido a su corta edad fue absuelto. Durante esta campaña,
líderes chicanos enfatizaron que habían habido, por lo menos, 15 muertes y más de 150
incidentes de supuesta brutalidad contra mexicoamericanos en Arizona solamente.
Agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza habían disparado y herido a tres extranjeros
indocumentados durante los 18 meses antes de 1977.

En 1981, un jurado en el tribunal estatal de Arizona compuesto de hombres blancos

encontró a un ex ranchero, W.M. Burris Jr., de 28 años, culpable de aprisionamiento ilegal
y asalto en circunstancias agravantes de un trabajador agrícola mexicano. Sospechando
que su empleado le robaba, lo encadenó del cuello. No se le encontró culpable de las
acusaciones más serias de aprisionamiento ilegal y secuestro. Burris usó un arma mortal y
debería haber sido sentenciado a cinco años obligatorios de cárcel.

Durante los años 80 pocos se enteraron de estos asuntos fuera del sur de Arizona. El
ministro de Asuntos Extranjeros de México reportó 117 casos de abusos de derechos
humanos de parte de funcionarios de EU contra migrantes entre 1988 a 1990, incluyendo
14 muertes. Durante los años 80, agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza dispararon contra
docenas de personas, matando a 11 y incapacitando permanentemente a 10.
Durante la era de Reagan se crearon las escuadras elite de la Patrulla Fronteriza
conocidas como Equipos Tácticos de la Patrulla Fronteriza (BORTACS), quienes
comenzaron a recibir un entrenamiento paramilitar especial a mediados de los años 80.
En 1989 el Congreso había autorizado cinco mil tropas federales para la frontera.
Construyeron verjas y murallas y el presupuesto de la Patrulla Fronteriza creció
rápidamente.

Se destinaron tropas listas para el combate pero las eliminaron después de la ira pública
debido a la muerte de un ciudadano mexicano desarmado. Sin embargo las fuerzas
militares continuaron prestando ayuda a las autoridades de inmigración. Unos 600
infantes de marina y tropas del Ejército de EU construyeron y mejoraron los caminos y las
plataformas para helicópteros. Desplegaron las estrategias de contrainsurgencia que las
fuerzas militares de EU usaron en el sudeste de Asia en los años 60. Su objetivo era
establecer y mantener el control social sobre grupos civiles específicos.
Significativamente, durante esos años la corrupción y los abusos de la Patrulla Fronteriza
se multiplicaron descontroladamente.

No es sorprendente entonces que cuando recientemente funcionarios mexicanos

protestaron contra las detenciones efectuadas por rancheros, la comisionada del Servicio
de Inmigración y Naturalización Doris Meissner apoyó la conducta de los rancheros
diciendo que "tienen preocupaciones legítimas de los intrusos en su propiedad". Aunque
condenó las acciones, Meissner dijo que no había evidencia para apoyar los informes de
los medios de comunicación mexicanos de que, en recientes semanas, los rancheros
habían disparado contra migrantes. La secretaria de Estado Madeleine Albright comentó
que los rancheros tenían derecho a desalojar a los intrusos de sus tierras. Ambas trataron
de enfocar la atención en la "gente peligrosa": los traficantes de drogas y los coyotes.

Mientras tanto, en los primeros días de junio, después de caminar tres días en el
abrasador desierto con su hija de 18 meses en su cadera, Yolanda González, de 19 años,
de la ciudad de Oaxaca, le dio a su bebita lo último que le quedaba de agua y murió. Esa
semana perecieron cuatro mexicanos. Los funcionarios de EU desdeñaron esas muertes
como "incidentes desafortunados".

Veteranos del caso Hanigan como Guadalupe Castillo, Raquel Rubio Goldsmith, y los
abogados Jesús Romo e Isabel García, junto con gente común e incluso algunos
rancheros, siguen luchando contra la injusticia. No están de acuerdo con Barnett y los de
su clase. También están preocupados porque esta vez aquellos en el otro lado hay rostros
morenos. El jefe de la Patrulla Fronteriza es un tejano, y el fiscal de EU es un chicano. Igual
que con el escándalo de Rampart del Departamento de Policía de Los Angeles, sólo hay
aquí un par de policías bribones, un par de manzanas podridas, y el sistema funciona.

Sí, pero esto es Chinatown.

Rodolfo F. Acuña es profesor de estudios Chicanos en la Universidad del Estado de
California en Northridge.

Rodolfo F. Acuña, “It’s Only the Third World,” 2000 Rough Draft

No mater what kind of spin the media wants to put on it, what armed vigilante ranchers are
doing to Mexican migrant workers in southern Arizona is morally wrong. The US Border
Patrol, which sworn to serve and protect human life, is also wrong in abetting the ranchers’
terrorist acts.

What we are witnessing is the result of one hundred and fifty years of tensions. Just in the
past month vigilante ranchers shot Miguel Palafox, a young Mexican worker. Palafox
literally crawled back to Mexico for medical treatment, accusing Arizona cowboys on
horseback of shooting him. As in the past, the Border Patrol and US officials deny this
claim, instead blaming Mexican bandits.

The traffic of undocumented Mexicans and others increased through southern Arizona in
the 1980s and 1990s. Because Border Patrol sweeps in El Paso and San Diego have been
more successful in rounding up undocumented workers, many are forced to brave the
hazardous desert of southern Arizona. A minority of ranchers, wanna be Texas Rangers,
have taken the law into their own hands and hunted down Mexicans. They have allegedly
sent out a flyer, calling for other racist nativist to joining them in the hunt.

The media, which is supposed to check these excesses, has remained relatively silent.
When Professor Guadalupe Castillo of Pima College asked a New York reporter, why the
national media was so silent, he responded, “The border is a Third World country, and
people just don’t give a damn.” The situation on the border is much like that in the movie
“Chinatown.” No one cares what happens in Chinatown, just like few care what happens
to African Americans and Latinos in the barrios and ghettoes of this country.

Violence is not new to southern Arizona. It dates to when the United States took southern
Arizona from Mexico at gun point in 1853. Violence was pervasive throughout the 19th
century and into the 20th. There was not much of an outcry when in 1917, mine owners
deported 1200 strikers from Bisbee alone. Most of the deportees were Mexicans.

The Border Patrol, founded in 1924, was supposed to prevent the entry of unauthorized
persons and materials into U.S. territory. The Cold War changed this role. The Eisenhower
administration turned to military solutions as a way to control the influx of "dangerous" and
subversive peoples. His Attorney General Herbert Brownell trumpeted that America's
frontier with Mexico was out of control with dangerous people overrunning us. Retired Gen.
Joseph Swing, Eisenhower's former classmate at West Point, headed Operation Wetback.
Swing reorganized the command structure, got new equipment, and fitted them out in
smart, forest-green uniforms.

The late 1960s saw the nation turn to a law-and-order rhetoric. The drug war was added as
a reason for keeping dangerous people out of the country. Millions of dollars were
committed from Washington to modernize, professionalize, and militarize local law
enforcement over the next decade. In this war, the INS manufactured statistics. It invented
euphemisms like “illegal” that really meant criminals, “aliens” that really meant creatures
from outer space.

In this context, Patrick Hanigan, his brother, Thomas, and their father, George, in August of
1976 captured Manuel Garcia Loya, Eleazar Ruelas Zavala, and Bernabe Herrera Mata,
who crossed their ranch, fronting the Mexican border west of Douglas, Ariz. They tortured
them, using hot pokers, cigarettes, knives and fired a shotgun filled with bird shot at them.
The ordeal lasted several hours before sent them naked and bleeding back across the
border.

An all white jury acquitted Patrick and Thomas Hanigan in 1977 of fourteen counts of
assault, kidnapping, and other felonies. Their father died before the trial. A public outcry
led by Chicano organizations forced the Carter administration in 1981 to try the Hanigans.
A federal jury found Patrick guilty. Thomas, because of his young age was acquitted. At
least fifteen killings and more than 150 incidents of alleged brutality occurred against
Mexicans in Arizona alone during the 70s. Border Patrol agents had shot and wounded
three undocumented aliens during the eighteen months before 1977.

In 1981 another all-white jury in Arizona state court found a former rancher, W.M. Burris Jr.,
28, guilty of unlawfully imprisoning and of aggravated assault of a Mexican farm worker.
Burris suspecting his employee around of stealing, chained him around the neck. It did not
find him guilty of the more serious charge of unlawful imprisonment and kidnaping. Burris
used a deadly weapon, and he should have carried a mandatory five-year prison sentence.

Also, in the early 80s, local authorities attacked the all-black, 300-member Christ Miracle
Healing Center and Church in Miracle Valley located in Cochise County. After members
resisted this attack, Cochise County authorities charged them with assault and other
felonies. Two members of the congregation were shot and killed during the confrontation.
The Pima County courts released most of the defendants because Cochise County refused
to pay for legal cost for the indigent defendants. They returned to Chicago, their original
home.

The Reagan years saw the creation of the Border Patrol Tactical Teams (BORTACS), a
special paramilitary. By 1989 Congress had authorized 5,000 federal troops for border
duty. They built fences and walls and Border Patrol budget zoomed. Combat-ready troops
were committed, but removed after public outrage over the shooting of an unarmed
Mexican national. The military, however, continued to provide aid to immigration
authorities. Some 600 U.S. Marines and army troops, built and upgraded helicopter pads
and roads. They deployed strategies of counterinsurgency used by the U.S. military in
Southeast Asia in the 1960s. Their objective was to establish and maintain social control
over targeted civilian groups. Significantly, corruption and Border Patrol abuses zoomed
out of control during these years.

During the 1980s, Border Patrol agents shot dozens of people, killing eleven and
permanently disabling ten. To take the focus away from state violence, and to break the
growing opposition to the militarization of the border, the Reagan Justice Department in the
mid-1980s, prosecuted the religious sanctuary movement. They suggested Tucson as a
center for the movement. The courts acquitted the defendants, portrayed so-called
“dangerous people.”

Instead of reversing this legacy of violence, the Clinton Administration has pandered to the
BP and the racist nativist. Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris
Meissner has encouraged the ranchers’ outlaw behavior by saying they "have legitimate
concerns about the trespassers on their property." While she condemned what she called
"vigilantes," Meissner said there was no evidence to support reports by Mexican media that
ranchers had shot at migrants in recent weeks. Secretary Madeleine Albright chimed in
that the ranchers had the right to evict trespassers from their land. Both shifted the focus
to the “dangerous people”--the drug traffickers and the coyotes, after all they were “illegal
aliens.”

As for the media, it has made a hero of Roger Barnett, a rancher, who boasts of having
made thousands of arrests of Mexican migrants. Through his words and deeds he has
invited white supremacist groups to come to their ranches to help them "hunt" Mexican
“aliens.” I went to the border in the first days of June. After interviewing the head of the
Border Patrol, a Tejano, and the U.S. Attorney, a Chicano, I realized that not much change
had taken place. That police authorities everywhere whether in brown or white masks had
similar pretexts. Like with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Ramparts scandal--the
answer is that sure there are instances of malfeasance, but it was confined to just a couple
of rogue cops--a couple of bad apples--the system works. Yeah!

Just in the first days of June Yolanda Gonzalez, 19, after walking three days in the searing
desert with her 18-month-old daughter on her hip, from Oaxaca gave the last of her water
to her baby and died. Four Mexicans perished that week. But, who cares, it’s only
Chinatown.

Rodolfo F. Acuña, “Murder in Arizona It’s Only The Third World, Various Web Sites, June 18,
2000
History is remembered, like a falling tree in the forest, when we hear or read about it. All
too often if we have not heard about something, it does not exist. Thus, when we hear
about the fallen tree, it is often too late to save it. In a matter of speaking, this is what is
happening in southern Arizona where the US Border Patrol is abetting the terrorist acts of
armed vigilante ranchers against Mexican migrant workers.

Public reaction to these events has been mixed, with the number shootings and murders of
Mexican migrants, for the most part, surprising those who have heard about them. The
picture of ranchers on horseback hunting Mexicans seems like a page out of the Old West.
Even the most callous of us are moved by stories of Mexican migrants dying of thirst in the
Arizona desert. However, for the most part, the majority does not appear to have heard
about the atrocities. Generally speaking, the American public treats the happening in
southern Arizona as an aberration rather than accepting as the norm -- that the violence is
part of American culture, and its disregard for the “other.”

The most obnoxious of the wanna be rangers is Roger Barnett, who has boasted that he
has made thousands of arrests of Mexican migrants on “his ranch.” It does not bother him
that 80 percent of “his” ranch is on land leased from Arizona at give away prices. Barnett
and his followers, although they deny it, have sent out a racist "flyer" inviting white
supremacist groups to come to their ranches to help them "hunt" Mexican “aliens.” This
Call has attracted kooks such as Studio City, California, resident Glenn Spencer of
"American Patrol" and Barbara Coe, also of California.

The actions of the vigilantes have gone way beyond the bravado stage. A young Mexican
migrant worker named Miguel Palafox was shot, after which he made his way back to
Mexico for medical treatment. Palafox accused Arizona cowboys on horseback of shooting
him, a fact that the Border Patrol and others deny and blame Mexican bandits for.

Leftist pundits try to explain recent outbreaks of violence, while human rights activists
wonder why the press and people of conscience dismiss human rights violations. Why isn’t
there anyone marching to save the trees? Many point to the Border Patrol’s increased
militarization of the border during the 1980s and 1990s. Surely, successful operations and
sweeps in El Paso and San Diego have forced undocumented workers to brave the
hazardous desert of southern Arizona. Pressures from right wing extremist groups have
also spawned the racist nativism of Americans. Politicians in search of scapegoats have
used immigration as a wedge issue. All of the above has encouraged federal authorities to
adopt a military solution of preventing “dangerous people”--criminal aliens from outer
space-- from crossing the US-Mexico border. The beneficiary of all this attention has been
the Border Patrol, which has grown substantially in the last two decades, as it has
exploited the fear of the external threat posed by terrorists and drug traffickers justifying
their tactics.

However, the reasons for this violence are more involved than the above and must be
place within a historical context: Professor Guadalupe Castillo of Pima College, asked a
New York Reporter, why didn’t the national did not report what was happening in southern
Arizona. He responded: “The border is a Third World country, and people just don’t give a
damn.” Truly, the situation on the border is much like that in the movie “Chinatown.” No
one cares what happens in Chinatown. Just like few people outside the barrios care about
violence in the hood. Moreover, even Chicano historians ignore what is occurring in
isolated places such as Arizona. Chicano history is written from the viewpoint of two poles,
one centered in Texas and the other in California, with everything in between dismissed.

Violence on the Arizona-Sonora border is not new, however. It is not a phenomenon of the
past two decades. The United States acquired southern Arizona at gun point in 1853. US
minister James Gadsden told Mexico, sell us southern Arizona for $10 million or we’ll take
it. The colonizers subsequently racialized labor, and used Arizona as a staging area to seize
the rest of Sonora.

Acts of violence were wanton. In 1859, a posse hunted down a runaway Mexican servant
for N.B. Appel, a Tubac merchant, and administered him fifteen lashes in public. That
same year, they hunted and whipped seven Mexican peons from the Riverton Ranch. They
cut their hair so close that they shaved off half their scalps.

In the 1870s white cowboys banned Mexicans Tombstone after dark without. Tensions got
so bad in the territory during the 1870s that the Sonoran government refused to extradite
alleged lawbreakers to Arizona. Industrialization of Arizona during the last two decades of
the 19th century worsened relations between the two peoples. Mexican formed
mutualistas, mutual aid societies, to protect their interests.

White miners excluded Mexican miners from many mining camps, as the mine owners
institutionalized a double wage system. In the first part of the century, even the militant
Western Federation of Miners excluded Mexicans. Violence was rampant, and nativist tried
to exclude Mexican labor from Arizona mines by passing anti-immigrant legislation. In
1917, they deported Mexican miners from Jerome and Bisbee. In Bisbee, local authorities
rounded up 1200 strikers, and threw them in bull pens, and then loaded them onto railroad
cars and shipped and dumped them in the middle of the New Mexican desert in the heat of
summer. Most of these miners were Mexican.

As late as World War II, segregation existed in Arizona. It was not until the war that
Mexicans could become apprentices and skilled workers in the Southern Pacific. They
segregated Mexicans housing. They also segregated in the mines by work categories. Even
so, the border remained porous. The mines and agriculture needed Mexican labor. The
Border Patrol was founded in 1924; its purpose was to prevent the entry of unauthorized
persons and materials into U.S. territory. This mission, however, began to change with the
Cold War and official concerns shifted toward the protection the national territory from the
allegedly foreign threats of terrorism and drugs. This shift did not occur recently as
commonly believed. It began in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration when
federal authorities increasingly turned toward military solutions a way to control the influx
of "dangerous" peoples into the United States.

Dwight Eisenhower set a template for dealing with those dangerous people. His Attorney
General Herbert Brownell deployed propaganda as a strategy. His message was that
America's frontier with Mexico was out of control. We were being overrun by dangerous
people. Brownell allegedly hinted to newspaper publishers that the best way to seal the
border was to shoot down a couple of “wetbacks,” supposedly to scare the others away.
Through a campaign of fear and gross violation of human rights in the guise of “Operation
Wetback” the US Border Patrol supposedly halted “illegal immigration” across the entire
2,000-mile US-Mexico frontier.

The man in charge of Operation Wetback was Eisenhower's former classmate at West
Point, retired Gen. Joseph Swing. Ever since Swing INS commissioners have run the Border
Patrol as a semi military group. The name “Operation Wetback” betrays military jargon.
Swing reorganized the command structure, got new equipment, and fitted them out in
smart, forest-green uniforms. He approved the use of a new tactic, the Mobile Task Force,
to clampdown on so-called illegal entrants in the worst problem areas. Swing carefully
orchestrated press coverage of Operation Wetback as if he were launching a military
campaign. Selective secrecy about the number of agents in the task force and their tactics
made the Border Patrol seem even bigger and more menacing than they really were. (That
is the message it wanted to send: it was big and bad). Swing’s campaign heightened anti-
US feelings between Mexicans, and it reinforced a dehumanizing, military mentality to the
Border Patrol.

Swing’s Cold War tactics also set into motion the pretext for future growth of the Border
Patrol. Following the example of the military that created the Soviet threat, the Immigration
and Naturalization Service perpetuated the myth of “dangerous” people poised on the
border. The build-up began in the late 1960s when--in reaction to the era's social upheaval,
particularly the violent inner-city riots, politicians increasingly turned to law-and-order
rhetoric and thinly veiled racial scapegoating for votes. This political hype spawned the
drug war--"the Trojan horse for deeper federal involvement in policing"--and millions of
dollars poured out from Washington to modernize, professionalize, and militarize local law
enforcement over the next decade.

During the 1970s, the INS manufactured statistics, giving the sense that all of Mexico was
poised at the border ready to invade the US. The INS used words such as invasion, and
substituted the name illegal alien for wetback, a term that had become politically
incorrect, but more important racist. The new term was even more insidious. The
euphemisms “illegal” really meant criminals, “aliens” meant creatures from outer space,
emoting a sense of inhuman, or at the very least “a dangerous people.”

As a result, tensions mounted in Arizona. Not surprisingly, the Hanigan case occurred in
this manufacture hysteria. In August 1976 Patrick Hanigan, his brother, Thomas, and their
father, George, captured Manuel Garcia Loya, Eleazar Ruelas Zavala, and Bernabe Herrera
Mata, who crossed their ranch, fronting the Mexican border west of Douglas, Ariz. They
tortured them, using hot pokers, cigarettes, knives and fired a shotgun filled with bird shot
at them. The ordeal lasted several hours before sent them naked and bleeding back across
the border.

The Mexicans, undocumented workers, had entered the country in the hope of finding farm
work. The Hanigans besides being ranchers owned Dairy Queen outlets in Bisbee, Ariz. An
all white jury of fourteen counts acquitted Patrick and Thomas Hanigan in a state court in
1977 of kidnaping, assault and robbery. George Hanigan had died shortly before the state
trial. Upon hearing the verdict, Mexican Consul Raul Avelyera said it "declared open
season on illegal aliens."

This should have ended the matter. However, Chicano organizations, led by a group of
young activists and law students, pressured the Carter Administration to bring about
justice. Activists in Douglas organized demonstrations and a week-long boycott of white-
owned businesses on the U.S. side of the border. A national coalition of Mexican American
groups petitioned the Justice Department for a civil rights probe, accusing the Carter
administration of being insensitive to their civil liberties. Because of the pressure, the
Justice Department announced a new probe of the Hanigan incident.

Chicano leaders stressed there had been at least fifteen killings and more than 150
incidents of alleged brutality against Mexican Americans, mainly by law-enforcement
officials, during the last three years. In Arizona alone, Border Patrol agents had shot and
wounded three undocumented aliens during the eighteen months before 1977.

The Federal court charged the Hanigans with violating the Hobbs Act, a law that governs
interstate commerce. The judge declared a mistrial in the first federal trial in 1980 when a
jury failed to reach a verdict. A retrial took place in February 1981, and Patrick Hanigan,
convicted of obstructing interstate commerce by torturing and robbing three illegal aliens
nearly five years before, was sentenced to three years in prison. A jury acquitted Thomas
Hanigan. The courts upheld the conviction on appeal. (Incidentally, shortly after the trial,
Thomas Hanigan, was arrested for possession with intent to distribute 574 pounds of
marijuana.)

In 1981 an all-white jury in Arizona state court found a former rancher, W.M. Burris Jr., 28,
guilty of unlawful imprisonment and aggravated assault of a Mexican farm worker. It did
not find him guilty of the more serious charge of unlawful imprisonment and kidnaping.
Burris had used a deadly weapon, which should have carried a mandatory five-year prison
sentence. The rancher, suspecting 20-year-old Manuel Hernandez Garcia, an
undocumented worker from the state of Vera Cruz, of stealing chained his employee
around the neck so he would not leave the ranch.
Not all of the victims have been Mexicans. The 1980s brought the increased traffic of
Salvadorans and other Central Americans. Also, in the early 80s the infamous Miracle
Valley affair occurred. The late Asa A. Allen, a radio and television evangelist, founded
Miracle Valley in Cochise County in 1958, situated at the base of the Huachuca Mountains
in southeastern Arizona, three miles north of the Mexican border.

By the beginning of the 1980s tensions flared periodically in the rural community of 1,500
people where the all-black, 300-member Christ Miracle Healing Center and Church. Its
members had moved there from Chicago in 1979. Church members their eighty-five
children out of the elementary school and resisted efforts by State Department of
Economic Security officials to take over the children's medical care. Because of this,
authorities characterized the Church of course as a sect.

Tensions between blacks and whites worsened. In September 1981 a bomb killed a church
member that he supposedly held in his lap while driving in a van. Authorities speculated
that the bomb was to be used to blow up the Sierra Vista jail where authorities were
holding two members. The church filed against county officials, charging civil rights
violations.

The next year, law-enforcement officers blockaded the town when the community resisted
Cochise County deputies when they attempted to serve traffic warrants. Two members of
the congregation were shot and killed during the confrontation, involving about 100
members of a faith-healing group. The officers said the church members were armed with
lead pipes, clubs, tire irons and guns. The Rev. Frances Thomas, the leader of the Christ
Miracle Healing Center and Church insisted that her followers were unarmed. The
blockade had lasted nine hours.

They tried church members in Tucson, some 60 miles from Miracle Valley. A jury
deliberated eight and a half hours before finding two members guilty of assaulting a
reporter and a cameraman. Five members of a church were found not guilty of aggravated
assault. Meanwhile, a judge dismissed a jury and called off a criminal trial involving twenty
members of the all-black church because Cochise County would not pay defense costs for
indigent defendants. Black members of the church did not return to Miracle Valley, for
"fear for their lives." The 300-member Christ Miracle Healing Center returned to Chicago,
its original home.

During the 1980s few heard the falling of the trees outside southern Arizona. Mexico's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported 117 cases of human rights abuses by US officials
against migrants from 1988 to 1990, including fourteen deaths. During the 1980s, Border
Patrol agents shot dozens of people, killing eleven and permanently disabling ten.
To take the focus away from state violence, and to break the growing opposition to the
militarization of the border, the Reagan Justice Department in the mid-1980s, prosecuted
the religious sanctuary movement. This movement specialized, according to authorities, in
the smuggling Central Americans into the United States. The sanctuary movement began
in 1980 as thousands of Salvadorans during the growing civil unrest in their country sought
refuge in the United States. The federal government charged eleven religious and lay
activists in the sanctuary movement. Uncover agents infiltrated immigrant rights groups.
One center was Tucson.

The investigation led to the indictment in January 16, 1985 of sanctuary movement
volunteers on charges that included criminal conspiracy to smuggle, harbor and transport
illegal aliens. They supposedly based the so-called “transporters and smugglers” in
Arizona, and the "Nogales connection" that housed immigrants in Nogales, Mexico, and
directed them across the border. Eventually, some defendants pled to lesser charges. They
acquitted others. Significant was the expenditure of time and effort in prosecuting these
so-called “dangerous people.”

Another expression of the Reagan years, was the creation of elite Border Patrol squads
known as Border Patrol Tactical Teams (BORTACS), which began receiving special
paramilitary training in the mid-1980s. By 1989 Congress had authorized 5,000 federal
troops for border duty. They built fences and walls and Border Patrol budget zoomed.
Combat-ready troops were committed, but removed after public outrage over the shooting
of an unarmed Mexican national. The military, however, continued to provide aid to
immigration authorities. Some 600 U.S. Marines and army troops, built and upgraded
helicopter pads and roads. They deployed strategies of counterinsurgency used by the U.S.
military in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. Their objective was to establish and maintain social
control over targeted civilian groups.

During this period, Arizona did not only have the ranchers and the coyotes to contend with
but the U.S. Border Patrol, which critics characterized as a rogue agency. By all accounts,
the most renegade branch was based along the northern expanses of the Sonoran desert.
There numerous cases were reported of agents involved in smuggling drugs while on duty
and murder and assaults. For instance, Armando C. Garcia, Tucson's former chief
detention officer, was placed on three years probation in late 1991 after admitting that he
stole money from immigrants in the Border Patrol lockup. The agency drew scrutiny from
the FBI, Justice Department internal affairs investigators, federal prosecutors and local law
enforcement. During this period, U.S. authorities investigated possible civil rights
violations, summoning eleven agents to a police lineup. The even the press noted violence
between Border Patrol agents.

Some agents profited from the war on drugs. Douglas Agent Ronald Michael Backues
ferried marijuana in his pale green service Bronco. He spent the proceeds on among other
things on steroids for himself and breast implants for his wife. Former Agent Gary Patrick
Callahan trafficked cocaine stolen from smugglers. The courts convicted Veteran Border
Patrol Investigator Willie Garcia for lying in court about an accused heroin smuggler -- a
longtime informant with whom Garcia had once had an intimate relationship. They fired
Thomas A. Watson, a five-year Nogales veteran, for complicity in the cover-up of a fellow
agent's fatal shooting of a suspected trafficker. The courts acquitted Agent Michael
Andrew Elmer of murdering an unarmed suspected drug scout. A civil suit brought by
relatives of the dead man, Dario Miranda,Valenzuela, showed that Elmer shot him twice in
the back as he ran away.

The fire this time came when Arizona ranchers began to detain undocumented workers
crossing “their” land. Mexican officials protested the detentions by ranchers near the
border town of

Douglas, Ariz. Ranchers with firearms rounded up groups of migrants on their land and
delivered them to federal law enforcement officials. Immigration and Naturalization
Service Commissioner Doris Meissner has encouraged the ranchers by saying they "have
legitimate concerns about the trespassers on their property." While she condemned what
she called "vigilantes," Meissner said there was no evidence to support reports by Mexican
media that ranchers had shot at migrants in recent weeks.

Secretary Madeleine Albright says U.S. authorities would strengthen efforts to monitor and,
if

warranted, prosecute the ranchers. Still, she says that the ranchers had the right to evict
trespassers from their land, saying that the problem lies too with Mexican criminal
organizations that make the smuggling of illegal immigrants across the Mexico-U.S. border
big business, conveniently shifting the focus to the “dangerous people”--the drug
traffickers and the coyotes.

As mentioned an anonymous leaflet invited winter vacationers to park their recreational

vehicles on border ranches to help property owners guard against the migrants.
Emboldened by the inaction of local, state and federal officials, Roger Barnett show boated
for the press, calling this an “extremely sensitive and dangerous situation,” an
“overwhelming invasion of thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens and drug traffickers
from Mexico into Cochise County.” He called for the “drastic need for action in the
interests of national security, citizen safety and protection of wildlife resources and
habitat.” Barnett and his brother, Don, have allegedly detained up to 170 migrants in a day.
Understandably, this has brought a reaction from Mexicans. In June a retired oil worker in
northern Mexico offered a $10,000 bounty for anyone who shot a US border patrol agent.

Meanwhile, people are dying trying to cross the Sonoran Desert to get a piece of what we
daily advertise on their TV’s. After walking three days in the searing desert with her 18-
month-old daughter on her hip, Yolanda Gonzalez, 19, from Oaxaca gave the last of her
water to her baby and died during the first days of June. Four Mexicans perished that week.
From October to June of this year, eighteen people have died of exposure and dehydration
in the Sonoran Desert. Expanded Border Patrol enforcement in California and Texas has
funneling thousands through the Arizona desert. Border Patrol policy is however not
without a fault for these deaths. According to Guadalupe Castillo, a longtime Tucson
activist, the stepped-up enforcement is killing border crossers: "They are being pushed into
harsher terrain.” Meanwhile, US officials write off these deaths as “unfortunate incidents.”

Despite this official callous, community groups such as the Tucson-based Coalition for
Human Rights continue to struggle, very much alone on the Arizona border. Few Chicano
or Latino organizations have so far offered help, other than to express outrage via the
internet, which hopefully will at least allow many of us to know that the trees are falling,
even if we don’t do anything about it.

I visited Tucson, traveling to Bisbee and Douglas on June 2 and 3, 2000. Although I was
skeptical that anyone would care about what happens in that Third World, I drew
inspiration from that so many activists whom I met there three decades ago were still
struggling. Chicanos have maintained multiracial coalitions over the years, and activists
involved in the Hanigan case such as Guadalupe Castillo, Raquel Rubio Goldsmith, and
attorneys Jesus Romo and Isabel Garcia are still fighting injustice. I also found that not all
the ranchers agreed with Barnett and his ilk.

Still, I was disturbed with some of the change: None of the Chicano academics who you
would expect to be defending the human rights of the undocumented workers seemed to
be involved and there was not a critical mass of students present at the vigils. I saw more
brown faces in those green uniforms of the Border Patrol and among the government
functionaries. The head of the Border Patrol is a Tejano and the U.S. Attorney , who claimed
that he brought the Hanigans to justice, is a Chicano. However, interviewing seemed like
deja vu, like interviewing the Los Angeles Police Department on the Ramparts scandal--
just a couple of rogue cops--a couple of bad apples--the system works--yeah!.

Rodolfo F. Acuña, “ POLITICA: Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo: el ayer es hoy,” La Opinión,

30 de enero de 2005

El 2 de febrero de 1848 México y Estados Unidos firmaron el Tratado de Guadalupe

Hidalgo, que ponía fin a la guerra entre ambos países. Pocos lugares habrá, en ninguno de
los dos países, donde se recuerde este aniversario. Si le pregunta usted a sus padres,
compañeros o maestros qué es lo que pasó el 2 de febrero de 1848, estoy seguro de que el
99% ignorarán por qué es importante dicha fecha.
Con la firma del Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo la frontera se desplazó hacia el sur. Esto es
lo que quieren decir los chicanos cuando usan la expresión: “la frontera se cruzó con
nosotros”. Esa guerra no gozó del apoyo de todos los estadounidenses. Ulysses S. Grant la
calificó de injusta, Abraham Lincoln cuestionó la invasión de México y Benito Juárez se
mostró en contra de la firma del tratado. Algunos años más tarde el presidente mexicano
Porfirio Díaz pronunciaría el lamento: “¡Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de
Estados Unidos!”

La guerra le costó a México la pérdida de la mitad de su territorio y convirtió a los

mexicanos en un pueblo conquistado. Se trata de una conmemoración que les gustaría
olvidar a la mayor parte de los políticos estadounidenses y a la mayor parte de los políticos
mexicanos que buscan los favores de Estados Unidos. Por ejemplo, en ninguno de los dos
países se pretende convertir el aniversario en día festivo. Los días festivos se supone que
son días especiales que señalan fechas especiales. A menudo conmemoramos fechas de
importancia histórica sin prestarles realmente mucha atención. El que sean días festivos
las convierte en algo especial. A todos nos gustan los días de fiesta. Desde el principio de
los tiempos los gobernantes han conmemorado los días especiales. Los antiguos mayas
los grababan en glifos para marcar la importancia de los acontecimientos importantes de
sus vidas.

Pero no todas las fechas de importancia resultan elegidas como días festivos. A decir
verdad hay muchos días que aunque no son festivos tienen más importancia que los
festivos y afectan a nuestras vidas en mucha mayor medida que aquellos.

El 2 de febrero adquiere un significado especial a la vista de lo que está pasando hoy día.
En Arizona se aprobó hace poco la Proposición 200, que exige que los empleados
estatales y locales comprueben el estatus migratorio de quienes solicitan recibir
prestaciones públicas y obliga a aquellas a dar cuenta de los inmigrantes indocumentados
que encuentren, so pena de ser ellos mismos objeto de procesamientos judiciales.
Convierte a los maestros en soplones.

Si aislamos la Proposición 200 del pasado, el Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo no tiene

relación con aquella. Algunos dirán que es mezclar peras con manzanas. Sin embargo, lo
que ocurre hoy es una extensión del ayer. Y aunque no quiero ponerme a discutir las
razones de la guerra porque, como mi santa madre solía decir, “palo dado ni Dios lo
quita”, ¿cómo sería el mundo si no hubiera perdido México más de la mitad de su
superficie? ¿Estarían los mexicanos y los centroamericanos clamando por cruzar la
frontera?

El hecho es que México cedió inmensos depósitos minerales a Estados Unidos. Si

California y Texas formaran parte de México actualmente, este país tendría más petróleo
que Arabia Saudita. México sería hoy día uno de los países más ricos del mundo. Esta
riqueza habría hecho posible que México construyera una infraestructura que diera
empleo a sus ciudadanos.

Esto es relevante de cara a la Proposición 200 porque los mexicanos no emigran a Estados
Unidos en busca de democracia, servicios médicos gratuitos o subvenciones. Emigran a
Estados Unidos debido a la falta de empleo en su país. Parte de la economía global es
hacer que los países pobres se desplacen hacia los más ricos.

México tiene más de cien millones de habitantes. Es más grande que España y que la
mayor parte de los países europeos. Debido a su vulnerabilidad las pequeñas granjas
familiares han estado en declive. Aproximadamente el 30% de los mexicanos viven en el
campo. Pero debido a que los estadounidenses quieren frutas y verduras baratas los
agricultores mexicanos no cultivan productos para el consumo local. Las empresas
estadounidenses pagan más por las fresas y por ello este cultivo resulta más atractivo que
el de frijoles o maíz. La comercialización del campo hace que las máquinas hayan
sustituido al pequeño agricultor. En consecuencia, la población rural de México se
reducirá durante los próximos 25 años desde el 30% al 5%. ¿Adónde se dirigirán de 25 a 35
millones de mexicanos desplazados?

Lógicamente podemos preguntarnos qué tuvo que ver el 2 de febrero con estos
fenómenos y si la Proposición 200 detendrá la llegada de los mexicanos. Una vez que se
encuentran aquí, y como seres humanos compasivos que somos, ¿tenemos el deber de
darles comida, ropa y atenciones a los trabajadores indocumentados? Los obispos
católicos han declarado que es pecado mortal discriminar contra los inmigrantes.

Por desgracia, la Iglesia no ha hecho que se cumpla este dictamen. Por ejemplo, que yo
sepa, no ha negado los sacramentos a ninguno de los políticos que respaldan la
Proposición 200.
Como ya he dicho anteriormente en otros artículos, hace 30 años España era el principal
exportador de trabajadores de Europa. Hoy día es uno de los principales importadores de
mano de obra. ¿Por qué? Porque tiene puestos de trabajo. La Unión Europea cobra
impuestos a los países más ricos y da subvenciones a las naciones europeas más pobres,
que han utilizado ese dinero para industrializarse. Por el contrario, la política de Estados
Unidos es que América Latina siga dependiendo de nosotros. Estados Unidos da dinero a
los militares de América Latina, que a su vez hacen que los pobres sean cada vez más
pobres. En el año 2000 México recibió 15 millones de dólares de Estados Unidos en
concepto de ayuda. Egipto recibió 1,000 millones de dólares, con una población de 76
millones de personas. Estados Unidos concedió 6,000 millones de dólares a Israel, con
una población de seis millones de habitantes. México tiene 106 millones de habitantes.

Lógicamente si Estados Unidos quisiera encontrar una solución trataría de fortalecer las
economías de México y de Centroamérica, al igual que hizo Europa. La historia muestra
que, por el contrario, Estados Unidos ha frustrado el desarrollo y las reformas en la región.

Otro hecho es que las economías de México y de América Central se habrían venido abajo
sin la emigración hacia Estados Unidos. Esto habría dado lugar a una agitación frente a la
que Estados Unidos habría reaccionado mediante el empleo de la fuerza militar. Valgan de
ejemplo las revoluciones centroamericanas de los años 80 en que Estados Unidos
respaldó los escuadrones de la muerte.

Los trabajadores mexicanos envían remesas de dinero a México, al igual que hacen los
centroamericanos hacia sus países de origen.

Los mexicanos envían más de 8,000 millones de dólares cada año a sus familiares en
México. Los salvadoreños envían otros 1,000 millones más. Al revés que ocurre con Egipto
e Israel, estas remesas de dinero no le cuestan ni un centavo al contribuyente
estadounidense. Sin embargo, sin las remesas millones de trabajadores indocumentados
más se verían obligados a venir a Estados Unidos.
El 2 de febrero de 1848 seguirá persiguiendo por igual a los estadounidenses y a los
mexicanos mientras proposiciones como la 200 sigan siendo aprobadas en un contexto de
limbo histórico. El pasado es el presente.

Rodolfo F. Acuña es profesor de Estudios Chicanos en la Universidad Estatal de California

en Northridge. Es autor de 17 libros.

Rodolfo F. Acuña, “ POLITICA: Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo: el ayer es hoy,” La Opinión,

30 de enero de 2005

El 2 de febrero de 1848 México y Estados Unidos firmaron el Tratado de Guadalupe

Hidalgo, que ponía fin a la guerra entre ambos países. Pocos lugares habrá, en ninguno de
los dos países, donde se recuerde este aniversario. Si le pregunta usted a sus padres,
compañeros o maestros qué es lo que pasó el 2 de febrero de 1848, estoy seguro de que el
99% ignorarán por qué es importante dicha fecha.

Con la firma del Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo la frontera se desplazó hacia el sur. Esto es
lo que quieren decir los chicanos cuando usan la expresión: “la frontera se cruzó con
nosotros”. Esa guerra no gozó del apoyo de todos los estadounidenses. Ulysses S. Grant la
calificó de injusta, Abraham Lincoln cuestionó la invasión de México y Benito Juárez se
mostró en contra de la firma del tratado. Algunos años más tarde el presidente mexicano
Porfirio Díaz pronunciaría el lamento: “¡Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de
Estados Unidos!”

La guerra le costó a México la pérdida de la mitad de su territorio y convirtió a los

mexicanos en un pueblo conquistado. Se trata de una conmemoración que les gustaría
olvidar a la mayor parte de los políticos estadounidenses y a la mayor parte de los políticos
mexicanos que buscan los favores de Estados Unidos. Por ejemplo, en ninguno de los dos
países se pretende convertir el aniversario en día festivo. Los días festivos se supone que
son días especiales que señalan fechas especiales. A menudo conmemoramos fechas de
importancia histórica sin prestarles realmente mucha atención. El que sean días festivos
las convierte en algo especial. A todos nos gustan los días de fiesta. Desde el principio de
los tiempos los gobernantes han conmemorado los días especiales. Los antiguos mayas
los grababan en glifos para marcar la importancia de los acontecimientos importantes de
sus vidas.

Pero no todas las fechas de importancia resultan elegidas como días festivos. A decir
verdad hay muchos días que aunque no son festivos tienen más importancia que los
festivos y afectan a nuestras vidas en mucha mayor medida que aquellos.

El 2 de febrero adquiere un significado especial a la vista de lo que está pasando hoy día.
En Arizona se aprobó hace poco la Proposición 200, que exige que los empleados
estatales y locales comprueben el estatus migratorio de quienes solicitan recibir
prestaciones públicas y obliga a aquellas a dar cuenta de los inmigrantes indocumentados
que encuentren, so pena de ser ellos mismos objeto de procesamientos judiciales.
Convierte a los maestros en soplones.

Si aislamos la Proposición 200 del pasado, el Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo no tiene

relación con aquella. Algunos dirán que es mezclar peras con manzanas. Sin embargo, lo
que ocurre hoy es una extensión del ayer. Y aunque no quiero ponerme a discutir las
razones de la guerra porque, como mi santa madre solía decir, “palo dado ni Dios lo
quita”, ¿cómo sería el mundo si no hubiera perdido México más de la mitad de su
superficie? ¿Estarían los mexicanos y los centroamericanos clamando por cruzar la
frontera?

El hecho es que México cedió inmensos depósitos minerales a Estados Unidos. Si

California y Texas formaran parte de México actualmente, este país tendría más petróleo
que Arabia Saudita. México sería hoy día uno de los países más ricos del mundo. Esta
riqueza habría hecho posible que México construyera una infraestructura que diera
empleo a sus ciudadanos.

Esto es relevante de cara a la Proposición 200 porque los mexicanos no emigran a Estados
Unidos en busca de democracia, servicios médicos gratuitos o subvenciones. Emigran a
Estados Unidos debido a la falta de empleo en su país. Parte de la economía global es
hacer que los países pobres se desplacen hacia los más ricos.
México tiene más de cien millones de habitantes. Es más grande que España y que la
mayor parte de los países europeos. Debido a su vulnerabilidad las pequeñas granjas
familiares han estado en declive. Aproximadamente el 30% de los mexicanos viven en el
campo. Pero debido a que los estadounidenses quieren frutas y verduras baratas los
agricultores mexicanos no cultivan productos para el consumo local. Las empresas
estadounidenses pagan más por las fresas y por ello este cultivo resulta más atractivo que
el de frijoles o maíz. La comercialización del campo hace que las máquinas hayan
sustituido al pequeño agricultor. En consecuencia, la población rural de México se
reducirá durante los próximos 25 años desde el 30% al 5%. ¿Adónde se dirigirán de 25 a 35
millones de mexicanos desplazados?

Lógicamente podemos preguntarnos qué tuvo que ver el 2 de febrero con estos
fenómenos y si la Proposición 200 detendrá la llegada de los mexicanos. Una vez que se
encuentran aquí, y como seres humanos compasivos que somos, ¿tenemos el deber de
darles comida, ropa y atenciones a los trabajadores indocumentados? Los obispos
católicos han declarado que es pecado mortal discriminar contra los inmigrantes.

Por desgracia, la Iglesia no ha hecho que se cumpla este dictamen. Por ejemplo, que yo
sepa, no ha negado los sacramentos a ninguno de los políticos que respaldan la
Proposición 200.

Como ya he dicho anteriormente en otros artículos, hace 30 años España era el principal
exportador de trabajadores de Europa. Hoy día es uno de los principales importadores de
mano de obra. ¿Por qué? Porque tiene puestos de trabajo. La Unión Europea cobra
impuestos a los países más ricos y da subvenciones a las naciones europeas más pobres,
que han utilizado ese dinero para industrializarse. Por el contrario, la política de Estados
Unidos es que América Latina siga dependiendo de nosotros. Estados Unidos da dinero a
los militares de América Latina, que a su vez hacen que los pobres sean cada vez más
pobres. En el año 2000 México recibió 15 millones de dólares de Estados Unidos en
concepto de ayuda. Egipto recibió 1,000 millones de dólares, con una población de 76
millones de personas. Estados Unidos concedió 6,000 millones de dólares a Israel, con
una población de seis millones de habitantes. México tiene 106 millones de habitantes.

Lógicamente si Estados Unidos quisiera encontrar una solución trataría de fortalecer las
economías de México y de Centroamérica, al igual que hizo Europa. La historia muestra
que, por el contrario, Estados Unidos ha frustrado el desarrollo y las reformas en la región.
Otro hecho es que las economías de México y de América Central se habrían venido abajo
sin la emigración hacia Estados Unidos. Esto habría dado lugar a una agitación frente a la
que Estados Unidos habría reaccionado mediante el empleo de la fuerza militar. Valgan de
ejemplo las revoluciones centroamericanas de los años 80 en que Estados Unidos
respaldó los escuadrones de la muerte.

Los trabajadores mexicanos envían remesas de dinero a México, al igual que hacen los
centroamericanos hacia sus países de origen.

Los mexicanos envían más de 8,000 millones de dólares cada año a sus familiares en
México. Los salvadoreños envían otros 1,000 millones más. Al revés que ocurre con Egipto
e Israel, estas remesas de dinero no le cuestan ni un centavo al contribuyente
estadounidense. Sin embargo, sin las remesas millones de trabajadores indocumentados
más se verían obligados a venir a Estados Unidos.

El 2 de febrero de 1848 seguirá persiguiendo por igual a los estadounidenses y a los

mexicanos mientras proposiciones como la 200 sigan siendo aprobadas en un contexto de
limbo histórico. El pasado es el presente.

Rodolfo F. Acuña es profesor de Estudios Chicanos en la Universidad Estatal de California

en Northridge. Es autor de 17 libros.

Rodolfo f. Acuña, “A Tolerance of Violence On the Border,” Znet. June 20, 2005

In trying to make sense as to why most Americans and even a large number of Latinos are
so complacent about so-called minutemen running amok on the border, searching for
undocumented people, I recently re-read Herbert Marcuse’s 1965 essay on “Repressive
Tolerance.”

Marcuse wrote that “[t]tolerance is an end in itself “and necessary for the preservation of
the status quo and the strengthening of the tyranny of the majority...” When tolerance is
turned into a passive state it promotes laissez-faire, entrenching the established attitudes
and ideas of the right wing. The result is that we passively tolerate ideas and actions that
are damaging to man and nature.

The University of California professor argued that there was a difference between true and
false tolerance and it was an abuse of tolerance to ignore unjust attitudes and ideas
because the truth may antagonize sympathizers.

According to Marcuse, a liberating tolerance was intolerance toward unjust ideas and
movements. Marcuse was later posited that it was the intolerance of students on
campuses that removed Dow Chemical and the recruiters off the university campuses.

Marcuse distinguishes the Right from the Left and movements that help people versus
those that keep them in their place. These movements are difficult to distinguish because
of the historical amnesia of Americans. They believe that the Right and the Left have
contributed equally to social legislation that protects the average citizen.

The truth be told, as a historian, I cannot remember a single piece of progressive social
legislation sponsored by right wing senators or representatives. Indeed, they opposed the
end of slavery, the protection of children’s rights, social security, and civil and human
rights, for starters.

Society’s lack of historical awareness of these facts and the reluctance of liberals to call
the Trent Lotts of this world liars perpetuates this false consciousness.

In respect to undocumented workers and immigrants this repressive tolerance has

allowed racist nativist to blur reason and sanction border violence. It has allowed the
historically illiterate like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to praise Arizona
vigilantes. "They've done a terrific job. And they have cut down the crossing of illegal
immigrants by a huge percentage." We are conditioned to tolerate this undemocratic
behavior and forget that in another time these vigilantes would be wearing white hoods.

Border violence is not an aberration and is as American as apple pie. At least, 597
Mexicans were lynched near or on the border. The majority of those lynched were not
bandits; they were lynched because they were Mexicans. Witness that there has been no
similar history on the Canadian border. Why?

What will be the cost of tolerating these vigilantes?

In the summer of 1976, George Hannigan, a Douglas, Arizona, rancher, and Dairy Queen
owner, and his two sons, Patrick, 22, and Thomas, 17, kidnaped three undocumented
workers looking for work. They “stripped, stabbed, burned [them] with hot pokers and
dragged [them] across the desert.” The Hannigan held a mock hanging for one of the
Mexicans and shot another with buckshot. Judge Anthony Deddens, a friend of the
Hannigan’s, refused to issue arrest warrants. Finally, an all-white jury acquitted the
Hannigan’s. Activists on both sides of the border protested the verdict and pressured U.S.
Attorney General Griffin Bell to indict them. A federal grand jury, in 1979 indicted the
Hannigan’s for violating the Hobbs Act. That prohibited interference in interstate
commerce. After deadlocks and s retrial a jury found the Hannigan’s guilty.

Since the Hannigan case, the hate groups have expanded. Historically, extremist groups
have preyed on the fears and xenophobia of the American majority. Klansman David Duke
organized “border patrols in the late 1970's.” In the early 1980s Louis Beam and his Texas
Knights harassed immigrant Vietnamese fishermen in Texas.

During the 1980s, these hate groups grew as a product of the Internet where pornography
and hate became profitable enterprises.

The idea of sending organized para-military groups to the border remained a right-wing
affair. The cry of “Close our Borders!” was the creation of white supremacist groups that
are integrated in the ranks of the so-called “Minutemena” and spearhead their activities.

The agenda of many of these self-described patriots goes well beyond “the protection of
the border,” however. The ADL reports that Glenn Spencer of Voices of Citizens Together
and the American Patrol has “departed sharply from that of legitimate immigration reform
groups.” Much Spencer’s rhetoric and writing “did not target immigration so much as he
targeted Hispanics, particularly those of Mexican origin, regardless of whether they were
immigrants or not.” The Anti-Defamation League ADL cites a 1996 letter to the Los Angles
Times in which he wrote “the Mexican culture is based on deceit.”

Spencer’s pal Roger Barnett, a rancher from Cochise Country, Arizona, attracted national
attention by running around with pistols and assault rifles capturing undocumented brown
people and holding them against their will.

Meanwhile, other kooks like Jack Foote, based in Arlington, Texas, have been inspired by
Roger Barnett. He formed Ranch Rescue, like the other hate groups, has a Web Site,
spreading fear and collecting money.

In March 2003 two of Ranch Rescue’s “Minutemen” were arrested for allegedly detaining
two Salvadorans and pistol whipping one of them.