Posted on 06/11/2006 9:19:16 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Inspired by the millions of immigrants who took to the streets to demand legal residency, Latino advocacy groups and politicians have called for a national Latino congress to keep the issue in the political spotlight. Organizers are inviting leaders from across the political spectrum to Los Angeles -- the country's Latino epicenter -- to draft an agenda to strengthen immigrant rights, health care and education.
"These mobilizations have shown that the immigrant community and the Latino community have political potential in impacting public policy,'' said Angela Sanbrano, president of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities.
"But we cannot assume that we are unified.''
In fact, a number of groups favoring tighter controls on illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America count Latino residents among their members.
Joe Turner, founder of Save Our State, a group that has been picketing against undocumented workers at day labor sites in Glendale and around the region, said measures such as the Latino congress help to strengthen groups like his.
"Any call for amnesty this (Congress) supports is only going to create a backlash,'' he said.
Hosted by more than half a dozen immigrant rights advocacy groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, the four-day conference from Sept. 6-10 will set a long-term "Latino agenda'' and action plan to improve the lives of immigrants.
Jose Calderon, president of the Latino and Latina Roundtable of San Gabriel Valley and Pomona Valley, said creating a Latino agenda and long-term plan is significant.
"In the short term, we can't continue to hold marches and protests and put forward what policies we are against,'' said Calderon, the Weglyn Chair at Cal Poly Pomona and professor of sociology and Chicano studies at Pitzer College in Claremont.
"We need to develop policies of what we are for and be clear and (address) how we are going to make those policies a reality.
"That will take a long-term effort of voter registration, getting people out to vote, training local leaders and new candidates, and not just around immigration, but the environment, education, health care, human rights and housing. That's going to take some time. It's not a one-month or six-month effort.''
But observers say organizers need to be careful not to further divide Americans on the red-hot issue of immigration.
"While you want to mobilize, you don't want to create a counter-mobilization, and that is very difficult not to do,'' said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.
Still, he called the congress, modeled after similar ethnic and civil rights conventions held during the 1970s, a turning point in Latino politics.
"Latinos have done a tremendous job in electoral politics, but I think you are in 2006 seeing a watershed moment for nonelectoral political organizing in the United States,'' Guerra said.
Calderon said backlash against a particular group for organizing is historical and nothing new.
"Every time a group begins to organize and look at what affects them, it is seen as negative and exclusive,'' he said.
"It's OK to organize in the community, but the question is what are we working on in the long term. (It's important to) show we are building coalitions with other groups and finding common ground. That's the only way to respond to those attacks.''
Next month, Calderon's group plans to meet with white members of a Presbyterian church who employ Latino gardeners and housekeepers. He says it is about reaching out, especially to people who know immigrants on a personal level and who may not have had a way to express their support or views.
"A Latino agenda doesn't contradict that,'' Calderon said. "You start off with a particular, then work toward a broader agenda that is inclusive.''
Organizers of the Latino congress are inviting elected Latino officials -- now about 5,000 -- from government, chambers of commerce as well as from the National Council of La Raza, perhaps the largest Latino civil rights organization in the United States.
Its success and impact will depend, in part, on who turns up. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been invited, but his office did not return calls to say whether he planned to attend.
Organizers aim to have the country's largest gathering of Latino power assembled.
"We are inviting the whole family,'' joked Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonprofit Latino voter research group based in San Antonio, Texas.
"(Latinos) control cities, we have people in the Senate, and we are going to only get more prominent. But on the other hand, (Latinos) are not giving the policy benefits to the community we should.''
Latinos have achieved political clout in Los Angeles, but they have less access to health care and are poorer than the general population, studies show. Nearly half of Latino students drop out of high school.
For Gilda Ochoa, professor of sociology and Chicana and Chicano studies at Cal Poly Pomona, what happens in the Latino community is not only important for Latinos.
"Latino interests are the interests of many working-class communities of color (as well as) working-class whites,'' Ochoa said.
Ochoa also believes the debate should broaden.
"Put immigration into a larger historical context,'' she said. "There have been different waves of anti-immigrant sentiment -- anti-Italian, the literacy policy against the Chinese, anti-Japanese sentiment ... we need to create coalitions, and include Middle Easterners, especially in a post-9/11 climate. We need to see the commonalities we have. It's not about blaming.''
See tagline.
So they want to draft an agenda for saying, "You've got it, I want it, you owe me," do they?
"Inspired by the millions..."
Millions? What a fantasy world some live in.
Exactly.
http://www.core-online.org/history/history.htm
This is where the notion began; everything since is a copycat effort.
It's a good thing illegals need papers to vote.
but in california you don't
embolden? Well, perhaps they are boldly stupid. If two senators ran around telling Anglos they could ignore major portions of the law would you think that would result in millions of such anglos showing their collective azz in the streets of our cities? In this day and age of law enforcement? Not a chance. But the "Latinos" (criminal illegal alien border violators) are right on it, waving their cute `lil mexico flags and banners "demanding amnesty."
I believe calling them (collectively) stupid is being rather kind.
Will it be a fight or are we too comfortable and just going to let them have what they want. azatlan.
Most will sit it out. But if there is an actual territorial grab, the "latinos" will get cut down. Way WAY too many pizzed-off Americans that are armed to the teeth to just let it slide. DC would attempt to intervene but most of the troops will be scratching their heads trying to figure out why they have orders to put down American Citizens over invaders. It's that old "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" they hear every time a President is sworn in. The troops sit on their hands, their CO's are ok with that `cause they are from a generation that remembers what America is all about and the "Latino Revolutionary Heroes" get a sharp, fast lesson in "America love it or leave it."
I hope you are right.
Queria começar tentando relacionar a pintura triste,mas cheiade vida,de seu amigo Bram Van Velde,com seu próprio trabalho.Ficacada vez mais claro para mim que Van Velde realizou uma obra menosimportante que a sua,mas com uma característica que o senhor,dealguma forma,talvez inveje ainda hoje:seu lirismo.Pois a diferençaentre seus primeiros romances,onde ainda havia alguém que sofria osreveses do mundo,e tudo o que nasce com Godot,éque deixa de haversofrimento porque não há ninguém do outro lado — não porque omundo tenha desaparecido, ao contrário: as personagens é quetomaram conta das coisas,tomaram conta de tudo,tornaram-se omundo inteiro,assenhorearam-se do passado e do futuro (e aqui eu meentusiasmei),como pequenos deuses,plenos a ponto de não ter de falarde nada.Não há alusão a coisa alguma forada cena,portanto não há algonem ninguém para temer ou desejar — o Godot esperado na verdade jáestá lá dentro do palco, e por isso não chega nunca. Assim não hálirismo,não há bem alegria nem sofrimento,mas uma eternidade feitade coisas transitórias, perecíveis, coisas do aquém (trocadilhos,palavrões,flatulência).O senhor concorda com isto? O senhor lamentaesta renúncia ao lirismo?
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)
There are a lot of good guys out there that believe in this and are getting called names like vigilante. Really makes it hard to believe ANY of the name callers...
They are stupid to be emboldened. If we have any kind of uprising that results in Americans getting hurt,or worse, there will be a call to impeach Bush, and close the borders tomorrow! Good on both counts, as far as I am conserned. Then we will see if Cheney wants to learn Spanish or not.
The trouble is that no one quite sees that the very best thing we could do for Mexico is to send their now well trained citizens home.
Suddenly Mexico would have a skilled workforce who knew something about how a world class country worked.
Think these folk would propel a great leap forward for Mexico?
I do.
Basically the ruling class in Mexico will not change of its own volition. But it can be forced to change.
The Mexicans in the USA have had the picture of what a well run country looks like tatooed on the back of their eyeballs. And they'll have an idea of how to get there. Send them back to Mexico and they'll get a revolution in Mexico that'll do that country some good.
The shock troops for that would be the 12 million repatriated Mexican citizens. Having seen what a well run country looks like they would not want to be stuffed back in the old wineskin.
There's something more.
I follow water desalination research pretty closely. While water desalination costs have dropped to about a third of what they were 15 years ago--the rate at which prices will drop over the next seven years will accelerate considerably. imo in even the next five years we will see desalination costs drop to 1/10th of today's costs.
Basically, the foundations are being laid today to make it economically feasable to to turn all the world's deserts green. (The proper way to look at this is to recall that cars, tv's and computers were at first rich men's toys but when prices came down they changed the world. Desalinised water is still relatively speaking -- a rich man's toy. But when the price drops sufficiently--desalinised water will change the world--because most deserts are right beside the ocean.)
imho cheap desalinised water will do for the republicans (if they can get this on their agenda) what the great dam building projects & the tva of the 1930's &40's did for democrats because 1/3 of the US is deserts. We would increase the habitable size of the USA by 1/3.
Dirt cheap desalinised water will also do things like make it possible to double the habitable size of Mexico.
And desalinated water in tandem with repatriation of now skilled Mexican citizens would propel Mexico into being a world class country.
"...So they want to draft an agenda for saying, "You've got it, I want it, you owe me," do they?"
I loved your statement but I changed a few words for my new tagline...
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