Posted on 03/29/2008 7:01:32 PM PDT by BGHater
SAN BERNARDINO - Like the woman herself, Dolores Huerta's position on illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States is blunt and direct.
Huerta, the 77-year-old who in 1962 joined Cesar Chavez in co-founding the United Farm Workers of America, delivered an impassioned and populist message to a crowd of about 500 people on Thursday night in the San Bernardino Valley College auditorium.
"We didn't cross the border," the revered immigrant and farm worker advocate told an enthusiastic crowd of mostly college students. "The border crossed us."
Her visit came amidst an era of renewed debate over anti-immigration policies and the fate of more than 10 million illegal immigrants living in the nation's shadows.
A fence across the U.S. Mexico border is being constructed, and Congress last year deadlocked on new immigration legislation.
In her wide-ranging speech, which was sponsored by Arts and Lecture Series Committee and MECHA Latino faculty and staff, Huerta railed against anti-immigrant groups, the North American Free Trade Agreement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget cuts to education, and U.S. government inaction on immigration reform.
Huerta also praised young people and minorities in America for renewed vitality in political movements and urged listeners to vault a Democrat into the White House.
Huerta has publicly endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for president.
"In a democracy, the only thing poor people and working people have going for them is their vote," Huerta said.
Huerta, her small frame behind a podium in the high-ceiling auditorium, hammered away with her well-trod anti-elite rhetoric.
She criticized NAFTA for paving the way for U.S. corporate exploitation of Latin American economies, and said efforts similar to those that rebuilt Germany and Japan after World War II were necessary to ease the flight north.
A possible 10 percent cut statewide to public education would disproportionately impact poor and minority students, she said.
But Huerta's strongest words were directed toward the issue of immigration.
She said illegal workers were a critical bulwark of the national economy, yet were faced with virulent anti-illegal-immigrant groups such as the Minuteman Project that she said were "linked" to the United States government.
She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns had deported 290,000 people to Latin American countries in what she characterized as an "ethnic cleansing."
But anti-illegal-immigration efforts were doomed to failure, Huerta said, as illegal immigrants and naturalized Latinos had gained a foothold in the country.
"It's really too late," Huerta said of anti-illegal-immigration movements. "If 47 million (Latinos) have one baby each ... it's already won."
A Mexican-American labor organizer who bore 11 children, Huerta gained fame in the 1960s with her work to secure better working conditions for agricultural laborers.
In her negotiations, Huerta's reputation was a blend of fiery advocacy for Latinos and an emphasis grooming young girls and women for lives of independence and action.
Huerta's reception at the community college was overwhelmingly positive.
Many in the audience rejoiced in the theme of empowerment that drove Huerta's speech, which ended with a chant of "Si se puede," which is Spanish for "Yes we can."
"I liked how she said 75 percent of the world was people of color," said SBVC student Randy Dale, 23. "We are the majority, and we should be in charge more, especially in the U.S."
Last ping of the night Ping!
I accept that if we get to run B29, B24, and B17 raids over mexico for 4 years first.
That was the price Germany and Japan paid for us to help rebuild them.
The only thing unfair about that is Mexico would only defend with their modern air force of Cessna skyraiders and 150’s while the Germans had ME 262’s and FW 190’s.
Then again, pick your fights carefully my uncle used to say.
“”If 47 million (Latinos) have one baby each ... it’s already won.”
Not true Ms. Huerta. If half the 47 million you are counting are men, those men would probably die in child birth so we are back to 47 million.
So there.
"I liked how she said 75 percent of the world was people of color," said SBVC student Randy Dale, 23. "We are the majority, and we should be in charge more, especially in the U.S."
People of color aren't the majority in the U.S. People of color are the majority and leadership in Zimbabwe and Mexico. Real success stories. People are flocking to those countries to revel in the success.
Wrong. A large portion of the illegals does not pay ANY taxes of any kind. The illegals are stupid parasites, they are killing the host (financially) in so many ways.
BTTT!!!!!
I would be banned if I said what I was thinking of her. My family whipped your backsides at San Jacinto and dragged your whining el presidente up in front of Sam Houston and no of you can get over that little fact. This is not your country. And I bet you never were legalized and should be sent packing back across that border. As for your belief about people of "color" should be in charge of the US, excuse me, but no one is void of color or they'd be invisible you idiot. And no, illegals shouldn't be in charge of America. You'd be singing a different tune if us "pink" people invaded your precious Mexico (or wait, we are already invading your country from the Rio Grande all the way to the Canadian border). If you truly wanted to make a difference for your "color", you would be giving that speech in Mexico, but obviously your just another little whiny gobbling up US taxpayers' freebies.
More disgusting than the flag waving and their claim to half of the US, is the fact that ICE apparently couldn’t find their way to the event.
I just wonder where the new dividing line in Texas will be. Who gets to keep San Antonio? I think a big arc from Laredo to El Paso will be lost, at least.
Too bad we don’t have a president or even a candidate who will ever stand up to the racialist aztlan invaders.
Oh yeah, the Mexica movement is total kookery. It’s the “new bronze race,” and no Europeans allowed.
Straight talk for you and me
but talk is hate coming from our enemy.
For them our contempt and contumely.
Your harmless fraud and perjury
merits our amnesty.
Americans doing fraud and perjury
go straight to the penitentiary.
“yet were faced with virulent anti-illegal-immigrant groups such as the Minuteman Project that she said were “linked” to the United States government.”
Don’t tell Bush or McCain!! lol
You make a lot of excellent points.
It reminds me of when I did some reading about the history of slavery in the US. We get blamed for the slave trade, but only 10% of the cross-Atlantic slaves came to the US - the other 90% went to the Caribbean or South America. Only 4 years after winning independence, the US Constitution was signed, putting a 20 year limit on importing slaves.
Mexico owned, but did not control, the part of the US where I now live for only 25 years. For over 150 years, the US has owned it and sought to control it...with significant success until recently.
And the difference between the US and Mexico isn’t that the US exploited Mexico. Mexico’s problem is that they have never adopted the freedoms and capitalism of the USA. If they adopted our culture, they wouldn’t have any economic reason to migrate here.
All true. And the important fact to throw back when they use the “the border crossed us” argument is that it is a lie. The Spanish who lived in the Southwest stayed, became Americans, and their offspring are Americans. The illegal alien invaders never had one single grandparent going all the way back who lived in the present SW, and was expelled. They are all invaders, period.
That's nothing.
He plans to retire in the resort community of wobbly bottom!
Illegal aliens have no right to vote. (Unfortunately, anchor babies do when they reach legal age).
Yeah, the democracy thing worked out real well in 1860.
Four years of civil war were the result. It didn’t turn out so well for the southern side, but the war came nonetheless.
Who knows. Wouldn't be unreasonable to expect to lose most of Texas.
Who gets to keep San Antonio?
On the other hand, there's a lot of Americans of Hispanic/Mexican ancestry who have no more interest in becoming de facto Mexican citizens than Americans of African ancestry have in moving back to Africa.
I think a big arc from Laredo to El Paso will be lost, at least.
You get your end points right? The only part of Texas that would be in that arc is the Big Bend region.
Of course, pretty much of anything I say on the topic should be considered pure speculation.
LOL!
Great jobs spotting this as my eyes were bleeding from the rest of the story.
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