Still They March: Nationwide Rallies Highlight Failure of War on Immigrants

The battle for immigrant rights rages daily in the heart, mind and lanky 10 year-old frame of Chelsea resident and May Day marcher, Norma Canela. Norma’s mother Olivia illegally crossed the borders of Guatemala, Mexico and the U.S. almost eleven years ago from Honduras. Born shortly after her mom came to the U.S., Norma says attending one of the over 200 May Day marches for immigrant rights made her feel “good, like we could help people get their papers!”

Chanting, singing and marching alongside so many others in the Chelsea march, also provided the energetic 4th grader a counterbalance to the crush of loneliness (”I feel like nobody wants to help us”), fear (I’m scared they might take my mom”) and isolation (”Sometimes I feel alone”). If, it achieved nothing else, march organizers say, the May Day mobilizations gave Norma, Olivia and the 12 million undocumented immigrants and their families living in United States a dose of hope in the face of an escalating war on the undocumented.

Yelling “Alto a las redadas! Alto a las deportaciones!”(Stop the Raids! Stop the Deportations!) the tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters marching throughout the country on May Day believe they took crucial steps for a movement trying to defend families like Norma’s from a multibillion dollar war being waged on immigrants. On May Day they hoped they helped align the movement’s agenda, animate its base and flex its power.

Relieved, yet still animated after organizing the largest (30,000 +) of the hundreds of May Day marches in towns and cities throughout the country, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera in Wisconsin, a low-wage and immigrant workers center, said that the day’s primary objective had been accomplished. “Almost all immigrant rights groups are now on same page as far as opposing measures that criminalize immigrants and demanding legalization in the first 100 days of the next [President's] administration” said Ortiz adding “I think across the board most groups are calling on Bush Administration put an immediate end to raids and deportation.”

Prior to today’s marches, the fissures and differences around strategy for immigration reform had split the movement. Some groups supported ‘tradeoffs’ -legalization for even heavier enforcement- like those contained in the now defunct McCain-Kennedy bill while other groups didn’t. May Day march organizers also found themselves on the defensive against what Ortiz calls ” a kind of low-intensity conflict” unleashed on immigrants shortly after the historic May Day marches of 2006: thousands of raids on homes and workplaces conducted by heavily-armed immigration agents, deployment of 6,000 national guard troops to the border, billions of dollars in government contracts to military-industrial companies like Halliburton, Blackwater and Boeing to build the infrastructure to surveill, trail and jail immigrants.

Against the backdrop of the intense escalation of attacks and the fear these attacks engendered after 2006, Ortiz and other organizers like Gladys Vega of the Chelsea Collaborative believe they also succeeded in injecting some “animo” into their movement. “On a daily basis, we have to deal with community members terrorized by raids, facing increased problems in the workplace because of the tighter (employment) regulations” said Vega adding “Here in Chelsea, a city that is 63% immigrant, 350, mostly Latino families had their houses foreclosed on and we can’t just sit by and watch.”

In response to what she considers the very predictable mainstream media stories focused on the decreased size of the May Day marches, Vega said, “When your community and you have to do so much and when there is so much repression against immigrants and their families, the real story is how so many people overcame their fear and marched in 200 cities.”

Now Ortiz is ready to pull out a defensive posture and launch an offensive. “Marching is one critical piece but not the only one” said Ortiz. “Most of us are also involved in the massive push for voter registration, citizenship drives and getting people to vote. May Day was also about sending a message to the Republicans and Democrats, about holding their feet to the fire.”

Norma and Olivia can’t cast a vote this election season. One is too young, the other doesn’t have the papers. But they are still involved in the electoral process. How? “I talk to our family and friends who can vote; I make phone calls, distribute flyers, attend events anything I can do I do it” said Olivia. For her part, future voter Norma, who sometimes joins her mother’s electoral activities, offers up some immigrant rights strategy of her own, “We’re going to march until they (the government/immigration authorities) get bored. Then we can all be safe.”

Mayday Interview With Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

Check out Amy’s great show on Mayday and migrant’s rights. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, other guests and I also connected the dots between global trade, militarism and migration. Check it out. Full transcript below, complete with lots of “uh’s” during my Q&A. You can find the video of the interview on Democracy Now’s site.

Democracy Now! Mayday Interview

Guests:

Mike Whitehead, Worker at Micro Solutions. He was illegally detained during the Feb. 7 ICE raid.

Christopher Scherer, Staff attorney for the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

Roberto Lovato, Writes for New America Media and is a frequent contributor to The Nation Magazine. He blogs at ofamerica.wordpress.com.

Rush Transcript

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Related Links

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AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Los Angeles, California on this historic day, a day for—in the struggle for labor rights and the eight-hour work day, tens of thousands are expected to march across the country today, linking immigrants’ rights to May Day for the third year in a row. The major demands include legal status for undocumented migrant workers and an end to the raids and deportations that have torn families apart. One of the biggest rallies is expected to take place today here in Los Angeles.

As we continue our coverage of these issues, we turn to one of the most controversial immigration topics in this country: workplace raids carried out by armed US agents. If you were in Los Angeles in early February, you might have seen these reports on your local news.

KTLA-5 NEWS ANCHOR: [ICE] raided a Van Nuys company today. The raid took place at a printer supply manufacturer called Micro Solutions Enterprises. Family and friends rushed over as soon as they heard what was going on.

REPORTER: From News Copter 13, you can see a toddler who doesn’t quite understand why she can’t be with her mother.

AMY GOODMAN: On February 7th, hundreds of agents from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, raided a Los Angeles company called Micro Solutions. During the raid, US agents arrested 138 immigrant workers. In addition, armed ICE agents detained 114 workers who were US citizens or lawful permanent residents.

The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law has just filed claims on behalf of these workers. It’s believed to be the first time a group of US citizens and lawful residents have brought claims against the government for being illegally detained during an ICE raid. If the claims are successful, this legal strategy could force the Department of Homeland Security to change its policy about workplace raids.

I’m joined here in Los Angeles by two guests. Christopher Scherer is a staff attorney with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. Mike Whitehead also joins us. He’s a worker at Micro Solutions, illegally detained during the February 7th ICE raid. In New York, we’re joined by the journalist Roberto Lovato. He is a writer for New America Media and a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine. He blogs at ofamerica.wordpress.com.
We welcome you all to Democracy Now!

Well, Mike Whitehead, let’s begin with you. What happened on February 7th?

MIKE WHITEHEAD: February 7, we were brought in—a hundred-plus agents were come into the facility and had us detained for a number of hours. I personally was detained for about an hour of that time in a conference room, to begin with. We were hustled into the room and told that we couldn’t move, we couldn’t leave, we had to keep our hands visible, we couldn’t use our cell phones, which was sort of disturbing to me, because I didn’t know what we did wrong. You know, I’m a US citizen. We were shuffled around to another area of the facility and asked to be segregated later at a time that we were later cleared. But we were detained for approximately one hour, me personally.

AMY GOODMAN: And did you know who the armed men were?

MIKE WHITEHEAD: At the beginning, I didn’t, because I didn’t recognize “ICE” on the back of their jackets. I mean, there was a hundred-plus agents, armed, flak vests that said “ICE” on the back of them. I later figured it out. I mean, it was pretty obvious who they were.

AMY GOODMAN: Christopher Scherer, can you talk about the legality of this?

CHRISTOPHER SCHERER: Well, we don’t feel there was any legality to this. It’s a violation of Fourth Amendment rights of citizens of lawful permanent residents. ICE is coming in and detaining an entire factory worth of individuals and holding them under armed guard and allowing them to leave when they decide, when they think it’s appropriate.

AMY GOODMAN: How common is this?

CHRISTOPHER SCHERER: It’s happened all over the country. I mean, it’s happened here in Southern California at Micro Solutions. It happened in Texas, in Iowa, with the Swift raids, where they held literally thousands of American citizens while they were looking for undocumented workers.

AMY GOODMAN: Roberto Lovato, can you talk about this?

ROBERTO LOVATO: Yeah. First of all, I want to encourage everybody to get out on the streets today if they feel outraged about what happened to Mike and what’s happening to thousands of citizens and non-citizens in the United States. I really encourage you to go out there and support them and also to get a dose of hope, because that’s what May Day is about, a workers’ and immigrants’ hope.

What happened to Mike is, as I said, not unique. I have traveled the country interviewing citizens and non-citizens who are experiencing these kinds of raids and violence, state violence, with increasing frequency. And I really feel for Mike, because it’s proving a thesis I’ve had for a while now, which is that the immigration raids, the attacks, the increasing militarization of police forces, of the National Guard at the border, are all indicators of how immigrants are being used to normalize having people with guns in our midst. In other words, first it was the people in the yellow outfits detained after 9/11. Now it’s the Mexican and other immigrants. And as we see with the case of Mike, now it’s US citizens and workers who are being subjected to what in another context, in another country, would be called, say, “terrorismo de estado,” state terrorism.

Peoples—Mike, I’m sure, may have dreams about this. His body may shake because of being violated, as if—you know, having his rights and his person violated. And so, it’s an indicator of why we need to get out to protest and assert our rights, because, as I said, immigration is being used to militarize within the borders of the country.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask Mike Whitehead not only about you, but about all the other workers. Can you talk about the reaction when the agents came in? What time of day was it?

MIKE WHITEHEAD: It was about 3:45, close to 4:00. The reaction was that we thought we were under some sort of attack. We didn’t know what was going on. They never disclosed who they were and what they were there for.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, what about the immigrants who worked there, whether documented or not?

MIKE WHITEHEAD: Oh, that we have close to 800 employees in our facility, so it was a mass detention. As far as who was undocumented, I have no idea who was undocumented in our facility. We follow our I-9s. I know that we are compliant and have been cooperating with ICE and Homeland Security.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me put this question to Roberto Lovato. The overall policy of immigration right now, and especially here in California and then going down to the border?

ROBERTO LOVATO: Well, you have a radical transformation of the political and demographic topography of the United States happening right now. It’s concentrated in the Southwest, and it’s because of the growth of Latino and other populations, but especially the Latino population. And you’re seeing it in the streets. It’s altering our political system. And you’re seeing it in our electoral process. And I think that instills a lot of fear in certain powers that be, because it’s no longer kind of the black-white politics and the era of the Southern strategy. We’re watching something take place that nobody really has an idea where it’s going or what’s going to happen. We do know, for—as, for example, as reported in the LA Times, that immigrant voters are going to radically transform not just the Southwestern United States, but the entire United States in the coming years. And this is inevitable, unless there’s some sort of massive tragedy, which I hope not and I would fight with every bone in my body, but—as would others.

But so, we have to look at—it’s just an issue of control. The border is not a fact. The border is an idea, OK? The border is violated every day by the primary criminals that are, in fact, transnational corporations that cause migration in the first place. And so, it’s no coincidence that we’re focusing on, for example, the undocumented worker and not on the employer that hires them, in the debate. They are breaking the law, if anybody’s breaking the law, as much as, if not more than, the undocumented worker. Yet the entire debate is focused on the human being and not the citizen that is the corporation, because to focus on them, we would have to, for example, apply the death penalty to corporations and take away their citizenship, as we do with prisoners. And that’s, I think, what’s at stake here, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me go to Christopher Scherer, staff attorney for the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. What about the responsibility of the employer versus the workers?

CHRISTOPHER SCHERER: Well, I mean, there’s no question that employers are under an obligation to comply with, you know, all the rules and regulations with regard to who they hire and hiring legal—at least checking the status of the people that they hire. But in this situation, all those things have been done. And, you know, if—the employer in the situation may be a subject of fraud, a victim in the situation, and it doesn’t change the fact that ICE is coming into these factories without color of warrant, without exigent circumstance that could justify the types of detentions that are taking place and holding citizens and permanent residents against their will.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about the companies, Roberto Lovato, that benefit, that are profiting off of the increased militarization, particularly along the border?

ROBERTO LOVATO: Well, we’re watching the birth of what some people, like Deepa Fernandez and others, are calling the military-industrial-migration complex, a set of interests, economic, political, that are profiting politically and economically from this new, what I would call a war on immigrants. If, say, the drones at the border or the National Guard at the border or the fact that the ICE, the immigration agency, is in fact the most militarized arm of the federal government besides the Pentagon—a lot of people don’t know this—and so, if you look at that, those are indicators of a war, of an enemy. And so, we know from Iraq that the government acts not just out of what it says it’s going to do, but for other reasons. So why not apply that logic to what’s happening with immigration?

Because I think immigration is about controlling immigrant workers, putting fear in them, and I think it’s about electoral machinations that we’re seeing, especially by the Republicans, and also a lot of Democrats. But it’s also about the crisis of legitimacy in the state itself. I think there’s a crisis afoot. And when there’s a crisis, you want to bring in as many people with guns within. And so, there’s a lot of companies that are benefiting, like Blackwater, like—does this sound familiar?—Halliburton is building immigrant prisons. All these electronic surveillance companies are getting multimillion-, multibillion-dollar contracts, in the case of Boeing, to surveil, jail and harass immigrants. And so, you know, this whole anti-immigrant moment is extremely profitable for the stock portfolios of a lot of companies.

AMY GOODMAN: Roberto Lovato, can you talk about the “Three Amigos Summit” that took place in New Orleans, or as it came to be known, President Bush meeting with the heads of state of Canada and Mexico?

ROBERTO LOVATO: Yeah. There was—this is the most recent in a series of meetings that have taken place between the heads of state of Canada, Mexico and the United States. And it’s interesting to look at what their agenda is. It’s primarily about free trade and security. OK, and that’s not a coincidence. It’s not that they just put this together. It’s the fact that in order to implement the free trade policies in Mexico that drive migration, that destroy workers’ rights and the environment and that cause, you know, crisis after crisis, and now to do that in the United States and in Canada, you’re not just going to need to implement new laws, you’re going to have to back up the—yourself up with military force, as you see in the case of the discussions that were had about Plan Mexico.

Plan Mexico is essentially a plan to militarize or what I would call “Colombianize” Mexico. I was in Michoacan last year, and it’s one of the most militarized parts of Mexico, with—a country with no history of a—modern history of a military, of a militarized society like the rest of Latin America. And so, the summits are about fomenting free trade and helping to create excuses for putting, again, more people with guns in our societies, whether it’s in Mexico in Michoacan in the countryside, where they’re knocking on people’s doors and capturing them and causing more people to migrate, or whether it’s in Canada or now here in the United States, where you see the raids.

You look at those images, Amy, that you had of, say, MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. If you took away the LAPD names on those, that would look just like Gaza, if you look at the weaponry, the way they’re dressed, etc. So these are visual, clear indicators of the fact that immigration is not just about immigrants. It’s as much about those of us that are citizens and instilling fear and normalizing the idea that it’s OK to have people with guns and uniforms in times of crisis and meltdown like we have now.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for joining us, Roberto Lovato, speaking to us from New York.

ROBERTO LOVATO: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Roberto Lovato writes for New America Media, a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine. And our guests here in studio in Los Angeles, as we continue on the road, Christopher Scherer, staff attorney for the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, and Mike Whitehead, one of the employees at Micro Solutions who was detained on February 7th during the ICE raid.

5 Reasons to Participate in the Immigrant Rights Marches on May 1rst

As the Mayday marches approach, I hear the pattering of well-meaning, but worried hearts. Some have told me that they are worried that Mayday may become low-turnout day. Though normal and to be expected, especially in a climate so toxic with state and corporate media-sponsored hopelessness, such fears need to be recognized and dealt with, for such personal, internal negotiations in times of global crisis are the stuff that the best political dreams are made of.

So, as we ponder whether to move our bodies to march in an age when politics and, especially, “progressive” politics, have given way to the important, but largely disembodied politics of the web, here are a few things to consider:

1. Marching Matters - we might want to remember what ACTUP, Latin American and other activists taught and told us: silence=death. As the Pentagon propaganda scandal makes chillingly clear, the domestic war, the war within the borders is primarily psychological and symbolic. Elites know this and so should we. Add to the equation the physical war targeting migrants and you get a situation that demands that we demonstrate self-respect and courage in the face of such serious repression. Rather than simply absorb the messages of hopelessness and discouragement coming out of our TVs and computer screens (and even from some of our friends and families), let’s move our bodies against the state and the elite interests controlling it. One of the best antidotes to the fear and isolation propagated by the media, government and other interests is to march with others. Marching helps us realize that, in a pathologically ill country, migrants and their supporters are, indeed, “aliens”; Marching reminds us that, yes, we are not alone. Regardless of how many of us march, it’s critically important that those living in isolation and fear, especially our children and young people, need to see some of us raising our fists and heads before injustice. Next time someone tells you “marching doesn’t matter”, just ask them what marching might mean to those undocumented parents who’ve never participated in marches or anything political and who’s small children watched them come out of the political closet of undocumented status for the first time in their lives.

2. The Government has Spent Billions to Attack Migrants and Destroy the Immigrant Rights Movement - in case you didn’t realize it, in times of war and declining empire, immigrants and those who defend them become enemies of the state, useful enemies that help militarize life within the borders of the “nation”. Just look at what happened after 9-11, especially after the marches of 2006: raids and home invasions by the thousands, massive deployments of thousands of heavily-armed ICE agents and national guard troops, billions spent on defensive walls, electronic surveillance and military equipment,..the list goes on and on. The exponential amounts of money, imprisonment rates and the state violence aimed at migrants should make abundantly clear what we’re witnessing: a domestic war on immigrants. Local, state and federal governments have spent billions to destroy us, yet still we march.

3. The mainstream media is fatally ignorant of -and antagonistic towards- immigrants and immigration issues - you might remember that this is the same media that repeated mantra-like that the marchas of 2006 “came out of nowhere”; the same media that then proceeded to report on the marches without context, reporting as if Mojadopotli, the God of the Undocumented, magically moved DJ’s as he/she rained millions of marchers down on hundreds of U.S. towns and cities. Rather than worry that your local and national media are already reporting on the marches as a failure because “far fewer” people are “expected” to show up, you might stop for a moment to consider that the media is simply doing its political job-and then march anyway. And there are much better, even funner ways to spend your Mayday than taking in gobs and gobs of messages from the most sophisticated and private sector-driven spin and propaganda system ever devised.

4. Movements have their ebbs and flows-and we’re ebbing right now - if your political commitment depends on the fix of massive marches for you to feel good or inspired, you might consider checking into a political detox facility immediately. Such conjunctural logic fits perfectly into the “look, their marches have diminished” “reporting” that we even hear from the Spanish language and broken-Spanish-inflected reporting of some Latino surnamed reporters. Not to march means we further enable the diverse and cowardly interests aligned against migrants: Minutemen, the Bush Administration, the media, Democrats and Republicans and others. The moment we forget that the true measure of movements that inspire social and political change is what happens in the heart and mind is the moment we allow the whispers and hollers of our adversaries to crystallize inside of us. This dark, defensive moment will pass only if at least some of us continue to carry the candle of hope.

5. Immigrants Still Lead the Way - more than anything, Mayday should serve to remind us of the power of immigrants to alter history. It’s because of immigrant workers that children (at least most working class children) no longer languish in factories; it’s because of immigrant workers that there’s an 8 hour workday; it’s in no small part because of immigrants and other free, partially free and wholly unfree workers that any “freedom” exists in the cold heart of the most powerful and most rapidly declining empire ever.

So, in the face of the unholy alliance of interests aligned against us from above, let us march if only to connect to the tradition of freedom brought from below.

A marchar!

Carne Asada is Not a Crime: Support Taco Trucks!

This just in from my former hometown, L.A., city of our future: campaign to defend the right of taco trucksters to sell tacos. Taco truck owners and their supporters in L.A. ( a massive army that includes pretty much anybody in that browning land where people eat tacos as often as they drink L.A.’s mineral-rich water) are facing off against the County of Angels’ titanically powerful Board of Supervisors (BOS). According to the L.A. Times, the BOS wants to

place new restrictions on the mobile grills that patrons praise as icons of East L.A. life but competitors disparage as a nuisance

The taco truck campaign provides still another striking example of the fusion of old and new school organizing as flyer and bull horn-bearing tacoistas are joined by bloggers, techies and other Web 2.0istas in the campaign, which includes a petition, lobbying, eating tacos and other tactics. There’s even a Facebook page for the campaign. Lest we forget, this same political mix brought us the largest simultaneous political mobilizations in U.S. history in 2006 (don’t forget to march this Mayday, May 1!).

(note the stuffed shirt waiting for his manna as he stands humbly before the wheeled white altar)

This story is interesting not only because it’s another example of the increased attacks on low wage immigrant workers eking out an existence by providing a cheap service; It’s also noteworthy because you can’t just pin the tail on the racist gringo donkey in this case. Among those supporting and backing the new taco truck restrictions are Latinos, specifically Latino business owners who say the taco trucks compete unfarily against their restaurants and other establishments. And these more established Eastsiders are using their citizenship and voting clout to get Supervisor Gloria Molina, one of the country’s most powerful Latinas, to sponsor the taco truck legislation.

Though primarily an L.A. issue, this is one of those developments that, like jacuzzis and pro-migrant marches, will move from West to East in this country that still doesn’t feel how the winds of change no longer blow solely (nor, perhaps, primarily) from East to West. So, next time you’re slamming down that deadly third taco al pastor with pineapple, remember that, even though you don’t live in L.A. (yet), L.A.’s underground (aka Los de Bien Abajo) will be exporting a militant taco truck packed with pyrotechnic cuisine your way soon (resistance is futile).

Whatever the outcome of this political tale of two tacos, this struggle provides a preview of the more nuanced and complex politics that we’ll see throughout these United States

Of América.

Y que viva el Tacoismo!

Bush,Calderon Plot Economic and Military Integration at NOLA Summit

At the center of today’s “Three Amigos” Summit in New Orleans between George W. Bush and his homologues, Mexico’s Felipe Calderon and Stephen Harper of Canada, is the sovereignty-swallowing nexus between trade, migration and military policy. As mentioned in this AP piece, Bush and Calderon held bilateral talks today in which they discussed NAFTA, the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia and regional security. Much of the chatter in the press focused on how Calderon and Bush “defended” NAFTA and free trade.

Lacking in all of the coverage of this and other regional summits is any notion of the symbiotic relationship between trade and militarization throughout hemisphere, including the U.S.. None of the press, for example, makes the connection between how economy-integrating trade policies like NAFTA or the proposed U.S.-Colombia FTA are inevitably accompanied by increases in the domestic policing and military budgets of the U.S. and its “Latin American trade partners” like Colombia, home to the worst human rights record in the Americas thanks to the more than $4 billion in military aid it receives from the U.S.

As they continue negotiating an exponential increase in the military aid Mexico receives from the U.S., Bush and Calderon appear to be plotting a Colombianization (drug wars, counterinsurgency wars combined with free trade) just a stones throw from our southern border.

Nothing was said in today’s summit coverage about how Calderon and Bush are actually “defending” free trade with real guns and real troops.This link between increased free trade and mushrooming military budgets makes sense when we consider that border-smashing corporate interests represented by Bush and Calderon need uniformed people with guns to quash social tensions (formerly known as class conflicts) exacerbated by economic restructuring. Put another way, when the soft power middle class cushion between rich and poor gets tattered beyond repair by free trade, it is replaced by the hard power military cushion in both the U.S and Mexico.

Following the same free trade+militarism=freedom formula, Bush and Calderon continued their plans to implement “Plan Merida”. Better known as “Plan Mexico”, Bush and Calderon’s plan is a “security” agreement designed deal with the “threat to our societies by drug trafficking and other criminal organizations operating on both sides of our common border. According to the Times Picayune, Bush told Calderon “I want to work with you in close coordination to defeat these drug traffickers”. After agreeing with Bush, Calderon added, “Recently, NAFTA has come under criticism, and I don’t believe people are realizing the benefits it has brought to the United States and Mexico”.

As I’ve stated here and elsewhere, such “benefits” come complete with plans for intensified militarization to respond to the post-cold war need for new enemies that both legitimate militarism and promote free trade as well as the idea of the state itself. Bush and Calderon are clear that, in the absence of the internal and external communist threat of the previous era, immigrants, drug cartels and youth gangs are joining “terrorists” in the mish mash of enemy-making in the post-Cold War politics of the hemisphere. For more on how this applies to immigrants in the U.S., see this recent piece. Those protesting the cheapening of their lives in the U.S. and Mexico are also joining the ranks of the unruly masses requiring enhanced legal and police control. Policing at protests like those of New Orleans preview and expand the closing of public space and rights by the true sovereign of our political and economic system: border-hopping big capital.

Interestingly, those protesting the summit included both locals organizing a very important “People’s Summit”, some left-leaning Latin American solidarity organizations and right-leaning Lou Dobbs “pro-sovereignty” groups and individuals, many of whom are quite anti-immigrant. Also curious was how Bush introduced New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin as “el alcalde” (Spanish words for “the mayor”). I remember being in New Orleans shortly after Katrina and hearing responses to Nagin’s statements about the need to “stop New Orleans from being overrun by Mexican workers.” I wonder what Nagin was thinking as he stood next to Bush and Calderon (see below) while they announced trade and military agreements that will foment further migration to New Orleans from Mexico?

Nos Tienen Miedo Porque No Tenemos Miedo (They Fear Us Because We Have No Fear)

Lovely because it’s true, this song by Liliana Felipe should stir you to remember this simplest of truths about Elite Power today: they fear us because we have no fear. Forget this and you will be subjecting yourself to the false hope and perpetual fear broadcast under the banners saying “politics in America”.

So, if your inner voice too often sounds alarmingly like that of Dick Cheney or Lou Dobbs, sing and sing Felipe’s song as loudly as if you were in a march or chant it in the quiet of your mind, making it your mantra. The lonely among you (and we’re all alone-and not alone- in some form) might want to indulge in the personal-is-the-political experience of watching how the movement to defend Mexico’s sovereignty (spelled “P-e-m-e-x”) deploys this sublimely simple song (lyrics below):

NOS TIENEN MIEDO

¡NO TENEMOS MIEDO!

Jesusa Rodríguez y Liliana Felipe

Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.

Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos
porque no tenemos
porque no tenemos miedo.

Están atrás
van para atrás,
piensan atrás,
son el atrás,
están detrás de su armadura militar.

Nos ven reír,
nos ven luchar,
nos ven amar,
nos ven jugar,
nos ven detrás de su armadura militar.

Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.

Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo.
Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos
porque no tenemos
porque no tenemos miedo.

¡NO TENEMOS MIEDO!
¡NO TENEMOS MIEDO!
¡NO TENEMOS MIEDO!
¡NO TENEMOS MIEDO!

Manana Marchamos/Tomorrow We March: Immigrant Rights Groups Gearing Up for Mayday Marches

This story in the Houston Chronicle discusses the upcoming Mayday marches taking place across the country. You may note the discouraging tone of the piece. But then, when does the media encourage or get encouraged by social justice?

In any case, this will be the first of several posts about Mayday. Whatever the turnout, be 1000 or 1 million people, it is of critical importance that some of us speak with our feet to the anti-migrant Leviathan that daily grows from and is fed by our inactivity and silence. Those who believe that marches are an ineffective or outmoded instrument of political action are either lobotomized or overly besotted by the the netroots and electoral politics that define the limits and boundaries that mostly white gated community known as “Progressivism”. Technology and elections not accompanied by boots-on-the-ground organizing and action only adds up to a more techno, more Democrat-leaning version of the reactionary status quo.

Lest we forget, in extreme times of war and imperial decline, “liberal” or “progressive” can become the new right wing. So, get ready to march, shout or dance, if only to move you body against this deadening, decadent state.

The Rotten Tomatoes of Immigration Politics: Major Penn. Farm Shuts Down

This story in today’s Philadelphia Enquirer tells the sad, but revealing tale of one Keith Eckel, the soon-to-be former head of the largest tomato producing operation north of the Mason-Dixon Line. After decades of being the most important tomato grower on the East Coast, Eckel announced yesterday that he will be closing down his farm because he can’t find the 180 workers he needs to keep his business competitive and operational. Though successfully ignoring the plight of the workers, the story does say a lot about what many of us predicted would come about as a result of the repression unleashed on migrant workers.

“It’s a sad day,” said Eckel, who blames his woes on the lack of immigration reform. “We’re closing a part of our business that we really love.”

Eckel’s plight mirrors that of many farmers in the U.S., increasing numbers of whom find themselves living in a country where fewer and fewer natives want to work the land, a country in which gigantic agricultural and other corporate interests have hollowed out the economy and decimated the American Dream by exporting jobs. But rather than denounce, as Eckel did, the powerful interests responsible for the growers plight, many U.S. natives are drinking deadly doses of the nativist Kool Aid defining the new racial politics of the post-Mason-Dixon, post Southern Strategy moment. Minutemen, Republicans and growing numbers of Democrats and other politicos have made an industry of the politics of industrial decline.

Critical to any political strategy aspiring to reverse the anti-migrant hysteria is doing what Keith Eckel did: sling the rotten tomatoes of immigration politics at the right targets-politicos and the parasites of economic decline attached to them. Time to bust out our own radical Raid: truth backed by facts and political action like upcoming May 1rst (May Day) actions.

Basta Ya: Boycott “Si Se Puede” in Elections

In their harried pursuit of Latino votes in previous and in upcoming primaries like that in Texas, candidates Obama and Clinton have added another to the still-growing string of records broken this election year: number of times the phrase “Si se puede” has been used in a U.S. presidential election.

The record is being broken in large part thanks to the powerful, yet deadly combination of the exponential growth in the Latino electorate and the fabulous lack of imagination of campaign strategists. In their efforts to highlight the “intimacy” and “unity” between the candidates and Latinos, rally after rally in Dallas, Houston, El Paso and other urban, suburban and rural parts of Texas has included loud, mantra-like repetitions of the Spanish language phrase, which means “Yes We Can”.

Originally coined in 1972 by my friend, United Farm Workers co-founder, Dolores Huerta, “Si se Puede” became the UFW’s motto ; It then transcended the UFW to become an important slogan for many labor, immigration and other historic struggles involving the country’s largest “minority”.

And now, in what appears to signal another mainstreaming of a Latino trend, many, if not most Clinton or Obama rallies include some mention of the English or Spanish or English and Spanish language political slogan (see New York Times pic above).

While it is true that the mainstreaming of “Si Se Puede” provides us with another signal of how the larger body politic is successfully adjusting to the death of the black-white electorate, this mainstreaming comes at a high cost: the cheapening of “Si Se Puede”. To transform a term rooted historically in the salt of the earth struggles of working class Latinos in the campaigns of candidates who also repeat mantra-like the phrase “middle class” alters and diminishes the political value and movement power of “Si Se Puede”. That my friend, Dolores Huerta, uses the term to promote her favored candidate, Hillary Clinton, saddens me less because I am anti-Clinton than because I was pro-Si Se Puede since my political childhood.

Before the inevitable moment when big corporations start using the term as slogans in ads selling us cars, burgers and tampons arrives, let us put up a big “No Pasaran” (They Shall Not Pass) before the forces of Little Political Imagination: BOYCOTT “SI SE PUEDE” IN ELECTIONS-AND BEYOND. Such a boycott may well free up and force the creative energies to come up with newer, fresher and less-compromised political language.

Si Se Puede is Dead. Que Viva……………………….

Suspect Spokespeople: New NCLR Video Outs Immigrant Hatermongers

As part of its “Stop the Hate” campaign, the National Council of La Raza recently led production of the video below, which talks about the links between organized hate groups and anti-immigrant spokespeople -Minutemen Jim Gilchrist & Chris Simcox, FAIR’s Dan Stein and others - featured on mainstream newscasts.

The video and campaign come as welcome news from NCLR, which lost much credibility for its enthusiastic support of the nomination (and then silence about the numerous scandals) of disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

But another video in the “Stop the Hate” series is not as welcome. Prominently featured in the “Code Words of Hate” video is a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group that has a history of aiding and abetting police spying on African American, progressive, Latino and other groups. Some of us, for example, recall how the ADL presented “human rights” awards to such questionable figures as former Salvadoran President Calderon Sol, who had to wipe the blood from his hands before receiving the ADL award and giving a grandiloquent speech about the ethereal beauty of human rights.

Still, the NCLR campaign is an important one that takes on issues -racial code words, media, hate groups, language, etc.-we’ve discussed here at great length. So, we should support the campaign.

R

No We Can’t: Tragifunny McCain Music Video by john.he.is

Why what straight talkin’ John McCain expresses makes this election year fun:

Super Duper Discussion on Democracy Now: Race, Empire and the Primaries

After burning the 3am oil trying to get a grasp on the ultimately ineffable workings of the body politic, I got up at 5:30 am (can you hear the roosters?) to join Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman and guests Bill Fletcher and Frances Fox for an out-of-the-corporate-media box discussion about race, empire and the primaries. Thanks to Amy and fellow panelists, this really turned out to be as probing a discussion about the elections as I’ve had the pleasure of participating in. Check it out!

Those of you without audio setup can read the transcript here (just delete the “Uh”’s)

Presidential Candidates Take the ‘Social’ Out of ‘Change’

Presidential Candidates Take the ‘Social’ Out of ‘Change’

New America Media, Commentary, Roberto Lovato, Posted: Jan 16, 2008

Editor’s Note: Presidential candidates now clamor for change, and many invoke Martin Luther King, Jr. for their own political benefit, but lost in the debate is the social movement of change, notes NAM contributing editor Roberto Lovato.

The spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. still seems to stir serious controversy among politicians. But, as we’re witnessing with the latest racial politics pushing the primary process, the King icon is also being used to build the fortunes and legacies of these politicians, especially those who would be president.

Despite a racial controversy involving a newsletter bearing Ron Paul’s name that called King a “world-class adulterer” and “pro-communist philanderer,” the Republican candidate plans to launch a new and likely record-breaking multimillion dollar “super Tuesday” fundraising campaign on Jan. 21, Martin Luther King, Jr., day; Mitt Romney mentioned seeing King only to later “clarify” that he never actually saw him; Rudy Giuliani regularly makes references to King in speeches, books and security consulting engagements that earned the former New York mayor the millions of dollars that were, until recently, paying for his campaign. And Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in the midst of a fierce battle over the MLK legacy to see who deserves to win the black vote.

Lost in the bickering over and celebrations of King as an individual is any notion of the social movement that defined King and an entire generation. Similarly, the mind-numbing mantra of “change” mouthed ad infinitum by all of today’s presidential candidates would have us believe that they, not we, are the arbiters of change. The King anniversary appears to provide candidates an opportunity to remind us that they have a monopoly on “change.”

The most recent electoral banter around King takes place within the collective amnesia about his views, especially his later views focusing on issues dogging us to this day: racism and poverty, prisoners and war. To the detriment of our political process, we forget that King’s views came about at least in part as a response to a black political milieu defined not just by white racism, but by the wealth of spirited action and the intellectual perspective provided by millions of people, thousands of organizations and other, less-requited political stars – Angela Davis, the Black Panthers and their combination of service and calls to militancy; Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam and their own brand of self-determination; Stokely Carmichael and the more militant students of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. These and many others influenced and pressured King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1960s.

As the harried run toward this year’s King celebrations and the South Carolina primary continues, the practically propagandistic repetitions and variations of words and phrases like “change,” “hope,” “content of character”, “I have a dream” and other King-isms are coded and distributed for mass consumption like Coca-Cola. Coke is, in fact, the main corporate sponsor of a gigantic new civil rights museum located just a shout from Ebenezer Baptist Church and King’s birthplace in Atlanta.

Nowhere is this denial of the “social” in “change” better exemplified than in statements made by Hillary Clinton, who said last week, “Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” Few among the pundits noted how Clinton’s framing of the issue deleted the social component of change. Instead, the media, pundits and even community leaders are engaged in a heated discussion about what the candidates believe: whether it was King, the individual, or Johnson, the individual, who “realized” the dream.

This climate has benefited Barack Obama, who speaks more skillfully than any other candidate to a still mostly white electorate that is largely unwilling to deal collectively with issues of race and racism beyond the platitudes one hears during official celebrations of King. Obama’s King-like cadences and charisma give us that semi-religious feeling that goes with being part of a social change movement -only without a social change movement.

In critical ways, the lack of the “social” in our discussions of “change” allows us to gloss over crucial differences between Obama the candidate and King, the leader of the Poor People’s Campaign. When asked how he would like to be remembered after his death, King said, “I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.”

Like his competitors, Obama spends most of his time making speeches packed with calls for tax cuts and other proposals targeting the crumbling bastion of individualism: the “middle class.” He spends little to no time at rallies dealing with those most devastated by the lack of change: working class people, especially young people like those fueling the Jena Six movement. As he and the other candidates vie to be the inheritors of the King legacy, those who would be King say not a word about forcing “change” in a prison industry that predicts the value of its stock based on the future school performance of black and Latino third graders.

As we decide, during these times of continued crisis, on whom to vote for and what to do beyond the ballot box once they get elected, we might do well to recall the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., social change agent: “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering,
and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Not one dedicated individual, but many.

WBAI Interview About Obama and “Progressivism”

This just in from New York’s own WBAI. Check out this interview on Wakeup Call. Host Mario Murillo queries historian Gerald Horne, political scientist Valeria Sinclair-Chapman and yours truly about how “progressives” should deal with Barack Obama. Together, I think we brought a broader context to discussion about Obama, “change” and “hope”; We talked about such things as the historical context for Obamania, gender and Obama/Clinton and the geopolitical and economic context for the rise of populist, liberal pols like Obama, Clinton and Edwards.

Hope you like it!

U.S. Boricuas Poised to Debate P.R.’s Colonial Status as Congress Re-visits Issue

 

 

 

Check out this month’s issue of NACLA Report on the Americas, where you will find several solid stories analyzing the ongoing debate around ending the colonial status of Puerto Rico. Included in the issue is the article below, written by my friend, longtime Boricua and Latino thinker and activist, Angelo Falcon of the National Latino Policy Institute.

Angelo places the various positions adopted by the almost 4 million Boricuas in the states within the context of U.S.-Puerto Rican relations (like the Vieques revindication) , immigration history and the growth of a unique political culture shaped by numerous influences. And like any good NACLA article, the piece includes plenty of footnotes that can you followup and delve deeper into the issues discussed.

Enjoy.

 

R

Note: As the debate over the future political status of Puerto Rico begins to be debated in the United States Congress, the role of the close to 4 million Puerto Ricans stateside (outside of Puerto Rico) starts to emerge as an issue. In the current issue of the magazine, the NACLA Report on the Americas (see full article below), Angelo Falcón, President of the National Institute for Latino Policy, analyzes this “diaspora factor.”

The Diaspora Factor:

Stateside Boricuas and the Future of Puerto Rico

by Angelo Falcón

NACLA Report on the Americas (November/December 2007)

The debate over the future political status of Puerto Rico has appeared once again in the U.S. Congress, raising the question of what role the nearly 4 million Puerto Ricans living stateside will play in this debate. Two competing House bills, both proposed by Puerto Rican representatives, call for Puerto Ricans to express their preference for statehood, commonwealth, independence, or even for an associated republic in a new plebiscite. The Puerto Rico Democracy Act, proposed in February by Representative José Serrano (D-NY), calls for a two-stage referendum in which voters would first be asked whether they prefer to maintain Puerto Rico’s current commonwealth status or pursue a permanent solution. If the status quo option prevailed, the plebiscite would be repeated every eight years until a permanent option was chosen. If a permanent solution won, a second plebiscite would ask them to choose between statehood and independence.

 

The bill mirrors the recommendations of a report released in December 2005 by the White House Task Force on the Status of Puerto Rico, commissioned by President Clinton and continued by the Bush administration, to reach a permanent solution following the results of the last plebiscite in 1998. A majority of voters in that vote, 50.3%, chose “none of the above,” a result of a boycott of the vote by the pro-Commonwealth party, the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), which objected to how their status option was defined in the ballot.

 

Meanwhile, Representative Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), who criticized the presidential task force for failing to include Puerto Ricans, introduced the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act, which calls for the formation of a constitutional convention to elect local representatives who would themselves draft the plebiscite to vote among statehood, independence, and a new “enhanced commonwealth” option. The outcome of that plebiscite would then be presented to Congress for approval.

 

Both bills are viewed by opposing island political parties as biased—Serrano’s toward statehood and Velásquez’s toward a commonwealth victory. This perceived difference in perspective between two Puerto Rican politicians from the same party and the same state highlights new complications in the island’s diaspora with regard to the status question, complications that make forging a common agenda difficult. Indeed, the stateside Puerto Rican population has always had a problematic relationship with Puerto Rico. Especially since the post–World War II great migration, this has been a movement of people tied to the failure of Puerto Rico’s economy, symbolizing a colonial dilemma magnified by its concentration in the world city of New York for so many decades in the 20th century.[1]

The diaspora has always been a bit of a mystery in terms of its attitudes toward its homeland. Because they were now participants in the world’s most advanced economy, were they now supporters of statehood for Puerto Rico? Because they came during the long-term regime of the pro-Commonwealth political party, did they support the status quo? Or did their racialization in the United States make them support independence?[2] And, in the end, does this matter to the future of Puerto Rico?

* * *

One of the most striking recent developments in the Puerto Rican experience was the realization that in 2003 the size of the stateside Puerto Rican community exceeded that of the island for the first time.[3] The latest census figures estimate that in 2005 there were about 3,780,000 Puerto Ricans living in the States compared to about 3,670,000 in Puerto Rico.[4] This has generated considerable discussion in Puerto Rico and in the diaspora, signaling that the stateside Puerto Rican community may now in a position to redefine its relationship to the island.

While there have always been strong connections between Puerto Rico and the stateside Puerto Rican community through family ties and migration, it wasn’t until the 1990s that this relationship took on an increasingly political nature. It was then that the stateside Puerto Rican community increased its representation in the U.S. House of Representatives from one to three—two from New York and one from Chicago, all Democrats. This resulted from the growth of the Puerto Rican population and its ability to more effectively use the federal Voting Rights Act in redistricting. Puerto Rico, on the other hand, continues to elect only one nonvoting resident commissioner to Congress (currently Luis Fortuño, a Republican).

During this period, political elites and activists in Puerto Rico increasingly turned to the stateside Puerto Rican leadership for support on local issues. Whether it was getting favorable U.S. federal policies toward Puerto Rico in terms of tax policy or social welfare expenditures, or the campaign to get the U.S. Navy out of Vieques, the three stateside Puerto Rican congressional representatives became invaluable, reliable allies, along with many Puerto Rican officials at the state and local levels.

Supporting this relationship was the strong nationalist identity of many stateside Puerto Ricans. Manifesting itself in myriad parades, festivals, and cultural events throughout the United States, culminating in early June every year with the massive National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City, Puerto Rican nationalism and interest in Puerto Rico remains high. This was buttressed by the “Latin music explosion” starting at the end of the 1990s in which Puerto Rican entertainers played a major role. The successful campaigns to free Puerto Rican political prisoners, which led to pardons and clemency under presidents Carter and Clinton, demonstrated a level of nationalism that many in the United States found confounding.

But new socioeconomic and political developments both stateside and in Puerto Rico have complicated this relationship in ways that make building a common agenda difficult. The model for some is the powerful U.S. Israeli lobby, but this has proved hard to emulate in the Puerto Rican case. First, as mentioned above, the stateside Puerto Rican congressional delegation doesn’t always agree on central issues, especially as their seniority increases and their ties to different political sectors in Puerto Rico deepen.

Second, while historically concentrated in the Northeast, especially New York City, and the Midwest, the U.S. Puerto Rican population has not only increased but has become more dispersed during the last two decades.[5] In the 1990s the Puerto Rican population in Florida dramatically increased, making it the state with the second-largest concentration. Puerto Rican populations are also growing fast in other parts of the South, in smaller cities, and in suburban and ex-urban areas where a Puerto Rican presence is new. This new spatial distribution was accompanied by new patterns of migration from Puerto Rico and new professional and middle classes moving to these new areas, raising the potential for a new north-south economic polarization whose political implications are yet to be fully clear. This raises challenges to the more traditional stateside Puerto Rican political and economic narratives as a Northeast urban population loyal to the Democratic Party and New Deal policies.

Third, in Puerto Rico the traditional status-based colonial political party system has become increasingly difficult to manage, with political deadlock among the parties and the loss of the tax incentives that formerly attracted U.S. capital, along with ineffective economic management and multiple corruption scandals. With the U.S. Congress now considering proposals for resolving Puerto Rico’s status in the midst of a presidential election, this polarization will only intensify.

* * *

Although Puerto Ricans have been migrating to the United States since the mid-1800s, it wasn’t until after World War II that the size of this migration became enormous and subject to efforts to manage it from both the colony and the metropolis. The out-migration from Puerto Rico as an integral part of its economic development planning, which was based on neo-Malthusian principles, led in 1948 to the establishment of New York City’s Migration Division of Puerto Rico’s Department of Labor. This became the mechanism by which the government of Puerto Rico tried to steer Puerto Rican labor flows and negotiate on workers’ behalf with U.S. local, state, and federal authorities. In 1986, this division, which now had offices in several states, was seen as a way to create a U.S. Israeli lobby–type operation, and the then pro-commonwealth governor elevated it to the status of the cabinet-level Department of Puerto Rican Affairs in the United States. This was short-lived when the statehood party candidate was elected to the governorship in 1992, which resulted in the new department being replaced by a lobbying operation called the Puerto Rican Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA).[6]

Depending on which political party was in power, this new office’s relationship to the stateside Puerto Rican community changed in dramatic ways. Generally similar in function to foreign consulates, PRFAA differs in technically being a part of the U.S. government and in representing people who are all already U.S. citizens. Under the commonwealth party, this office collaborated closely with the stateside Puerto Rican political leadership, but under the statehood party the relationship was less friendly and often hostile. With the current divided government, the pro-commonwealth governor, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, has turned the office into a Washington, D.C.–focused lobbying and public relations operation that has made its relationship to the stateside Puerto Rican community focused on narrowly partisan concerns. Pressure to change the mission of this agency in this way came in large part because the divided government in Puerto Rico replicated itself in Washington, D.C., where Resident Commissioner Fortuño is a pro-statehood Republican, while the governor is pro-commonwealth and identified with the Democratic Party.

One reason for this uncertainty about how Puerto Rico political elites related to the stateside Puerto Rican community was the lack of information about the political status preferences of the diaspora. This became a practical political problem for these colonial politicians as the stateside population grew larger and more politically engaged and began in the mid-1960s to demand a voice in determining Puerto Rico’s future status. After a 1967 plebiscite held on the island, the stateside community demanded, with increasing intensity, the right to participate in these votes. Today, the major bills before Congress make some provisions for the participation of the stateside Puerto Rican community to directly participate in this status-definition process.

But knowledge on how stateside Puerto Ricans would vote on the future political status of Puerto Rico remains a problem because they have not been recently polled on this issue, despite extensive polling on this status issue in Puerto Rico. The most reliable survey conducted on the subject was the Latino National Political Survey (LNPS), conducted in 1989–90.[7] It found that more than two thirds (69%) of stateside Puerto Ricans supported commonwealth status. But since then there have been major changes in the social, geographic, and political composition of this community, it is not at all clear what its status preferences are today. One further complication is that most stateside Puerto Rican leaders and activists support independence. In a national Web survey conducted of this elite group in 2006, it was found that 45% supported independence, while in the 1989–90 LNPS, less than 4% of stateside Puerto Rican adults did.[8] It is doubtful that there has been a large pro-independence surge in the stateside community since then and more likely that pro-statehood sentiment has grown, as has been the case in Puerto Rico. The status preferences of the stateside community may now be similar to those of Puerto Rico, but this is only speculation.

The pro-independence preference of a plurality of the stateside leadership and activists has complicated the process in interesting ways. This has made the stateside Puerto Rican more open to controversial issues like freeing the Puerto Rican political prisoners and supporting the ouster of the U.S. Navy from Vieques. It has also made it easier for the pro-commonwealth party to deal politically with them, while the pro-statehood party finds itself at odds with this large sector of the stateside Puerto Rican political leadership. This is a characteristic of the politics of the diaspora community’s experience that has been little studied or understood, but which continues to have a major impact on its relationship to the politics of its homeland.

The role of the stateside Puerto Rican community in determining the future political status of Puerto Rico becomes further complicated by new socioeconomic changes and the changing narrative of race in the United States. Stateside Puerto Ricans, once the poster children for the urban underclass, have developed a more layered economic reality over the last couple of decades. Whereas once the major policy agenda for the stateside leadership was the issue of persistent poverty, there are now more voices joining the U.S. left in focusing the political agenda on the plight of the middle class. But while the community’s poverty rate has dropped significantly over the last 30 years, in 2005 it stood at 23%, compared with 8% for non-Latino whites (for further comparison, in 2006, the poverty rate in Puerto Rico stood at an appalling 45%).[9]

* * *

While experiencing a persistent high poverty rate, the stateside Puerto Rican community finds itself challenged to reframe its agenda in ways that may undermine its economic base. Poverty remains a serious problem in the stateside communities of the Northeast and Midwest, but less of a problem in the newer ones in the South and Southwest. How can the stateside Puerto Rican community recast its policy priorities as it also experiences such a potential economic polarization along regional lines? And how will this affect its relationship to the politics of Puerto Rico and the status question?

The stateside Puerto Rican community has been formally a part of the United States since the annexation of Puerto Rico in 1898 and as U.S. citizens since the 1917 Jones Act, and has even had a presence within the states well before then. But along with second- and later-generation Latinos, Puerto Rican issues have been made less visible by the growing attention to the controversial problem of immigration. Although Puerto Ricans have been negatively impacted by the racist backlash from this immigration debate, policy makers at all levels of government and in the private sector have difficulty focusing on the specificities of the Puerto Rican condition and how it differs from those of new immigrants and noncitizens.

With its policy and political agendas at one of those messy crossroads, it is not particularly clear which road the stateside Puerto Rican community will be taking, now that the issue of its formal participation in resolving the status issue is no longer a matter of debate. But whether the diaspora will come down on the side of statehood, commonwealth, or associated republic is not at all clear. Independence? Well, that’s another story about the failure of a movement and the power of the United States’ new imperialism.

Angelo Falcón, a political scientist, is president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy (www.latinopolicy.org), based in New York City. He teaches at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

 

ENDNOTES

 

1 Gabriel Haslip-Viera, Angelo Falcón, and Felix Matos-Rodríguez, eds., Boricuas in Gotham: Puerto Ricans in the Making of Modern New York City (Markus Wiener Publishers, 2004).

2 Ramón Grosfoguel, Colonial Subjects: Puerto Ricans in a Global Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

3 Carmen Teresa Whalen and Víctor Vázquez-Hernández, eds., The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Historical Perspectives (Temple University Press, 2005).

4 Jorge Duany, The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2002), chapter 7.

5 Rodolfo O. de la Garza, DeSipio, F. Chris Garcia, John Garcia, and Angelo Falcón, eds., Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban Perspectives on Americans Politics (Westview Press, 1992), p. 104.

6 Angelo Falcón, Stateside Puerto Rican Activist Findings