Mexican immigrants increasing U.S. civic activism, study fin

[Brian503a]

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/new ... 298529.htm

Posted on Thu, Aug. 17, 2006

Mexican immigrants increasing U.S. civic activism, study finds

SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Recent demonstrations against a punitive House immigration proposal are just a sliver of the civic activism carried out by Mexican migrants in the U.S., a national think tank found in a study.

Mexican immigrants are increasingly involved in hometown organizations, known in Spanish as "clubes de oriundos," that have been a key to expanding civic participation. The study's authors said such activism helped feed the massive demonstrations last spring against a tough enforcement-focused immigration bill passed by the House in December.

"While the hardline legislative proposals last December were what triggered the protests, the civic energy that we saw in the streets reflects the longer term trend of the growing breadth and depth of organized migrant civil society," said study author Jonathan Fox.

Approximately 11 million people in the United States were born in Mexico, about 3 percent of the population. Many have formed more than 600 associations affiliated with their native states and hometowns, and they often are also involved in other community groups, churches, schools and unions, said the report released by the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Political participation of Mexicans in the U.S. remains limited because many are undocumented or not yet citizens. But the study's authors said legal status does not prevent many from local political participation in schools, unions and immigrant-led organizations.

Migrants from the same town or village form the networks in U.S. communities. The groups raise money for projects in their Mexican hometowns and states and their adopted U.S. communities.

From 1998 to 2003, the number of registered hometown groups has grown from 441 to 623, with most in California, followed by Illinois and Texas. More recently, the groups have followed Latino immigrants to less traditional states and communities in the South and Midwest.

The hometown associations have linked up by state to form larger groups or federations, which have further consolidated into regional alliances. For example, the Confederation of Mexican Federations in the Midwest is made up of 160 hometown associations and 12 federations.

The most represented Mexican state is Zacatecas, followed by Jalisco.

The merging of the associations and their growth has allowed Mexican immigrants to become part of the fabric of American society, said Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, a study author.

"Rather than being a threat as some claim, Mexican migrants are increasingly joining U.S. society and trying to participate in the policy process and follow the rules of the game," said Fox, a professor in the Latin American and Latino Studies department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Membership in the migrant groups sometimes overlaps with traditional U.S. Latino groups, although agendas have differed. Latino organizations tend to focus on civil rights and equality issues, while migrant groups have focused on binational issues and immigration.

But increasingly Mexican migrant groups are becoming involved in U.S. issues, while Latino groups have made immigration a major focus of their work.

[sippy]

"Rather than being a threat as some claim, Mexican migrants are increasingly joining U.S. society and trying to participate in the policy process and follow the rules of the game," said Fox, a professor in the Latin American and Latino Studies department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Boy is this guy a littel naive. They aren't joining society as American citizens, or any other type of American. They are actively involved with the immigration issue so they can bring in another 40 million of them if the amnesty passes.

[crazybird]

They are also only politically active for "their" people.....not for America.