Thread: Vista Mexican Woman, Claudia Spencer Fights For America! -

VISTA ---- Claudia Spencer speaks English with a heavy Spanish accent. The daughter of a humble construction worker, she grew up in a poor family in her native central Mexico.

Given her background, she might fit the mold of a conventional pro-immigrant rights activist, similar to those who have demonstrated recently against work and rental restrictions on illegal immigrants.

But instead, she frequently stands by her husband, Michael Spencer, on the opposite side of immigration rallies ---- the side that waves American flags and protests against hiring illegal immigrants at day-labor sites in North County.


Two city ordinances have put North County in the spotlight of a heated national debate about immigration reform. The Escondido City Council recently voted to bar landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. And the city of Vista approved an ordinance requiring employers to register with the city before hiring day laborers off the streets.

Claudia Spencer's stance on illegal immigration has made her a controversial figure among some Latinos, some of whom have called her a racist, she said.

But Tina Jillings, a local community activist and candidate for Vista City Council, said she believes Claudia Spencer is being used by anti-illegal immigration activists.

"They say it's not about race, but it is," Jillings said. "They believe that (having Latinos among them) gives them the entitlement to do what they do and say what they say."

Due to her activism and perhaps because of her background, Claudia Spencer has become a frequent guest on conservative TV news shows, such as "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on Fox News, speaking out against California's pro-immigrant rallies in May.

Her TV interviews brought her to the attention of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national group that seeks to curb illegal immigration.

Against the tide

At the time, the federation was helping to form the You Don't Speak for Me group of Latinos who oppose illegal immigration and who were looking for a platform to differentiate themselves from the predominantly Latino marchers on the streets.

It was a perfect match.

The group, launched in May, has about 3,000 members nationwide. Claudia Spencer was among its founding members, along with retired Col. Al Rodriguez, the group's chairman; Carmen Morales, a New Jersey school bus driver; and Mariann Davis, an attorney whose parents immigrated from Ecuador.

Claudia Spencer, a 37-year-old Vista resident, said last week that she would get angry at the TV images of people demanding amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Spencer, whose maiden name is Garcia, said her father's struggle in her small Mexican town to raise four children, all now university graduates, taught her that poverty in Mexico is no excuse to cross the border illegally into the United States.

"We were very, very poor," she said. "I had an opportunity to live among these people that you see in the streets of Vista, in the streets of Escondido and in the streets of all the United States ---- people that have a lot of ignorance that don't want to make any progress in their lives, and the only thing they want is to get everything easy."

While growing up in Morelia, Michoacan, she often heard people who returned from the United States saying that "gringos were stupid" and gullible, she said.

"That's what makes me very angry, when people here (say) that these people come illegally to this country because they want to survive; they want to feed their families," she said. "You know what? The person that wants to do it can do it in Mexico without violating the rights of anybody in other countries."

Sitting by her side Thursday during an interview, her husband, Michael, agreed. He started a group called the Vista Citizens Brigade earlier this year to protest against employers who hire illegal immigrants at day-labor sites.

Claudia Spencer was at his side as he started the group, and soon became a figure of the movement on her own.

A different world

Since Vista's ordinance was introduced, Michael Spencer's group has demonstrated in parking lots and on street corners where day laborers, who the group alleges are mostly working illegally, gather to wait for work. The protesters, along with several demonstrators for immigrants' rights, have waved signs and shouted at one another.

Claudia and Michael Spencer have said immigrant-rights activists are encouraging illegal behavior. Their opponents have called the anti-illegal immigration group racist and extremist.

In a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, where she was invited to speak in May, Spencer used the same terms that her husband's group, and similar groups like the SDM, have used to describe illegal immigrants. She called illegal immigrants and their supporters "mobs of foreign invaders" and "reconquistas." The Reconquista, a historical term referring to the reconquest of land by Spain in the 15th century, has been used by anti-illegal immigration groups to describe what they have argued is the takeover of the U.S. by Mexican immigrants.

"And please, please don't allow the rantings of the hordes of shameless, ungrateful, illegal foreigners to cause you to doubt yourselves on this issue," she told those in attendance.

Minority view?

Claudia Spencer was in her late 20s in Mexico when she found a magazine advertising marriages to American men. In Mexico, she said she experienced a culture where Mexican men did not appreciate successful, independent women of her age. She thought American men might be more open-minded, she said.

The ad she ran garnered hundreds of letters from American men, she said. One of them would be her future husband. The couple married eight years ago in Mexico, and she had to wait eight months for immigration authorities to process her paperwork before entering the United States.

Claudia Spencer became a U.S. citizen three years ago and continues to work part time as an architect. The couple have a 2-year-old daughter.

Her activism with the group You Don't Speak for Me has landed her in Washington, where she lobbies Congress for stricter border security.

She told the press club that the country is being invaded.

"I'm here to tell you the truth as I know it about the Mexicans who have invaded our country illegally, and I warn you right now that the truth is not pretty, and it is often quite politically incorrect," she said in her speech.

The speech and interviews like it have made her a hero among those lobbying to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, now estimated to number about 12 million in the United States.

"You're seeing a groundswell, a groundswell of people now (caring) about this," said Jeff Schwilk, a friend of the Spencers and founder of the San Diego Minutemen, an anti-illegal immigration group based in North County.

But to others, such as Jillings, Claudia Spencer is a far more controversial figure. Jillings said she believes Claudia Spencer and her group represent a small minority in the Latino community.

The two women, who have often stood at opposite sides of rallies, had a verbal confrontation in Vista earlier this year.

"I think it's a minority (in the Latino community) that feels that way," said Jillings, who is Latino. "If the majority felt that way, there would be more than Claudia Spencer standing by her man. They don't speak for me."

Which side of the illegal immigration divide one falls on is as clear as right and wrong, Claudia Spencer said. Her group plans to start a San Diego chapter soon.

"Why am I on this side?" she asked. "Because I want everything to be just. I don't care about the color of your skin. ... (My father) always taught us that you shouldn't take what doesn't belong to you, and these people are trying to take something that doesn't belong to them."

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.


http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10 ... ies/22_02_

She knows what she speaks.