Thread: Activist Says Nationwide Protests Coordinated

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006..._483_28_06.txt

Activist says nationwide protests coordinated

By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer

The demonstrations that have surfaced in North County and all over the nation in recent days were at least partly set in motion at a February Latino summit in Riverside, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Riverside said Tuesday.

In a phone interview, longtime Latino activist and professor Armando Navarro said plans for the protests, including ones in Chicago, Los Angeles and Phoenix, were laid out at the "Latino Leadership Summit on the Immigration Crisis" that was held at the Riverside Convention center on Feb.11.

More than 500 Latino activists from across the nation attended the event, where "battle plans" were drawn up for massive demonstrations in several cities in the nation on March 10 and 25, Navarro said.


A local activist familiar with the student demonstrations in North County said that he believes they were heavily influenced by Saturday's massive demonstration in Los Angeles, which was an outgrowth of the Riverside summit.

Navarro said the timing for major rallies in Los Angeles, Chicago and Phoenix was no coincidence. He and others planned the protests in response to the U.S. Senate's current deliberations over immigration reform legislation that will have a tremendous impact on the lives of the country's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants and their families.

"Some of us knew what the scenario was and what the timetable was," Navarro said. "We gave people a sense of mission and a battle plan."

One local resident who attended that summit was Latino activist and Fallbrook resident Ricardo Favela. He confirmed that activists from across the country attended that event.

"Just seeing the fact that so many people were involved, especially the group from Chicago, gave us a sense that this movement was growing and that people were taking a stance ---- there was a plan," Favela said in a Tuesday phone interview.

As far as the North County protests, Favela said he believes they were heavily influenced by Saturday's massive demonstration in Los Angeles.

And, "some students said they were doing it in solidarity with students who walked out of class on Friday in Texas," he said. "What people have been saying is the sleeping giant has been awakened."

Vista Human Rights Committee member Yesenia Balcazar said Tuesday that following the Los Angeles demonstration, local students began exchanging e-mails and communicating on a Web site that is popular with adolescents ---- Myspace.com ---- and some students took a leadership role, printing up and distributing flyers.

Driving local students' involvement, Favela said, was the fact that the illegal immigration issue touches so many of their lives.

"What many people fail to understand is that our families are composed of both illegal immigrants and legal residents," Favela said.

Navarro said he didn't want to take credit for the major demonstrations in cities around the country in recent days. However, he said that among those who attended the February summit were activists who helped organize the massive protests that occurred in Chicago on March 10 that drew more than 100,000 people, and the organizers of Saturday's Los Angeles rally and protest that attracted more than a half-million people.

"The summit became a catalyst," he said. "With the kind of exposure the summit got from CNN, Telemundo and other Spanish-language media, people became engaged and went back to Chicago, to Arizona and Los Angeles and they were ready for battle."

In Milwaukee, where at least 10,000 people rallied last week, one radio station manager called some employers to ask that they not fire protesters for skipping work. In Chicago, a demonstration that drew 100,000 people received coverage on local TV more than a week in advance.

"This was a much bigger story for the Latino media," said Felix Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.

Many people have expressed surprise at the huge turnout for the protests that have been held across the country in the last several days. Gutierrez said that is because some media outlets weren't attuned to the rising ground-swell of emotion over the issue.

In Chicago, the Spanish-language Telemundo affiliate began its coverage blitz nearly two weeks before a recent rally.

"We just told them what was going on," News Director Esteban Creste said. "While we were not trying to mobilize people, it might have prompted people to decide to go there.

One of the radio personalities doing the most talking about the rallies was El Piolin, or "Tweety Bird," whose real name is Eduardo Sotelo, a syndicated morning show radio host who is broadcast in 20 cities.

Sotelo persuaded colleagues from 11 Spanish-language radio stations in Los Angeles to talk up the Los Angeles rally on the air. He said he urged protesters to wear white and carry flags to symbolize their peaceful intent and love of the United States.

"I was talking about how we need to be united to demonstrate that we're not bad guys and we're not criminals," said Sotelo, who crossed into the United States as a teenager and became legal in 1996.

Local Latino activist Favela said that events of the last few days signal a new mind-set among Latinos.

"Nothing will be the same from this point on, Favela said.

"I see this developing into a new era of struggle for human and civil rights," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426, or wbennett@nctimes.com.

"What people have been saying is the sleeping giant has been awakened."

Honey, you haven't seen a sleeping giant yet...there are 247 MILLION people who do not want you in this nation.

Nothing will be the same from this point on, Favela said.

"I see this developing into a new era of struggle for human and civil rights," he said.

Foreigners do NOT have civil rights in this nation. If you want 'rights' go tell it to your OWN governments...wherever you came from. THAT's where your 'struggle' should take place.

RR

sounds like a terrorist like coordination. Decide on a master plan then send the representatives off to their little cells to tell the others.

I call them "Immigration-Terrorist" or "Border-Terrorist"