Minutemen, opposition meet on street peacefully
By Rachel Cohen, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area
Article Last Updated:04/22/2007 08:40:45 AM PDT

CASTRO VALLEY — Ashley Wood, 23, who works at the gas station at Castro Valley and Redwood roads, got a lot of questions Saturday afternoon from customers about what was up with all the pickets, flags, banners and name-calling across the street.
So, she went to check out the Minutemen on one corner and an anti-Minutemen group on the corner in front of Safeway, in the second time this year the two groups have faced off here. Freedom of speech was exercised through name-calling flung back and forth via megaphones, cars honking and passengers giving the peace sign. Sheriff's deputies stood by for safety but did not have to intervene.

Wood said the anti-Minutemen were more aggressive and had more misinformation about the Minutemen than the Minutemen had about them.

"They are both picking on subcultures within each other," she said, explaining that the Minutemen generalized about the illegal immigrants as "freeloaders" while their opponents focused on calling the Minutemen "racists."

The corners filled from noon to 2 p.m., while teenagers on a third corner carried a sign that read "No room for racism in the Yay area," a popular reference among youth to the Bay Area, and an unrelated church group collected money for homeless children from passing cars.

Dave Latour, president of the Castro Valley Minutemen, which called the rally, explained its purpose.

"We're for national security and health programs like social services and protecting our nation's future and immediate needs," he said. "We've been paying for Social Security. Illegals take those services, and they may not be available in the future for our children."

Latour, of Hayward, studies electrical engineering at San Jose State and added that the immigration issue comes up frequently in casual conversation.

About 25 of the Castro Valley Minutemen were at the rally, with another two dozen supporters from the East Bay Coalition of Minutemen, many of them from Fremont. They carried a giant banner that read "Secure our borders" and sang "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful."

Through a megaphone, a Minutemen supporter called to passing cars, "Immigrants come here to get away from communism, socialism and Marxism."

Across the street, the anti-Minutemen rally also threw around political ideologies.

"Power to the workers, death to the fascists," one said.

One man who said his name was Jack, shouted through a megaphone, "Minutemen go home. They are home — so our response should be more: Minutemen go to hell, hit the road." He said he was not at the rally representing any specific group, but that he was simply "anti-racist."

"A lot of people here heard the Minutemen would be here and they don't want them here — they're just reacting," said Sonya Hows, a retired teacher who went to the rally with the Peace and Justice Group and is also active in the Castro Valley Democratic Club.

She also pointed out that if one were a recent immigrant, illegal or not, she could see how it could be uncomfortable to talk.

"We need to go after corporations and businesses that hire them. This is all for cheap labor," Hows added. "The immigrant is the victim. Our economy would fail without them."

A banner next to her read, "The workers struggle has no borders." Hows added that she viewed the debate as a diversion to keep investigations off the war and said, "This is a minor issue compared to the war and global warming."

The Castro Valley Minutemen can be reached through the following website: http://www.eastbaycoalitionforbordersecurity.com/

The anti-Minutemen side was made up primarily of individuals or from many different groups, including the Castro Valley Progressives, which hosts a movie discussion night, and can be found on: http://www.ebdir.net/cvdemos/index.html.

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