http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/pu ... 4087.shtml

La Raza Conference Smears Immigration Patriots
by William F. Jasper
July 24, 2006

How’s this for sordid hypocrisy? An organization that identifies itself by race and that promotes militant racism denounces as "racist" and "xenophobic" American citizens who merely insist that our government enforce our borders.

Translated into English, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) means National Council of The Race. “The Race” in this instance refers to people of Mexican descent. The recent NCLR national conference in Los Angeles featured a presentation by Joanna Mendelson — investigative reporter with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of Southern California entitled “Keeping Our Institutions Safe.”

Sam Antonio, national immigration spokesman for the John Birch Society, attended the conference as a correspondent for THE NEW AMERICAN. He described the ADL program as a vicious example of the sandwich smear: “Responsible, patriotic organizations such as the Minutemen and the California Coalition for Immigration Reform [CCIR] were repeatedly cited as ‘virulent’ and ‘anti-Hispanic,’ and grouped together with the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups like Stormfront.”

The ADL slide show particularly focused on CCIR leader Barbara Coe. “Mrs. Coe was mentioned by name several times as though she were some dangerous Public Enemy No. 1,” said Antonio. “I know Barbara very well and have worked with her for many years. She’s a wonderful lady who has done tremendous work to secure our borders, certainly not the racist ogre the ADL and NCLR try to make her out to be.” When informed by THE NEW AMERICAN that she had been singled out at the NCLR conference, Mrs. Coe replied that although she deeply resents false characterizations of her as a racist, “I guess it could be considered an honor of sorts to be singled out for attack by the real racists, the leaders of La Raza.”