Thread: Latinos Seek Support from City Council

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Emotions run high as Latinos seek support from City Council
By KEVIN COURTNEY, Register Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 5, 2006 1:13 AM PDT
After a week of street protests, Napa's Latino community came in from the cold Tuesday night to offer testimonials to the City Council about the value of their labor.

Before a standing room only crowd, speaker after speaker voiced hurt and outrage over a Congressional proposal that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally and make it a crime to aid illegal immigrants.

Although the House of Representatives bill seems likely to be rejected by the Senate, workers and the children of immigrants asked the council to stand with them.

"We've been singled out because of the color of our skin," said Ben Velazquez, a winery worker who admitted coming to the U.S. illegally in 1974.


Vintage High School senior Lucia Gonzalez wipes away a tear as she recounts her family's story and the potential impact HR 4437 would have on them if it became law. Gonzalez and about 50 other protesters filled the seats of Tuesday night's city council meeting to drop off a resolution calling for the city of Napa to denouce HR 4437. Jorgen Gulliksen/Register
"You can help us out. You guys need us," Velazquez said. "We go down into the pit. We get dirty. There are a lot of Americans that don't want to do what I do."

Hernando Fernandez, a student, praised his father for leaving Mexico to make sure his children would have a better life. "I have a kidney problem," he said. "If I lived in Mexico, I would be dead."

A crowd of about 100 protesters gathered outside City Hall before the council's evening session. Some carried signs reading "We are illegal, not criminal" and "If we leave, who is going to pick your crops?"

When the session started, they put away their horns and quietly filed into the council chamber, filing every empty seat and standing along the rear walls. Flags -- mostly American -- were furled.

After listening to a council regular loudly complain about noise from a bakery, the group paraded to the lectern. During the next hour, more than a dozen Latinos spoke, joined by several impromptu non-Latino supporters.

Mayor Jill Techel had been tipped off by an organizer, Laura Lopez, a Vintage High graduate now at UC Santa Cruz, that the protest would be part of the council's agenda. Council members listened intently as speakers spoke politely, angrily, with tears and occasionally with a translator.

"I think you wowed us tonight," Techel said after the last speaker. "It's the stories that have the power."

With the council's concurrence, Techel asked staff to bring back a resolution on April 18 that would put the council on record as opposing major elements of the House bill.

If the council adopted a draft resolution submitted by Lopez, it would oppose having police act as federal immigration agents.

The council would oppose any law that made it a criminal offense for a religious, health care or education worker to provide services to illegal immigrants.

If all illegal residents were returned to their home countries, the economic impact on communities such as Napa would be significant, the proposal states.

Congress would be encouraged to pass reform legislation that allows illegal immigrants to "emerge from the shadows because through their labor they help our communities to develop its diversity, racially and culturally."

Any law should address the "root causes of immigration" and the contributions that immigrants make to their new communities, the draft states.

Federal proposals

Congress is debating competing proposals to deal with the estimated 10 million to 12 million undocumented residents believed to be living in the country.

A proposal that passed the House of Representatives last year would make it a felony to cross into the country illegally and criminalize efforts by humanitarian agencies to provide even basic aid to undocumented workers.

Other proposals, including one supported by President Bush, would create a temporary worker program that would allow hundreds of thousands of workers to cross the border and work in selected industries, like agriculture. A bill passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee would create an 11-year path to legalization through what's called a "guest worker" program, provided undocumented workers are law-abiding, employed and learning about the American system of government. The judiciary committee eliminated the felony provision from senate proposals.

The bill still has to be voted on by the full Senate. Whatever the Senate passes must be reconciled with the House bill in conference committee in coming months, so it's unclear what the eventual outcome of the debate will be.

Additional support

Councilman Harry Martin said he would support a resolution to the crowd's liking. "My father was an illegal immigrant. He wasn't caught until his 60s," said Martin, who noted that his wife came to the U.S. from England legally.

Techel said she would be talking to Rep. Mike Thompson and the staffs of California's two U.S. senators about Tuesday night's testimonials at City Hall.

For the council, the event was an intimate glimpse at a complicated social issue that rarely shows its face at City Hall. For many in the audience, this was their first close-up experience with city government.

Frances Ortiz-Chavez, a Napa school board member and president of the Napa County Hispanic Network, spoke about how divisive the immigration issue can be, but said she was proud that the Napa community could discuss the issue at City Hall.

When Washington debates immigration reform, the issue quickly becomes personal, Lucia Gonzalez, a Vintage High senior told the council.

"I'm a citizen. I have family members who aren't. I have friends who aren't," said Gonzalez, clasping an American flag. "Personally, it hurts to think I'm looked at differently," she said, breaking into sobs.

As a member of the Air Force, Luis Alvaredo said the political debate in Washington was hurtful to his fellow Mexican-Americans in uniform. "It kills a lot of morale among the troops," he said.

Some testimony was reduced to emotional essences. Translating for her mother, Maria Arroyo said Maria Garcia had but one request of the council: "She would like to ask you guys to touch your hearts."

Techel said she hoped that the audience would return in two weeks when a resolution on immigration is considered.

Many said they would. "A sleeping giant is waking," said one.

I am so sick of hearing about the contributions illegals make. If they are such fantastic, wonderful, incredible workers, why not stay home and fix their own countries? If all us Americans are such lazy, do nothing type people, that we would not survive a sinlge day if not for the work done by illegals, why not go back home to their paradises on earth and leave us to wallow in our own feces?

If they are such great contributions here, they must be great contributions to their own countries as well. The way they make it sound, you would almost assume that Mexico was the country that won two world wars, landed men on the moon, was a military super power, that they had made all the advances in medicine, computers, aerospace, agriculture, genetic research, etc. and we were just a country of pinata and cheap guitar makers, whose main industry was sellling chicklets on street corners or selling pictures of tourists on zebra painted donkeys.

They actually believe in their own minds that the U.S. would utterly collapse if we didn't have masses of illiterate tomato pickers, yet their own countries are the third world dumps not ours. And we always hear how they just want a better life here, to be Americans, yet they wave Mexican flags, and transplant the same culture of illiteracy, corruption, crime, poverty, over-breeding, pollution and filth here, that they claim to be fleeing from.

Originally Posted by reptile09

I am so sick of hearing about the contributions illegals make. If they are such fantastic, wonderful, incredible workers, why not stay home and fix their own countries? If all us Americans are such lazy, do nothing type people, that we would not survive a sinlge day if not for the work done by illegals, why not go back home to their paradises on earth and leave us to wallow in our own feces?

If they are such great contributions here, they must be great contributions to their own countries as well. The way they make it sound, you would almost assume that Mexico was the country that won two world wars, landed men on the moon, was a military super power, that they had made all the advances in medicine, computers, aerospace, agriculture, genetic research, etc. and we were just a country of pinata and cheap guitar makers, whose main industry was sellling chicklets on street corners or selling pictures of tourists on zebra painted donkeys.

They actually believe in their own minds that the U.S. would utterly collapse if we didn't have masses of illiterate tomato pickers, yet their own countries are the third world dumps not ours. And we always hear how they just want a better life here, to be Americans, yet they wave Mexican flags, and transplant the same culture of illiteracy, corruption, crime, poverty, over-breeding, pollution and filth here, that they claim to be fleeing from.

That maybe the best post I've ever read on this board, even better than mine. Can I send that to my Senaturds?

So much for FAIR AND BALANCED.

Where is OUR SIDE in these writers stories.

I am sick to death hearing about their so called plight! Who made all these illegals immigrants problems, and illnesses the responsibility of the American tax paying Citizens????

What balls they have..... to stand in front of everyone and admit that they have entered the country illegally crying and complaining about what they have, don't have and what they're going to be able to keep!!

Then they play the race card, because we want them to GO HOME because they are illegal!! We foot their bills, yet we have no right to complain????
If we are so darn racist in this country,THEN I SAY GO BACK HOME,WHERE EVER HOME MAY BE!

They will pay $2000 to a coyote to sneak them across the border,and risk getting robbed, killed, or caught by the border patrol...
HELLO take that same $2000 and buy food, shelter, and clothes for YOUR family in your own country!.

They tell stories about how they drop dead walking through the dessert in 100 tempretures for 3 and 4 days at a time sick and dehydrated because they are trying to get into OUR country illegally.
HELLO, a little common sense goes a long long way!!

Or how they DIE trying to sneak into OUR country by jumping on top of moving trains coming through South America/Mexico and either die or lay bleeding by the sides of the train tracks with broken or lost limbs.
HELLO, again common sense needs to prevail in any situation!

They say there are no jobs, and they can barely feed their families, yet they continually have more babies than they can afford!
HELLO, EVER HEARD OF BIRTH CONTROL,OR BETTER STILL, SELF CONTROL????

If they spent as much time and effort complaining and rallying in their own countries as they do here in OURS, they would have more than what they have!

It seems to me that a lot of their plight, is their own fault!

dman,

By all means, please do. I only hope they will listen and give it due consideration as unfortunatey my own Sens. Boxer and Feinstein apparently have not, given their many statements to the contrary.