Thread: Loaded rhetoric harms immigration movement

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Loaded rhetoric harms immigration movement
Posted 5/2/2006 10:11 PM ET
By Bridget Johnson
"Unless you've lived under a rock for the last 15 years, you should make a note of this: The southwest is already Chicana/o-Latina/o!" proclaims the website of the California State University, Sacramento, chapter of MEChA.
MEChA — an acronym for Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan in Spanish — has been one of myriad Latino-rights, pro-immigration or social justice groups that have plunged into the immigration debate. Just as a sea of fluttering Mexican flags at the rallies, the Nuestro Himno Spanish-language take on the national anthem, and Monday's "Day Without Immigrants" boycotts have generated anger and suspicion among many Americans, some forces within the immigration-rights movement are doing their part to tarnish efforts of more moderate activists. MEChA is such a group.

There are an estimated 400 loosely organized MEChA branches on college and high school campuses across the country. Established in 1969, the group has pressured institutions to establish Chicano studies programs, protested Columbus Day and held Chicano graduation ceremonies. The MEChA logo boasts a bird with a lit stick of dynamite in one claw and maquahuitl— an Aztec weapon — in the other. "Through a philosophy of Chicana/o Nationalism, MEChA has not wavered from its original goal of Chicana/o control at the University," states the University of California-Berkeley's MEChA site.

MEChA has been in the thick of the latest immigration protests, from San Diego State University members trying to avert arrests of marching high school students, to "mechistas" organizing a rally at an Albuquerque high school at which signs bore the now-familiar refrain: "We didn't cross the border. The border crossed us."

The group's constitution requires that its chapters read "El Plan de Aztlan." A line in its introduction translates into "for the race, everything; for those outside the race, nothing." MEChA's belief in the "liberation" of Aztlan — Southwest territory acquired by the United States after the Mexican-American War in the mid-1800s — andethno-exclusive views continue to disturb. "Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans," reads El Plan de Aztlan.

At a time when immigrant-rights groups should be trying to present a persuasive, less-strident case to the American people, several groups have instead taken to in-your-face activism against tighter immigration laws:

•The Mexican American Political Association, which mapped out its demands in a flier for Monday's boycott: "Immediate legalization without conditions, no border walls, no criminalization." MAPA President Nativo Lopez has stated his desire for Spanish to be California's primary language. MAPA also called for a campaign of non-cooperation with Los Angeles County law enforcement when the sheriff's department flirted with a Department of Homeland Security partnership to better identify criminal aliens in county jails.

•Carlos Montes, a co-founder of the original Brown Berets in 1960s Los Angeles, is helping put together an August demonstration — sponsored by MAPA and others — against a border fence, the Minutemen, and even the Iraq war. He lauds Venezuela and Cuba as "examples of the possibilities for humankind."

The involvement of separatist or militant groups in a movement for illegal immigration can only backfire. By building the issue into "them vs. us," by painting tolerant Americans as racists, by sowing separatist seeds among youth in the name of cultural identity, these activists will alienate Americans who might have sympathized with the plight of immigrants but find few moderate voices left to back.

Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.

Illegal revolutionaries in the United States? This would mean foreign revolutionaries in the United States. This would mean foreign fighters in the United States. This would mean war in the United States.

OHMIGOD!

Does anyone but US know yet?