Latino activists have been busy the past year.
There was last summer’s death of Frank Lobato, the disabled man shot in his bed by a Denver Police officer looking for a different Latino – a man 20 years younger.
In February, they rallied behind 15 Latino Adams City High School students who were suspended for a full year. Their crime? Witnessing a fight in which no one got hurt.
Meanwhile, the crescendo of voices bashing immigrants has gotten louder.
It’s no longer just the likes of Rep. Tom Tancredo. Rep. Bob Beauprez made insensitive remarks, and Sen. Wayne Allard suggested Congress fund the vigilantes who patrol the Mexican border – armed with handguns – for illegal immigrants.
That’s why two weeks ago, about 200 people – a majority well-known Latino activists – packed a hall at Escuela Tlatelolco to form a group seeking to put an end to the immigrant bashing.
Let’s be clear: There is a difference between illegal immigrants and legal ones. One group doesn’t have papers.
But both groups work side by side in restaurants and hotels, on farms and construction sites. Both groups pay income and sales taxes and contribute to the Social Security fund. You couldn’t tell them apart if you had to.
That’s why members of the group say they want to end immigrant bashing, not illegal immigrant bashing. You can’t discuss one (or bash one) without the other. At that meeting, no one clamored for open borders. They all have ideas on reforming federal immigration law. Until that hot-button issue is resolved, the yet-unnamed coalition seeks to defend those who have been here, contributing to our economy, from those who want to demonize them.
Civil-rights attorney Adrienne Benavidez, one of the leaders, explains why: “Those who spout mean-spirited rhetoric, seeking to dehumanize immigrants, don’t move immigration reform any further along. It’s important that we don’t allow that kind of negativism to dictate this country’s policies or our values.”
The group will hold its second meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Centro San Juan Diego, 2830 Lawrence St. On the agenda: creating a mission statement, assembling committees and coming up with a name.
Responding to the hatemongers will allow existing immigrant-rights groups to focus on their own work: making sure employers don’t cheat immigrant laborers, getting immigrants into English classes and helping them navigate the bureaucratic maze of the U.S. Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Smart people lead this group – Pam and Ricardo Martínez of Padres Unidos, Nita Gonzáles of Escuela Tlatelolco, Lisa Durán of Rights for All People, to name a few – but they’ll have their work cut out for them. In our nation’s short history, the alarmists have bashed and discriminated every type of immigrant, legal and illegal alike. The Irish in the mid-1880s had to contend with employers who boldly displayed “No Irish Need Apply” hiring signs.
In the West, we exploited Chinese laborers until xenophobic landowners pressured Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. We brought in millions of Mexican farmworkers under the Bracero program but after World War II forced 3.8 million back to their homeland – along with American citizens of Mexican descent.
Benavides and the other organizers say the hatred must stop. It’s senseless and brings the immigration debate to an ugly place.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
