Edited by #28187 ..... Politics Debate Forum
Date: 3/30/2008 5:12:32 PM ( 17 y ago)
Hits: 3,116
URL: https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1144051
0 of 0 (0%) readers agree with this message. Hide votes What is this?
More than 2 spells the end for the "indigenous white population".
Huerta: `Too late’ to stymie illegal immigration
Robert Rogers
SAN BERNARDINO - Like the woman herself, Dolores Huerta’s position on illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States is blunt and direct.
Huerta, the 77-year-old who in 1962 joined Cesar Chavez in co-founding the United Farm Workers of America, delivered an impassioned and populist message to a crowd of about 500 people on Thursday night in the San Bernardino Valley College auditorium.
“We didn’t cross the border,” the revered immigrant and farm worker advocate told an enthusiastic crowd of mostly college students. “The border crossed us.”
Her visit came amidst an era of renewed debate over anti-immigration policies and the fate of more than 10 million illegal immigrants living in the nation’s shadows.
A fence across the U.S. Mexico border is being constructed, and Congress last year deadlocked on new immigration legislation.
In her wide-ranging speech, which was sponsored by Arts and Lecture Series Committee and MECHA Latino faculty and staff, Huerta railed against anti-immigrant groups, the North American Free Trade Agreement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed state budget cuts to education, and U.S. government inaction on immigration reform.
Huerta also praised young people and minorities in America for renewed vitality in political movements and urged listeners to vault a Democrat into the White House.
Huerta has publicly endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for president.
“In a democracy, the only thing poor people and working people have going for them is their vote,” Huerta said.
Huerta, her small frame behind a podium in the high-ceiling auditorium, hammered away with her well-trod anti-elite rhetoric.
She criticized NAFTA for paving the way for U.S. corporate exploitation of Latin American economies, and said efforts similar to those that rebuilt Germany and Japan after World War II were necessary to ease the flight north.
A possible 10 percent cut statewide to public education would disproportionately impact poor and minority students, she said.
But Huerta’s strongest words were directed toward the issue of immigration.
She said illegal workers were a critical bulwark of the national economy, yet were faced with virulent anti-illegal-immigrant groups such as the Minuteman Project that she said were “linked” to the United States government.
She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns had deported 290,000 people to Latin American countries in what she characterized as an “ethnic cleansing.”
But anti-illegal-immigration efforts were doomed to failure, Huerta said, as illegal immigrants and naturalized Latinos had gained a foothold in the country.
“It’s really too late,” Huerta said of anti-illegal-immigration movements. “If 47 million (Latinos) have one baby each … it’s already won.”
A Mexican-American labor organizer who bore 11 children, Huerta gained fame in the 1960s with her work to secure better working conditions for agricultural laborers.
In her negotiations, Huerta’s reputation was a blend of fiery advocacy for Latinos and an emphasis grooming young girls and women for lives of independence and action.
Huerta’s reception at the community college was overwhelmingly positive.
Many in the audience rejoiced in the theme of empowerment that drove Huerta’s speech, which ended with a chant of “Si se puede,” which is Spanish for “Yes we can.”
“I liked how she said 75 percent of the world was people of color,” said SBVC student Randy Dale, 23. “We are the majority, and we should be in charge more, especially in the U.S.”
http://www.sbsun.com/sanbernardino/ci_8737538
http://oneoldvet.com/?p=5650#more-5650
_________________
<< Return to the standard message view
fetched in 0.05 sec, referred by http://www.curezone.org/forums/fmp.asp?i=1144051