This is my account as to what was discussed last night at an immigration forum held at the Richmond Public Library. This forum was organized by the ACLU and focused on the recent immigration raids and also on what to do if "la migra" tries to arrest you.
The forum was called Immigration Reform: Problems and Prospects, the speakers were three lawyers from the ACLU Julia Harum -sorry, forgot how to spell her last name-, Michael Epstein and Joel Marsh, Richmond Mayor Gail McLaughlin and a representative from the Internation Institute of the East Bay, Ramon Cardona.
The forum was great and after having participated in it I felt greatly envigorated and also felt good to see so many people willing and able to fight this good fight. However, it was also bittersweet as many members of the community and the speakers as well pointed out to problems happening NOW: immigrants being arrested, jailed and deported without due legal process whatsover or police abuse or plain bigotry and racism from lots of mainstream media viewers.
One of the statements that was greatly appreciated was what Mayor McLaughlin said about the fact that one of the root causes of immigration is the economical policies imposed by this country (through NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.) to Latin American countries. She also said that she along with the whole Richmond council don't see immigrants as enemies or "aliens" but rather as human beings that are looking for a better life and that deserve to be respected.
The ACLU lawyers spoke about what to do is la migra tries to arrest you: don't sign anythig, you have the right to remain silent, etc. They also mentioned that the current raids are part of the operation infamously called "Return to sender" which is plainly derogative giving the idea that the government is sending back "defective products or items" and not cruelly punishing human beings.
Some members of the community noted that despite the fact that the Richmond police declared that they were not going to participate in the raids they were still racially profiling latinos and stopping them in the streets (i.e. last night of all nights in a busy Richmond street), of course they don't need to ask for immigration papers when they stoped them in the street, they only need to send them to the county offices where county police will promply check them on their immigration status, another member of the community noted.
An ESL teacher from Richmond told stories about how terrorized his students are (a big number of them have deserted the classroom for fear of being caught by la migra while communiting from work to class), etc.
The best part of the forum was that a big number of members of the community suggested several actions to do NOW (as opposed to only theorized about what to do next), for instance:
* call the representatives (one person said that in a previous immigration meeting, one of the staffers in George Miller's office doesn't know anything about the raids and deny them vigorously, so whoever lives in his area, please call them and set the record straight), Feinstein, Boxer, Lee, Miller, Lofgreen, etc.
* organize and initiate discussions about immigration wherever you go, whether you attend church, mosque, synagogue, etc; in school, with friends and acquaintances
* stop the bullies in the mainstream media such as Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Glen Beck, Shawn Hanity, etc, by sending emails to their websites and or by calling their companies and demand them to stop their irresponsible journalism now
--Here I have to say that Joel Marsh (from the ACLU) mentioned that the West Contra Costa Times published a kind of favorable article about immigration and told Joel that right after publishing it they got twelve comments about it and ONLY ONE OF THOSE COMMENTS was positive, the rest were totally against immigrants and plainly racist, so please, LET'S CONTACT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND DEMAN THEY STOP THEIR IRRESPONSIBLE AND CRIMINAL JOURNALISM
* those with papers or citizens have the moral obligation to support those with no papers, we have to act now
* be cognizant of the history of this country (or do research about it): in the 1930's thousands of people of Latino origins but that have been burn here were illegally deported to Mexico and other countries in Latin America; one or two decades earlier the controversial film Birth of a Nation (where African-Americans were depicted in despicable ways while white supremacists were depicted as heroes) invigorated the criminal KKK which launched the killings of hundreds if not thousands of African-American citizens
Much more ideas and suggestions were offered: Joyce Cook an organizer from Books not Bars offered to make the connections needed between the immigration cause and the encarceration issue, between the African-American community and the immigrant community; the head of the Richmond Public Library offered a list of books on immigration (about thirty) that can be borrowed at the library (though she mentioned the list is still short but it is available nonetheless); the ACLU lawyers offered to hear any cases related to the raids and abuses with the intent to prepare a lawsuit; a member of the community offered his flee market for all immigration activists that want to reach the Latino community, etc.
After seeing all the energy from the community and in spite of the fact that the racism against immigrant is rampant one can only feel invigorated and willing and able to fight this good fight. One thing that became clear wasa that if we work together, at the grassroots level, good things will happen on immigration in 2007.
