We have been brought to light, our culture and lives have finally seen the light of day (even though lots of whites here dance to the tunes of salsa and lots more -at least in the San Francisco bay area eat salsa, burritos, tacos, etc. - really most of them don't seem to care to know about us).
With the wonderful marchas and demonstrations that occurred last spring where millions of us poored into the cities and towns demanding respect and calling the congress to stop the application of the infamous proposition HR 4437 we made ourselves, the invisible, finally visible.
It was wonderful and it was freightening at the same time. I remember telling Jason, after a demonstration in Fruitvale on February that I was afraid that since we were now so in the open, so visible for many other groups in this country including racists, white supremacists, kks, etc., that these infamous groups would have now all the reasons (according to them) to take on us. I was afraid that in some of the demonstrations the despicable minutemen would appear any moment and shoot at us (actually, in this February demonstration we were warned before hand that this group was organizing a counter-protest).
But Jason then told me something that will always be with me: "you should not allow that fear overpowers you to the point of not fighting for your rights, you have to put those fears aside and go out and march and demonstrate and fight for your rights". And boy, did I go out and demonstrate!! I did not miss not even one march or demonstration after this. I will forever be grateful to him for those words.
Those are certainly joyus moments, when one can finally come outside and say "this is me, this is who I am, I am a human being and I demand respect for me, for my people and for my culture". What a wonderful experience! Like a rite of passage! What a climatic moment when we realized that we were millions and saw each other face to face, recognized each other, walked together, when we realized that we were not alone, that we are capable of demanding respect and recognition, no more, no less. That we are strong, willing and able to fight. These were precious moments for the history of this country, for the history of our communites and for our own personal lifes.
But then ... of course, this was not going to stop here, right? Now that we are in the open, we continue our fight, we continue organizing ourselves demanding what is just: that our human rights are respected, that we should be respected. But we are not the only ones that continue moving forward with new strategies. There's also a dark side to all this wonderful experience.
This dark side is represented of course by the biggots and the zealots and the self-righteous, the ones that call themselves the "owners" of this land ("this land is my land", well of course not! duh! This land IS NATIVE AMERICAN LAND!). From many fronts, these groups of biggots are attacking us:
On February the 8th, an unknown, unidentified group in the Arizona desert kidnapped a group of immigrants, killing two of them and injuring two more. Where are they? Who are they? What are they doing to those immigrants? Nobody knows. And maybe nobody will. Ever. (Do we, in this 21st century know who lynched so many African-Americans in the Deep South?)
Other biggots are passing xenofobic laws prohibiting landlords to rent rooms to people that do not have immigration papers causing massive expulsion of immigrants. Other biggots, this time at university campus, such as Santa Clara University are organizing "South of the Border" or "Border Patrol" parties where they exhibit (poor people, really, poor people, so full of that social cancer called xenophobia) all their venom and racism towards Latino immigrants.
Other biggots are posing as potential "employers" and talk to immigrants and "interview" them for jobs - only to call the migra once the candidates are in front of them.
Examples like these abound. Unfortunately.
Much of this hateful behavior has been steered by the media (Lou Dobbs, O'Reilly, etc.) , so they are to blame for much of the damage. However, were the people a little bit more intelligent, not too sick, not too ignorant, they wouldn't be taking this shit. But they do, they are ignorant, an easy prey for manipulation.
I hope one day they could overcome that ignorance and don't allow the despicable bullies to manipulate them. But that's their issue (even though it greatly affects us), that's their problem, they should find ways to fix themselves. What matters to me is us. Nowadays, lots of immigrants are scared, and rightly so, and don't want to speak out. When I try to talk to them about the infamous raids or to give them information about how to protect ourselves, not all of them are eager to hear, they are afraid that I'm posing as somebody supporting them but that in reality I'm only a bait to get them. It won't be an easy task to gain their confidence or to make them speak out. It is going to be difficult. But this is our only hope, we have to get together and organize ourselves, this is our only chance to survive the biggotry. The African-American civil rights movement had its dead, and we, like them, we'll have ours too. We already have more than three thousand dead, and counting. When will these hate crimes stop? NO MORE DEATHS!! Immigrants: UNITE AND ORGANIZE. This is our only chance to survive!!
