Sunday, and I was grading papers at Starbucks in Southwest Houston. I counted a dozen nationalities around me. A street down is the posh digs of Royal Oaks, where a house on the cheap runs $400,000 and a McMansion fit for a Saudi Prince runs 4 million. Okay, cheap by the standards of River Oaks, but still the neighborhood is gated, and the folks inside have a mote and bridges keeping the likes of school teachers like me at bay.
Papers in hand, I picked up the New York Times, and flipped through it quickly. Stuff on Iraq, Iran, the death of Lady Bird, an article about the growing disparity between wealthy and middle class, and then boom this amazing article by Robert Pear “A Million faxes Later, a Little-Known Group Claims a Victory on Immigration.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/us/politics/15immig.html
For weeks, I’ve been wondering how the right has out-flanked all of the hard work of immigrant rights activists. I know a lot of people are concerned about boarder security, but to be so upset that you place millions of faxes and calls to put the brakes on comprehensive immigration astounded me. I’m not naïve. I grew up in South Texas, and I know first hand the hate that some folks have towards people from south of the border. But I never thought of these everyday Joe’s launching a well organized guerilla insurgency of calls and faxes that would quell Senators, making many of them into braying donkeys.
Now let me introduce you to my buddy Roy H. Peck, who is the president of Numbers USA. Back in 1996 he wrote a little old book called “The Case against Immigration.”
http://www.numbersusa.com/PDFs/The%20Case%20Against%20Immigration%20--%20Roy%20Beck.pdf.
Nothing fancy or deceitful in the title. The guy tells you what he believes, and then proceeds to map out why immigrants are the scourge of the pristine lily white land called U.S.A. You have urban sprawl in your town. Blame them immigrants! You have ecological problems. Blame them immigrants! You have ants in you pants. Okay, he doesn’t go that far, but you get the idea.What Peck did was amazing. Back in 2004, his group had 50,000 members. Not small, but get this. By 2007 they count 447,000, with an 83 percent increase since January! Currently their budget is 3 million, and that will be raised to 4.5 million for activities next year.
With money like that coming at us, I think we haven’t done that bad of a job in keeping the fight alive for immigrants. But if we count 12 million undocumented folks in the country, and then we add their children, extended family members, and friends who support--then why can’t we get a million plus faxes burning the lines for immigration reform?
First we have to recognize that our people are not conditioned to be politically involved. African-Americans faced this same issue in the first half of the 20th century. It took this community years to organize their base of support (African-Americans, Jews, and progressive Anglos) into a political force that could withstand KKK attacks, a crooked Southern legal system, and 400 years of being told that they were somehow less worthy of the pursuit of happiness than whites.
There have been several articles lately about the increasing political activities of immigrant youths and immigrants who have become U.S. citizens. There’s a contingent in our immigrant community (slow be it) that is awaking to the realization that anti-immigrant sentiment is just that. It doesn’t discriminate between legal and illegal. Actually, when you dig deep into the anit-immigrant rhetoric you’ll find pieces that are aimed at working class folks in regards to the tax contributions working people make verses benefits they take from government.
What is the solution for how we can ‘beat’ back the well funded Beck’s of the world. In the short term, we must keep up our work of organizing and networking the folks we know support us. But this strategy only goes so far. For a few years, every time I spoke with an HB 1403 student I’d tell them about JIFM, and I’d invite them to a couple of meetings. A few would show, but most didn’t and I can count on one hand the ones that actually became real leaders in the immigrant community. Over the years, I’ve laid off the JIFM plug when I work with immigrants. These guys want to get into college, not listen to a white guy talk about the fight for immigration. So, I give the populous what they want; sweat stories about how great it is they are going to college. Occasionally, I’ll have a set of brown eyes that will twinkle with recognition that simply going to college isn’t enough.
“Mr. J, will I be able to work with my degree?” the question comes, and I kick back in my chair and try to gauge if the kid really wants to dig in and work on changing immigration law or just is stating the obvious. Most of the time, the kid is voicing what he’s always known (life sucks in the U.S. without papers), but sometimes I get lucky and I find a kid who is really thinking about immigration in a mature way. (I’ll save that for another day).
So, if the slow grind of recruiting young people into the cause isn’t going to save the day, then what’s left? Guys, we have to start dreaming a little bit bigger. What would happen if we wrote a grant for a few thousand, and put somebody in our group on pay? It might be we need to start thinking of groups like JIFM more as a business. We have a product to sell. Products need customers. Customers have wants and needs. If they don’t, then it’s our job to create that sense of need and want in them: business 101 kind of stuff.
What do we sell? The truth? Awe shucks folks no one really wants to hear the truth. We want our drug companies to tell us that little pills can make us slim and lower our heart rate. Screw the truth about exercise and good diet. What we sell is propaganda! Immigrants are a blessing of manna that Jehovah has bestowed on the tribe of white, Christian protestants who live in the promise land of (you guessed it) the U.S.A.! Immigrants lower crime in the worst neighborhoods. Immigrant babies are healthier. Immigrants expand the tax base. Oh, wait, I’m sorry all of this is true.
Maybe for once we’ve found an issue where truth and propaganda intersect and begin to run parallel. In that case what we need is a propaganda machine that forces the truth on those who’ve been brainwashed that all that is wrong in our country comes from a scary place called Mexico. A propaganda machine is what Beck has created. It’s the focused message, the faxes, the talk radio, and the networking of like-minded activist who have been primed by xenophobic fears.
Our propaganda machine will look very different. We sell compassion for your fellow man and hope. We market corndog things like, ‘We all live on one big planet’ and ‘If your brother needs a drink on a hot day, you buy him a Coke, man.’
Why does Coke sell more sugar water than the next guy? Propaganda! When you sip down on a coke, you’re teaching the whole world to sing. A little goodness has seeped from you and made the world just a bit happier. Yes, it’s nauseating sentiment when it’s deconstructed but that message has made a bunch of folks working at Coke’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia very wealthy!
We must develop a larger vision, and begin to run with the wolves and not the prairie dogs on this stuff. There’s folks with lots of money and a real need for immigrant workers. I just heard that a major player in soft-ware development has moved research operations into Canada because the company cannot secure enough high-tech visas.
Let’s get our 501c4 status cleaned up or maybe we can try creating a 501c3 in the meantime. We have a great story to sell (immigrant youths with much to offer), and there are folks with deep pockets waiting to fund organizations that seek to return civility and truth back into the immigration debate.
Peace and love, my fellow troubadours.
DJ
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