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In March of 2006, the El Paso community was honored to receive one of the greatest activists alive today, Dolores Huerta. Organized by the UTEP University Democrats, Las Americas is pleased to offer a unique glimpse into a special evening spent with this modern hero.
From the El Paso Times:
Activist Urges Fighting Immigration Reform
By Louie Gilot
El Paso Times
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Civil rights activist Dolores Huerta celebrated the tens of thousands of people who took to the streets in several U.S. cities in the past few days to protest what they see as unfair and punitive immigration legislation.
“Thank goodness the people are rising up and saying this is not right,” she said Friday at a speaking engagement at the University of Texas at El Paso. “Every change made in this country was made from the bottom.”
More massive protests were scheduled for this weekend in California.
Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union with César Chávez and a pioneer in grass-roots organizing, galvanized a crowd of over 700 people spilling out of a packed auditorium at UTEP. She said public protest was the only way to stop HR 4437, the immigration bill passed by the House in December with provisions for a border fence, for making it a felony to be illegally in the United States and for penalizing those who help undocumented immigrants, including charities and religious groups.
Huerta, 75, said she saw an activist “renaissance” occurring in Texas.
But in El Paso, protests have been sporadic and modest in size. The latest local protest by the Border Network for Human Rights in December drew 300 marchers. The group’s administrator, Saul Soto, said he believed in pounding the pavement and chanting slogans to publicize the plight of immigrants.
“It’s a tool that gets people to notice. It works to get attention when it’s an urgent matter,” he said. The group is planning its next protest for April. El Paso community activists deplored the apparent lack of enthusiasm or organization in the city.
“It seems like in El Paso we would have more of a presence,” said County Attorney José Rodríguez, who calls himself “a product of the Chicano movement of the ’60s.”
Alicia Chacón, who said she participated in the boycott of Farah Manufacturing in El Paso in the early ’70s, thought protesting may seem pointless to some in El Paso because anti-immigrant sentiment here is weak.
State Rep. Norma Chávez, D-El Paso, who was an organizer for the UFW from 1993 to 1995, blamed a generation gap.
“El Paso is a community of activists, and most of them have become CEOs and attorneys. There is a void in the young activists from the university. That’s unfortunate,” she said.
But Friday, about 700 young people tried to cram into an auditorium built for 400 to hear about civil rights organizing from Dolores Huerta.
Those who couldn’t come in sat in the hallways and listened on loudspeakers. By the end, all were pumping their fists in the air, yelling “¡Viva!” and “¡Si se puede!” in unison with the Latino civil rights icon.
“I’ve never been in a march, but it felt like it. It felt empowering,” said a glowing UTEP sophomore, Yvonne Thompson.
Huerta called current immigration legislation “horrendous.”
“The immigration issue is such an important one. It’s translating into an attack on the whole Hispanic community,” she said. “We cannot throw away the people who pick our foods and take care of our elderly.”
U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, who was attending a meeting of border sheriffs Friday in El Paso, said HR 4437 is unlikely to become law because of the provision for the border wall and other controversial items.
“There are things in it that are real deal killers,” said Reyes, who voted against the bill. “The Senate has already told us that they are not interested in passing the ... bill.”
That is not to say that the legislation being debated in the Senate is pleasing immigrant advocates. That version of immigration reform does not have the wall, but has a temporary guest-worker program that doesn’t include ways for migrant workers to permanently legalize their status.
Huerta said she supported an alternative guest-worker program sponsored by U.S. Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz. It would provide migrant field workers who have been living in the United States without documents for years with a path to legalization.
Friday, thousands of immigrant rights supporters filled thoroughfares in Phoenix as they marched toward the office of U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., in a rally call for a more-humane reform of immigration laws.
Hundreds of students in Los Angeles walked out of their schools to call attention to immigration issues.
And activists in Georgia said tens of thousands of workers didn’t show up at their jobs after calls for a work stoppage to protest a bill passed by the Georgia House that would deny state services to adults living in the United States illegally and impose a 5 percent surcharge on wire transfers from undocumented immigrants.
Thursday, more than 10,000 people filled the streets of Milwaukee in what was billed as “A Day Without Latinos.”
The Catholic Church has also organized marches around the country to protest HR 4437. Earlier this month, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, leader of the Roman Catholic archdiocese in Los Angeles, the nation’s largest, called on church leaders and members to defy the bill if it becomes law.
In El Paso, Bishop Armando X. Ochoa is scheduled to speak about the proposed immigration reform today. And parishioners at St. Pius X Catholic Community recently hung a banner on the church’s copper dome that read, “Immigrants Welcome — Oppose H.R. 4437.”
Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; 546-6131.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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