nistia ull Rights
for All "migrant:
The future of the
struggle for immigrant rights will
be complex and
difficult, but what
matters most is that
the communities
affected have broken
their silence and will
not return to the
shadows. hoods), Arab American organizations also endorsed the march and provided speakers.
The same scene, only a hundred times lager (half a million marchers by [email protected] ventional media estimates) took place the previous weekend in Los Angeles.
As of this writing, Latinoled high school students in Los Angeles are on the streets, responding to the threats against their families, friends and community.
A week earlier, in Chicago, where organizers had expected a turnout of a few thousand, a stunning mobilization took place, unprecedented in that city's history, with estimates running from 100,000 to one million!
There are several reasons for the extraordinary response in these and other cities - partly it's the tipping point of anger over years of accumulated abuse topped off by HR 4437, partly it's the fact that people heard the call to march not only from community organizations and immigrant rights advocates, also nrom their priests in the Sunday Mass.
In any case, we can truly say that a new movement has emerged and discovered itself in these past few weeks - one that may transform a generally dreary political landscape.
As always with a mass movement, especially at the
utset, there are many unre solved issues and illusion
Among the most problematic is that many in the immigrant community regard an alternative Senate bill, sponsored by centerconservative John McCain and liberal Ted Kennedy and eneral backed by the salvation The Senate bill, now moving through the process of committe debate and ultimately negotiations with the House version, ostensibly provides an avenue for "illegal" immigrants achieve legal status and for the creation of a "guest worker" program. In reality, however, McCain-Kennedy's terms for "legalization" are so onerous - six years of documented employment, payment of huge fines and fees, proficiency in English lanand "civics" that overworked and underpaid workers often have little chance to achieve - that very few might ultimately benefit, even while coming "above ground" would expose them to repression and deportation. In the era of Bush and post-9/11 politics, the probability of the U.S. Congress adopting any form of actually humane, sane and progressive "immigration reform" is exactly zero. The future of the struggle for immigrant rights will be complex and difficult, but what matters most is that the communities affected have broken their silence and will not return to the shadows.
These communities no
nderstand what, for exal ple, the gay and lesbian movements have recognized for decades: Silence Equals Death.
They have sent a messag to the political elites: HR 4437 is a crime against humanity, and you can shove it. Or to put it in their own language: Si Se Puede! • David Finkel is an editor of AGAINST THE CURRENT, the magazine of Solidarity (www.solidarityus.org) published in Detroit.