stephanie
08-23-2007, 10:10 AM
Hummmm....
Emma Lozano, presidente Pueblo sin Fronteras
Elvira Arellano, presidente La Familia Latina Unida
Most of us gathered here are united on the positions we believe in, but we are not united, and we are not disciplined, on the point of struggle, the message we want to deliver to our people and to the nation.
There is a difference when the front page pictures after our large marches are of 25 male leaders, all with their papers, of different small organizations, with a banner that proclaims the leadership of their coalition and when the front page picture is a line of families with children with a banner that demands not one family separated, not one child left behind, stop the raids, deportations and separation of families now.
There is a difference when the news accounts report on smaller turn-outs in divided marches and when the news accounts report on the unity of all sectors of our community in massive turn outs.
The difference is between victory and defeat.
Over the last fifteen years, Sin Fronteras has worked to develop two different coalitions: the popular coalition and the legislative coalition.
We believed that the popular coalition, which mobilized the undocumented and the Latino community, was necessary to bring the legislative coalition to take and win the maximum gain in this current battle over reform of the law. We also recognized that the struggle does not stop with the passage of a new law, as the Black Liberation struggle did not stop with the passage of the civil rights act, but that the legislative coalition was necessary because our people wanted and needed immediate relief from the attack on their dignity and standard of living.
The popular coalition has made great gains. We have shown that we are not only for protecting the rights of the undocumented but we are struggling for Latinos to become a voice for justice for all of Latin America. We have supported self-determination and opposed assimilation into this nation’s individualistic, imperialistic values. We have taught that our people did not come here because of the American Dream but because of what the
American nightmare did to our countries of origin. We have asserted that our demand to be here and to be fully enfranchised here is a right not a privilige and a destiny of our people to transform this nation.
Our popular coalition made the legislative coalition we helped to build successful. We created unity with the Latino citizen community and mobilized that unity in massive unity and made immigration a Latino issue which made the Latino vote our most powerful weapon.
Our popular coalition created unity between the Latino and African American community that the legislative, self-interest coalition could not have done.
Our popular coalition brought the militancy of resistance and sanctuary in the faith community and forced the religious community to come forward in the legislative struggle.
Most important, our popular coalition has brought the issue of family unity to the forefront of legislative struggle which has become the main point of struggle in the current and final phase of the legislative fight.
We did all this in spite of our divisions and individualism and disrespect which ran counter to the unity and love of our people, a unity and love that saved our leadership from self-destruction.
What is our current legislative reality? It is clear that we have only three alternatives.
The first alternative is that no law passes by August. This means we will have three years of raids and deportations and separations of families. We will have three years of no-match firings that will affect millions of our people because of the new system of social security verification and sanctions already in place. We will have three years of militarization of the border and unchecked right wing vigilante and local law enforcement violence against our people. Our people do not want this alternative. We should not be willing to accept this alternative for them.
The second alternative is the White House Senate Republican Alternative which will surface in the next two weeks. It accepts a slow legalization (8 + 5) for individual workers but rejects family unity legalization and family reunification. It promotes a beefed up guest worker program but denies legal rights to the workers and denies the right to have their families with them. It is an apartheid anti-family system of temporary labor.. We must struggle against this alternative because our people do not want it. It attacks their rights, their humanity, their dignity and the empowerment of Latinos to change this nation for those who are in it and for the benefit of our people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It also militarizes our borders and criminalizes the millions who will not be legalized.
The third alternative is the compromise worked out between the democrats who support us and the White house before the white house broke the deal. It includes a guest worker program, which has the support of the majority of the Congress. It includes criminalization of those left here without papers after legalization. It includes militarization of the border – which is already approved by Congress and has the support of two thirds of the Congress. It is wrapped in the rhetoric of assimilation and places blame on the undocumented and takes no responsibility for the racist, exploitative system of undocumented labor this nation has run for its own benefit or the terrible damage this nation has done to the peoples of the south.
The third alternative also will legalize almost all of undocumented and their families and provide for the security, dignity and empowerment of millions of our people so that we can continue the struggle in the years to come.
These are our three legislative alternatives. We have developed peoples legislation in the past and even got it introduced into congress. That time is over. The struggle for those principles is not over, it has just begun. But now we have only these three alternatives to choose from. What the people want and need in the next three months is clear. Our popular coalition must unify, put aside individual agendas and deliver the legislative, narrow self-interest coalition we have caused to be built and made effective for our people.
What are the points of struggle we must unify around:
read the rest at their site..
http://www.somosunpueblo.com/Unify_and_Focus.html
Emma Lozano, presidente Pueblo sin Fronteras
Elvira Arellano, presidente La Familia Latina Unida
Most of us gathered here are united on the positions we believe in, but we are not united, and we are not disciplined, on the point of struggle, the message we want to deliver to our people and to the nation.
There is a difference when the front page pictures after our large marches are of 25 male leaders, all with their papers, of different small organizations, with a banner that proclaims the leadership of their coalition and when the front page picture is a line of families with children with a banner that demands not one family separated, not one child left behind, stop the raids, deportations and separation of families now.
There is a difference when the news accounts report on smaller turn-outs in divided marches and when the news accounts report on the unity of all sectors of our community in massive turn outs.
The difference is between victory and defeat.
Over the last fifteen years, Sin Fronteras has worked to develop two different coalitions: the popular coalition and the legislative coalition.
We believed that the popular coalition, which mobilized the undocumented and the Latino community, was necessary to bring the legislative coalition to take and win the maximum gain in this current battle over reform of the law. We also recognized that the struggle does not stop with the passage of a new law, as the Black Liberation struggle did not stop with the passage of the civil rights act, but that the legislative coalition was necessary because our people wanted and needed immediate relief from the attack on their dignity and standard of living.
The popular coalition has made great gains. We have shown that we are not only for protecting the rights of the undocumented but we are struggling for Latinos to become a voice for justice for all of Latin America. We have supported self-determination and opposed assimilation into this nation’s individualistic, imperialistic values. We have taught that our people did not come here because of the American Dream but because of what the
American nightmare did to our countries of origin. We have asserted that our demand to be here and to be fully enfranchised here is a right not a privilige and a destiny of our people to transform this nation.
Our popular coalition made the legislative coalition we helped to build successful. We created unity with the Latino citizen community and mobilized that unity in massive unity and made immigration a Latino issue which made the Latino vote our most powerful weapon.
Our popular coalition created unity between the Latino and African American community that the legislative, self-interest coalition could not have done.
Our popular coalition brought the militancy of resistance and sanctuary in the faith community and forced the religious community to come forward in the legislative struggle.
Most important, our popular coalition has brought the issue of family unity to the forefront of legislative struggle which has become the main point of struggle in the current and final phase of the legislative fight.
We did all this in spite of our divisions and individualism and disrespect which ran counter to the unity and love of our people, a unity and love that saved our leadership from self-destruction.
What is our current legislative reality? It is clear that we have only three alternatives.
The first alternative is that no law passes by August. This means we will have three years of raids and deportations and separations of families. We will have three years of no-match firings that will affect millions of our people because of the new system of social security verification and sanctions already in place. We will have three years of militarization of the border and unchecked right wing vigilante and local law enforcement violence against our people. Our people do not want this alternative. We should not be willing to accept this alternative for them.
The second alternative is the White House Senate Republican Alternative which will surface in the next two weeks. It accepts a slow legalization (8 + 5) for individual workers but rejects family unity legalization and family reunification. It promotes a beefed up guest worker program but denies legal rights to the workers and denies the right to have their families with them. It is an apartheid anti-family system of temporary labor.. We must struggle against this alternative because our people do not want it. It attacks their rights, their humanity, their dignity and the empowerment of Latinos to change this nation for those who are in it and for the benefit of our people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It also militarizes our borders and criminalizes the millions who will not be legalized.
The third alternative is the compromise worked out between the democrats who support us and the White house before the white house broke the deal. It includes a guest worker program, which has the support of the majority of the Congress. It includes criminalization of those left here without papers after legalization. It includes militarization of the border – which is already approved by Congress and has the support of two thirds of the Congress. It is wrapped in the rhetoric of assimilation and places blame on the undocumented and takes no responsibility for the racist, exploitative system of undocumented labor this nation has run for its own benefit or the terrible damage this nation has done to the peoples of the south.
The third alternative also will legalize almost all of undocumented and their families and provide for the security, dignity and empowerment of millions of our people so that we can continue the struggle in the years to come.
These are our three legislative alternatives. We have developed peoples legislation in the past and even got it introduced into congress. That time is over. The struggle for those principles is not over, it has just begun. But now we have only these three alternatives to choose from. What the people want and need in the next three months is clear. Our popular coalition must unify, put aside individual agendas and deliver the legislative, narrow self-interest coalition we have caused to be built and made effective for our people.
What are the points of struggle we must unify around:
read the rest at their site..
http://www.somosunpueblo.com/Unify_and_Focus.html