The Occupy movements around the country have touched different communities in different ways, resonating with local issues as well as bringing local folks to the front lines of a national struggle for economic justice. For many immigrant communities, everyday struggles with the legal system and the economic crisis encapsulate some of the core issues driving the Occupy ethos. Yet those same issues can be a hindrance to organizing.
As the protests picked up momentum back in October, John Michael Torres, an activist from McAllen, Texas, a low-income largely Latino community, told NPR's Latino USA:
[L]ittle by little people are starting to understand that this is a big deal... But at the same time you have people who maybe don't have a TV in their house. Who don't have the Internet... So in a very poor area of the country, you have that disconnect from what's going on in the rest of the country. Which is why it's so important that we're out there in public spaces, that we're not relying on the mass media to tell our own stories, but we're inviting people to come and sit down with us, to participate, to share their own stories as well.
Back at ground zero of OWS, Fox News Latino reported:
Occupy groups, who have said they need Hispanics and other immigrants to rally to their cause, have realized that the growing number of arrests could frighten undocumented immigrants -- and they've taken steps to make sure they aren't a neglected group.Teresa Puente recently wrote in In These Times that the convergence between the immigrant rights struggle and Occupy is growing increasingly profound, even as rifts within the movement-across culture, ethnicity and class-grow more apparent:Mariano Muñoz, who is part of the Spanish assembly for Occupy Wall Street in New York, said it is an issue they are aware of and trying to address.
He said immigration training classes are offered to undocumented who want to join, where legal experts and lawyers address any questions they may have, any issues they could face and how to deal with worst-case-scenario cases. The classes offer police procedure and immigration rights instruction.
"Once they know the issues and are aware of the risks, it is up to the people to make up their mind," Muñoz said. "Sometimes, the issues and the cause are more important than deportation."
In New York, protests have attracted individuals who are passionate about immigration reform. Natalia Fajardo, 27, traveled to the city from Burlington, Vt., to spend a Sunday afternoon at Zuccotti Park with her sister, Laura, who came up from Florida. Fajardo works for an organization called Justicia Migrante, a group that advocates for lettuce workers in Vermont."The [Occupy] movement was started by mostly middle-class and white people who are impacted by the high cost of education, cuts in public services. These are things that people in the immigrant community have dealt with for a long time," says Fajardo, a native of Colombia. "We all know these themes impact us equally."
Tania Unzueta, a leader of the Immigrant Youth Justice League in Chicago, is among the DREAM Act activists protesting immigration policy locally and nationally. She says her family -- her father and sister are also activists -- and many immigrant youth are not joining the Occupy movement because there is so much work to do in the immigrant rights movement. "All of a sudden people are saying 'We are part of the 99%,'" Unzueta says. "But we have been saying that for a long time, and nobody has been listening to us."
Oakland Chinatown Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council president Carl Chan said the shutdown of the Oakland Port has diverted cargo ships to ports in Los Angeles and other cities. That's forcing many businesses to have to pay for transferring the cargo to the Bay Area. Small business owners belonging to the 99 percent are financially hurt.Still, some ethnic media say the Occupy movement has captured the imagination of readers, and brought the issues of class, the wealth gap and poverty to the forefront of public debate.
Giao Pham, managing editor of Nguoi Viet based in Westminster, Calif., said his Vietnamese daily continues to track the Occupy movement, because there's interest in the community.
"People recognize that the movement is getting bigger and they discuss the meaning of the movement," he said. "The Vietnamese community here in the U.S., we're new and not rich. People discuss the one percent and the 99 percent, which they belong to."
On December 18, International Migrants Day, Occupy activists marched in the Immigrants Occupy! Rally, led by the Immigrant Workers Justice Working Group of Occupy Wall Street. The poster for the event says it all, and in more than one language.
Cross-posted from CultureStrike, a new project that fuses activism and the arts.
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AMERICAN CITIZENS and LEGAL immigrants need to "occupy" and refuse to use business that hire ILLEGAL ALIENS - hit them where it hurts - their wallets. Make it uncomfortable for these businesses -then the jobs for ILLEGALS would dry up and they would self-deport leaving jobs that CITIZENS and LEGAL immigrants want and NEED. It would also free up BILLIONS of tax dollars that we spend on ILLEGALS!
While immigrant workers are exploited and American workers are exploited, that does not mean that Americans should join in with immigrants.
Remember that the 1% are taking jobs away from Americans and giving them to those who will work harder for less. And who are those people who will work harder for less: people from other countries. Sometimes the jobs are outsourced, sometimes the immigrants are right here in the US. But whereever they are, they want what we have. If we give away our jobs, we will have nothing left for ourselves.
Here in the U.S., we see multinational companies sending jobs overseas and trying to import more foreign high tech workers to replace American workers, most of whom aren't any smarter or experienced than American college graduates.
Then we have the case of illegal immigrants, most of whom are not farm workers and most of whom do jobs in construction, child care, food service and other areas that Americans could be doing and want to do. They also are usually expected to work harder for less money. Notice how neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have done a thing to force these people out of their jobs, even though we have millions of people who are desperate for work? No other country in the world allows companies to bypass their own citizens and give jobs to illegal workers and we shouldn't either.
The 1%, here and around the world, try to get everybody to work for cheap. In many places, the 1% try to get their own people to leave, so they won't have to educate them or take care of them. Look at Mexico: how many millionnaires and billionnaires do they have? Yet the rich still refuse to pay their fair share of taxes, they still charge far more for things like phone service and medications than they're worth, but they get away with it.
Don't expect me to sacrifice for the 1%.
We don't have enough jobs for ourselves. Our wages are stagnant.
Do you want to live like an American? Do you want to give up your job to somebody who needs it more than you do?
If you want things to stay as they are for you, then how can you not want things to stay as they are for everybody in America?
he sounds just like those other guys
I dont have to try and be honest
I just am
how bout you :)
Have not the criminals on Wall Street and the corporate run immigration system not only raped US taxpayers but raped the Mexican undocumented too?
Has not their profit programs of NAFTA and the War on Drugs coerced many Mexican undocumented to the US while simultaneously forcing them to be part of the 99% too?
I invite all Dream Act Kids and other innocent undocumented victims of the U.S. corporate run immigration-for-greed system to protest as Wall Street occupants too.
In fact after the world's greedy are exposed for what they really are, many of the undocumented would have the option of either becoming legal U.S. residents and/or returning to their home countries where they would be able to earn a decent, human, living wage there too.
The Occupy Wall Street movement protests all forms of corporate greed and tyranny. It should also protest the abuse of the bi-national (U.S. / Mexico) corporate elite who not only rape the good tax paying citizens of the United States, but the good hard working people of Mexico too.
American voters must be among the most ignorant voters in the world. They keep voting in Republicans or Democrats who are bank rolled by the same elite who have been tag-teaming these voters and ripping them off for years.
http://twopesos-protestfortheundocumented.blogspot.com/2011/11/american-voters-most-ignorant-in-world.html