Gary Younge | The Hindu | April 18, 2006
http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/18/stories/2006041805100900.htm
LIKE A scene out of a Steinbeck novel, shadows slowly emerged from
tents and into the night in New Orleans City Park at the call
of "free food, water." "The church brings food and water on
Thursdays," explains Mercedes Sanchez, standing beside the tarpaulin
construction that is now her home. She paid $3,000 to trek three
days and three nights through the Arizona desert to get to the
United States. "When you walk through the desert you think you're
never going to arrive," she says. "It costs a lot of money and a lot
of tears." She was in Maryland when Hurricane Katrina struck.
Shortly afterwards she heard the call for work in New Orleans and,
like migrant workers anywhere, she responded with a journey.
Over recent weeks, Hispanic migrants have been flocking to another
call not to work, but to arms. Throughout America millions of
Hispanics, in big cities and small towns, have taken to the streets
to protest against anti-immigration legislation and for their right
to stay in the country. Half a million came out in Los Angeles and
also in Dallas, 300,000 in Chicago, 200,000 in Washington DC. About
3,000 came in Garden City, Kansas (population 30,000).
Such numbers over such a broad swath of the country hold huge
symbolic importance locally and globally. Globally, the
demonstrations mark the first example of mass resistance to the
West's desire to criminalise migrant labourers and to fortify the
borders against those trying to get in.
The Bill they were marching against would see a 3,200 km fence built
along the U.S.-Mexican border, and all 11 million undocumented
workers on the wrong side of it declared illegal and deported. In
some respects, the border between the U.S. and Mexico exemplifies
the physical interface between the developing and developed world.
The average wage is four times higher on one side. But the tension
exposed by these disparities is by no means unique to the U.S. It
was present in the British elections last year, when Tony Blair
stood before the white cliffs of Dover pledging to tighten
immigration controls. It was evident in the Italian elections, where
the centre-Left challenger, Romano Prodi, responded to Silvio
Berlusconi's anti-immigrant rants by saying: "You cannot need the
workers during the day, then go and hunt them at night."
Yet that is precisely what the West has been doing demonising
migrant labourers politically and targeting them legally, even as it
depends on them economically. This has made anti-immigration
legislation difficult to challenge. Not because migrants are hard to
reach businesses find them easily but because they are difficult
to organise as their fates are vulnerable to the whims of their
employers and of the state. The result was a community that, until
recently, was hidden in plain sight. The sheer presence of so many
Latin Americans on the streets was in itself a political fact to be
reckoned with.
Social crossover
One key difference between the U.S. and western Europe is the large
social crossover between documented and undocumented immigrants,
making the latter less isolated. Roughly one in four illegal
migrants lives in a family with someone who is legal so to attack
them is to attack many Latino families. Another is the power of
America's assimilationist traditions and immigrant heritage. America
has always been keener on immigration than it has been on
immigrants. Immigration evokes the mythology of personal
reinvention, social meritocracy, ethnic diversity, and class
fluidity at the heart of the American dream.
So Latinos have got the politicians' attention; whether they will be
able to keep it until election day is another matter. It would be
premature to refer to this as a movement, but it certainly has the
potential to become one. The diverse grassroots groups that called
the demonstrations in each city represent a pre-existing network
that thrives under the Anglo radar. But the turnout took even the
organisers by surprise in Los Angeles they had expected just
20,000.
The migrants were not the only ones mobilising recently. One right-
wing talkshow host called for them to be placed in the New Orleans
Superdome and then shipped back to where they came from. But first
they would have to finish the repairs to the Superdome. And it would
take Hispanic labourers such as Mercedes Sanchez to do it.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
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