Petaluma protests SB1070 – March for Human Rights (Kentucky St.)
Posts Tagged ‘SB1070’
Petaluma protests SB1070 – March for Human Rights (Kentucky St.)
Friday, August 13th, 2010IMPACT! and MeCHA Protest Arizona Law
Friday, August 13th, 2010originally published at: www.pressdemocrat.com
Youth plan protest of Arizona law
Local activists draw connections to the civil rights movement of the ’60s
By DAN JOHNSON,
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF
Published: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 12:37 p.m.
The recent rise in student activism in the Petaluma area, which has been likened to similar activity in the 1960s, is drawing a direct connection to the period as it prepares to protest the immigration bill passed in Arizona and focus on other issues affecting local immigrants, such as driver’s license violations.
Youth from Impact!, a Petaluma-based group, are collaborating with those from Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (Chicano student movement of Aztlan, a group of indigenous peoples of Mexico), a nationwide student organization with several branches in Sonoma County, to organize the “Human Rights Summer.” The name was inspired by the historic Freedom Summer of 1964, which was part of a movement involving some 70,000 students to help end the political disenfranchisement of African-Americans in the Deep South.
Several Petaluma students are affiliated with one or both organizations, which plan to jointly hold a march at 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 29 protesting the enactment of Arizona’s immigration bill; have house meetings in Petaluma and other county locations to discuss immigration; help to introduce resolutions in local cities that express opposition to the bill and support for human rights; and reach out to businesses to encourage a boycott of Arizona products.
“The civil rights marches of the 1960s were on television, and the whole world knew about them. But now, with immigration, there is all this rhetoric, and the people who are directly affected by the issues are being dehumanized,” said Sabina Ahmed, an active member of Impact! and 2008 graduate of Casa Grande High School who is now attending Santa Rosa Junior College.
“So much is missing from the picture. Immigrants are being viewed as criminals. Many people don’t understand their needs, and that they’re human beings, too,” added Ahmed, a native of Mexico and daughter of a Pakistani father and Guatemalan mother.
The Arizona law, SB 1070, is described by both proponents and opponents as the broadest and strictest immigration measure in several generations. It makes failure to carry immigration documents a crime and gives police the broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the United States illegally.
Some critics regard the bill as an open invitation for discrimination and harassment against Latinos, regardless of their immigration status.
David Valdez, a student at Santa Rosa Junior College’s Petaluma and Santa Rosa campuses who is a member of MEChA, is concerned that the law could be a foreshadowing of additional problematic things to come for Latinos.
“During the 1960s, many positive things started happening. Schools added ethnic studies classes, such as Chicano and Latino studies, and more bilingual teachers,” Valdez said. “The movement going on in Arizona is a major threat to what was won in the 1960s. Everything that past generations fought for is in danger of being flushed down the drain.
“We need to fight to maintain these things.”
Impact! traces its lineage back to the People’s Revolutionary Organization, formed in 2005, and United Resistance, created in 2006. Impact! is an independent, all-volunteer organization that works for social justice, primarily on the issues of police accountability, and immigrants’ and employees’ rights. Through youth leadership development, as well as community building, grassroots organizing, solidarity and direct action, Impact! seeks to build a radical movement for social change.
About 30 youth are affiliated with Impact!, and 10 to 15 of them are more substantially involved, Ahmed said.
MEChA was created in 1969 by a coalition of groups advocating civil rights for people of Mexican descent. It has several branches in its Redwood Coast de Aztlan MEChA Central region, including branches at Casa Grande and Petaluma high schools, and Santa Rosa Junior College.
Recent immigration issues have rejuvenated interest in the student organization, which emphasizes the importance of political involvement and education as avenues for social change.
(Contact Dan Johnson at dan.johnson@arguscourier.com)
PACH opposes Arizona State Senate Bill 1070
Friday, July 16th, 2010The state of Arizona is poised to begin enforcing SB1070 on July 29th. PACH encourages everyone to protest and resist this law. We have endorsed the march organized by IMPACT and MEChA on July 29th in Petaluma at McDowell Park at 6pm.
Please read the following statement from our board member Elbert “Big Man” Howard on the Arizona law.
New Immigration Law: Capitalism & Immigration = Fascism
By Elbert “Big Man” Howard
Arizona’s newly-passed law, SB 1070, firstly, allows police officers to subjectively determine what race they think a person is along with how poorly a command of the English language they believe the person has.
Secondly, this law allows these law enforcement officers at will, based on these racist methods, to stop, detain, harass, question, demand identification, and then decide whether or not the person is in the USA illegally.
The state “bosses” and institutions who control the police have decided it is now perfectly legal to completely ignore a person’s constitutional and human rights by taking into account such racist nonsense as a person’s skin color, type of clothing worn, and even the number of people in a car.
According to this law, the police can now legally harass day laborers and the people who seek to hire them.
This is legalized racial profiling of Latinos as well as African Americans and these violations of human rights have been included in Arizona’s state police training materials and these enforcement guidelines will be distributed to 15,000 Arizona state officers when SB 1070 is set to become absolute law effective July 29th, 2010.
The weak-kneed Obama administration, which spit out lip service concerning immigration reform so as to get the Latino vote, now has abandoned and turned its back on these people and abandoned them. This is no different than the practice of previous administrations which did the exact same thing to African Americans seeking voting, civil and human rights.
Once again, we are faced with a Federal and State government political football game – a dangerous, expensive game costing not only money (“our tax dollars at work!”) but one which threatens massive civil unrest and invites violence.
What these appointed governmental “bosses” most worry about is losing their jobs (licenses to steal from the people) and they understand that by implementing these vicious and racist practices, thereby satiating the fearful elite in Arizona, they may be able to stay in office a little longer.
This reign of terror that is being imposed on the Hispanic and African American communities can be turned in the other direction, against these fearful, racist law-makers (AKA law-breakers).
HOW?
ORGANIZE!
DOOR TO DOOR, STREET TO STREET, BLOCK TO BLOCK!
Everyone able to vote must register and then vote to remove those who create these laws, who practice racism, and who are trying to deprive people of their constitutional and human rights.
We must remove those who refuse to serve the needs and desires of all in our communities.
To achieve this, we must join in solidarity with all our brothers and sisters of all ages, across all ethnic, racial, and gender lines. We must all speak out, loudly and clearly, and let our so-called leaders know that we will not stand idly by, and they will not be re-elected, as long as racist laws like these are allowed to be put into practice.
Solidarity is the key to unity, and in unity there is power.
Power to the People.
Elbert “Big Man” Howard
Forestville, California
July 12th, 2010