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 Editorials | April 2006 
Hispanics Show The Natives How Vital They Are
 Tim Reid - Times Newspapers
| | A Spanish version of The Star-Spangled Banner, Nuestro Himno (Our Anthem) was even released yesterday. Recorded over the past week by Latin pop stars, it is sung to a backtrack of rhythms and instrumentation straight out of Latin pop, angering many traditionalists who consider it disrespectful. |
On a summer morning two years ago California awoke to find that its 14 million Hispanic residents had disappeared.
Within hours rubbish was piling up in the streets. There was nowhere to buy a meal, or nannies to take children to school. Farms sat desolate, fruit and crops unpicked. Lawns remained unmowed. Work on construction sites halted. Lavatories became filthy.
Within days California, the world’s fifth largest economy, was in a state of chaotic paralysis. This was the fictional doomsday scenario contained in the 2004 film A Day Without a Mexican. On Monday, not just in California but across America, it is set to happen.
Promising the largest mass boycott and protest since the civil rights era of the 1960s, millions of America’s Hispanic immigrants will refuse to work on May 1 to demonstrate just how reliant the country is on its 11 million illegal workers to brew its Starbucks coffee, build its homes, trim its hedges and clean its kitchens.
In Los Angeles, an estimated three million Latinos are expected to take to the streets. Some of America’s largest meat processing companies, including Cargill and Tyson Foods, have announced that they will close. Tens of thousands of Hispanic school children will fail to attend classes, and teaching unions across the country have said they will not be punished.
In Chicago, hundreds of restaurants are expected to close. According to a recent study, almost all kitchen help and cooks in the city’s restaurants are Mexican. Even a third of its sushi chefs are Mexican. Its meat-packing plants will be crippled — 95 per cent of its meat cutters are Mexican.
Latino truckers, who haul supplies and food across the nation every day, are vowing to cut their engines. Beds in hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms will remain unmade. Millions of gardens will stay unwatered.
A Spanish version of The Star-Spangled Banner, Nuestro Himno (Our Anthem) was even released yesterday. Recorded over the past week by Latin pop stars including Gloria Trevi and Tito “El Bambino”, it is sung to a backtrack of rhythms and instrumentation straight out of Latin pop, angering many traditionalists who consider it disrespectful.
In California, the state senate passed a resolution recognising “The Great American Boycott of 2006”, saying that it would educate Americans about the contributions made by immigrants. In New York, many businesses have pledged to close and let their workers attend a rally in Union Square. In Mexico there is a parallel “No Gringo Day”, where a boycott of US goods is being planned.
The job walkout, buoyed by the success of massive demonstrations across the US this month, which forced immigration reform to the top of Congress’s agenda, will come as the Senate resumes debate on the issue.
America’s Latinos now account for 40 million of the total US population and in 2000 became the largest minority in the US, surpassing blacks. They are demanding that the 11 million illegal Hispanics who carry out many of the low-paid jobs that white America refuses to do be given the chance to obtain US citizenship.
They have been galvanised by a Bill passed in the House of Representatives in December, which would make it a federal crime to live illegally in the US. Conservative Republicans want all illegal immigrants deported and a security wall built along the US-Mexican border.
“We want to make it clear to the American people and to the world that undocumented immigrants are not criminals,” Juan José Gutierrez, co-ordinator of Latino Movement USA, told The Times. “We are workers, who work very hard for low wages and contribute a great deal to the American economy.
“We are tired of living in the shadows. This is a decisive moment. The time for Congress and President Bush to act is now. We want to underscore with the boycott that lawns will not be mown, children will not be looked after, crops will not be picked. We want humane reform that will grant undocumented workers a path to citizenship.”
After mass rallies on April 10, which gave voice to decades of pent-up anger over America’s immigration policies, enough Senate Republicans retreated to forge a compromise proposal which would restrict the flow of new arrivals but give seven million undocumented workers who have lived in the US for more than five years the right to apply for citizenship, provided they pay fines and taxes and learn English.
Under the proposal, which was derailed at the eleventh hour by conservative Republicans but which President Bush is now urging be passed, three million others will be asked to go home before returning on temporary work visas that could ultimately qualify them for citizenship. About one million who have been in America for fewer than two years will be required to leave and then “wait in line” for permits.
In an attempt to ease conservatives’ concerns and lay the groundwork for a second try at passing the law next month, Senate Republicans won approval this week to divert $1.9 billion from an Iraq and Afghanistan military spending Bill to fund US border security.
Mr Bush, as a former Governor of Texas, a front line in the immigration battle, has long called for immigration reform. He is also aware of the political peril of alienating Latinos. Hispanic voters represent 14 per cent of the electorate and, although left-of-centre on economic issues, are socially conservative and seen by Republicans as a crucial voting bloc.
“This is a defining moment for the Republican Party,” said Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator. “If our answer to the fastest-growing demographic in this country is that we want to make felons of your grandparents and we want to put people in jail who are helping your neighbours and people related to you, then we are going to suffer mightily.”
NUESTRO HIMNO
¿Amenece, lo véis, a la luz de la aurora?
¿Lo que tanto aclamamos la noche caer?
Sus estrellas sus franjas flotaban ayer
En el fiero combate en señal de victoria,
Fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertada,
Por la noche decían:
“¡Se va defendiendo!”
¡Oh decid! ¿Despliega aún
Voz a su hermosura estrellada,
Sobre tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada?
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming!
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there:
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? |
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