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Phoenix, Arizona – BARRIOZONA: In Arizona’s social landscape, and elsewhere, we hear the word “activist,” and
“activism,” but we don’t see the same level of effectiveness in all those who proclaim themselves to do activism. In your
opinion, having already worked in different places and issues, what elements do you consider as really bringing success
to any action deemed as “activism”?
SALVADOR REZA: Well, I’m going to tell you what a friend of mine, Wing Lam, from Chinatown, in New York; says: “I don’t
want activists, because activists just get activated, and then when the issue is gone, they disappear, and are not out there
anymore.” He says that he prefers “organizers,” people who organize. I think that organizing, in the long run, implies to
work but not necessarily being in the public eye all the time; rather it means to do the “ant’s work,” as people call it. You
have to be going to the work centers daily, to the corners, with the street taco vendors, finding out what their problems are
or something that’s happening, trying not to be someone who is just passing by. I spoke with Ernesto Galarza just before
he passed away, when I was still at the university, in the seventies, and something that he told us was that, if we want to
organize a place, at the very minimum, we have to work for ten years to earn the community’s trust. It’s not just coming out
of nowhere and then leaving; you have to be there in the barrios. I think that the organization does not have to be a political
organization or a barrio organization; it has to be an organization of families in different barrios where, for example, the
Murphy District, there is already a whole activity going on, an entire method of defense. You’re not going to reinvent it all
again, just simply and plainly being there to contribute with what you can. With what we can contribute is with what we
know about government, with what we know about how politics at the state or federal level work, and not necessarily just
go there and suddenly go as far as saying, “hey, look, I represent these people,” but in reality, if you have to say that, you
don’t represent them or anything; perhaps you mobilized them for a march and never see them again until the following
march, but you did not toil to see whether they need pavement, sidewalks, or teachers that don’t abuse them at the
schools; everything that a community encompasses in the barrio, and that come from the families, and if you don’t work
with the families, you don’t know what’s happening. This is how I see it. I’ve been part of giant, hierarchic organizations,
that at the end they say that they work from the base up, grassroots, but that in reality they are rather organizations that
have a missionary’s mind; in other words, they have the formula and are going to liberate the “poor little ones” with their
formula. The other day I was talking about Paulo Freire’s popular education, and people asked me what I thought about it.
I told them that the mistake I see in Paulo Freire’s method, is that they don’t go out and learn from the communities that
they are supposedly going to liberate. In reality, they just go and see how they work, how they function, so they can take
them to (liberation) to fulfill the liberators dream as they see them. That was the same mistake Sub-comandante Marcos
made when he went to Chiapas, Mexico; he believed that he was going to organize the Mayan Peoples, when in reality they
were the ones who organized him. They taught him how to really be a socialist or collective, because they have done
things collectively since before the arrival of the Spaniards. One can learn much from the people, if one goes to learn with
the people; not necessarily to try to tell them your missionary style formula: “I’m going to save you, because you don’t know
how to save yourself.”
BARRIOZONA: In recent years, all these outbreaks of racism and rejection, particularly against the immigrant community,
and as you already mentioned it —the problems with the students, street taco vendors, day laborers and so forth— we
arrive to the current situation that can be considered a more vigorous movement. However, we have seen that part of that
movement has been ineffective. In your opinion, what is this awakening lacking, what are the elements to channel it into
something more effective?
SALVADOR REZA: What’s happening —and this is how I see it— is that everybody knows they want legal documents, and
that they want to work without fear, but they don’t know why they’re marching, because we do not dictate the law; we are
just reacting to the laws that the Ultra Right is dictating to us. The Minutemen, who were never autonomous nor a
movement that came out of nothing, rather was a well financed movement, well orchestrated from the high political
spheres; right now, for example, they have penetrated strong sectors of the State Legislature, from where the anti-
immigrant laws are coming out. At the same time, they’ve penetrated the Republican Party at the federal level, where the
propositions are being pushed by them. Yet, we have not been able to put our own propositions or push our own interests,
because we don’t even know what we want. What I mean by this is that —just in Phoenix— you have legislators of Mexican
descent that come out as if they are leading the marches, however, when they take the votes in the Legislature, they vote
for sanctions against employers (who hire undocumented workers), supposedly to punish the employers for the
mistreatment they give to the migrant worker, but they know well that what they are doing is playing the Ultra Right’s game,
because the one who is going to receive the mistreatment, the abuse, and everything else, is the migrant worker. They are
still going to employ them, but they are going to underpay him or they are not going to pay him at all. Not knowing where
we are heading and what we want, some individuals come and tell the workers: “no, what we want is just a work permit.”
Fine, for a day laborer who just arrived to the country, that is being persecuted by the police on 36th Avenue and Thomas
Road or in the City of Chandler or anywhere, and that he’s being harassed, to him a work permit is awesome, but what
they don’t tell him is that he won’t qualify for a work permit, because he doesn’t have stable employment. According to this
proposition —how this law is proposed— implies that he has to be tied to a stable employer, and this comes from Think
Tanks from the Right; they propose what you need to accept and what’s not acceptable. We just react to that, and we react
by saying: “yes, we’ll settle for this.” Now, there is not a profound analysis of what it is, what we can and can't do, and to
what extent we can —without legal documents or not— to influence, if not directly through the vote, indirectly. Many times,
there are movements of marches and all that, but in reality these marches carry out two messages: one from the ones
who seek full citizenship, and the other from the ones that just want a work permit. And the ones who carry out the
message that they want just a work permit are the ones that are going to be heard by the Ultra Right, and probably the
ones that are going to reap the political capital at that level. But the rest of the people are going to be in a worse situation,
because what the reform will bring is the criminalization of thousands and thousands of people, and if you think we are
being persecuted right now by ICE, just wait until this bill Strive Act is approved. We are going to be persecuted, twenty
times more, where they will pick you up from bus stops, the streets, the street corners, and the workplace, so they can
maintain fear against us. That’s why, for me, what we need is just not to fight for whatever we can achieve, but to fight for
what people really wants. When millions and millions of people come out to the streets like they did in the 2006 marches,
nobody really asked them what it is they want. They were told what they could obtain, but never asked the millions of
marchers, “What is it you want?” In the march that just happened on May 1, 2007, nobody was asked what they want; they
were told what’s being sought, but not asked what they want. And if we don’t have a public consultation, in which we really
are representing what people want, then we are not doing things right. Now, if people say, “we want a work permit,” I am
sure that they’re going to add, “yes, we want a work permit, but without having ties to an employer,” then we’d win
something. And if we can get the legislators to accept that, then we are winning even more. I seldom lose political battles;
once in a while, I lose, but very seldom —I lost with the Governor last year. What we need to analyze first is what people
want, and then push it to wherever we can, but not begin from the stance of “no, I am just going to ask for this because it is
all that I can get; this is the little slice of cake they are willing to give me, and that’s all I’m getting.” That’s easy to do when
in reality you don’t have a public consultation with the people, face to face, everyday. For instance, anything that I do, affects
directly in one way or another the day laborers of the Macehualli Day Labor Center, but also the ones that are on the street
corners. I have to be aware of that, because it is easy to say, “you know what, yes, it’s okay, a work permit would be just
fine,” but in the process you are already eliminating about 118 thousand day laborers that are on the streets every day, and
in reality this translates into 500 thousand day laborers. Not just them, you are also affecting all those people who are
going to stay in between jobs, you are affecting all the people that in one way or another are going to be wanted by the law,
and persecuted with new laws which are turning police officers into immigration agents. For one to accept that, one has to
be aware that people know the consequences of what they are accepting. And I don’t believe we are consulting with the
people; what we see is proselytism, as if they (the leaders) are the intellectual ones, the intelligent ones, and the people
don’t know anything, so they are going to tell the people what’s best for them. Unfortunately, that is what’s happening, and
since we don't even have the main stream media or anything else controlled, —the Right does— they can manipulate the
message, send the message, send the message, send the message, send the message —continuously— until all of a
sudden, an Anglo person sees a Mexican national looking for work on the streets, he or she is going to say, “he is a filthy
person, he comes to rob my house, he is a drug addict.” And the message is sent daily, daily, daily, daily, daily, and daily.
We don’t have the means to play it down, and even when we are able to play it down, instead of really playing it down, we
end up playing the game of the same people that are shooting at us the same message through the English TV channels.
Copyright © 2007 Hispanic Institute of Social Issues
Grassroots Journalism
www.barriozona.com
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PART II - For the day laborers' organizer, what's needed is not just to fight for whatever it can be
achieved, but fighting for what people really wants.
By Eduardo Barraza
BARRIOZONA
June 16, 2007
Salvador Reza: Learning From the People