Phoenix, Arizona, June 16, 2007 - Barriozona: Based on the current immigration context in Arizona
—and elsewhere in the country— what are the challenges that we can expect in the immediate
future?
Salvador Reza: Basically, within the context of the United States, it is very difficult to picture how
the situation can improve, because even if the situation improves for some people, it is going to
become worse for others. Even if it is possible for some people to be included in the famous
immigration reform —if it is approved, in the first place— many of them are going to be automatically
deemed as “criminals.” We don’t think the way out of this can be found in that direction; of course,
we are going to put up a fight to include everyone that can be included in the immigration reform.
At the same time, and for our own benefit, we need to arrive to a greater sense of awareness, to
reach a point where people know their history, so they can know where they come from, and be, in
a given moment, in the same position as Joe Kennedy, the Western Shoshone Native American man
who on March 27, 2007, traveled to Guatemala and entered this country on his Western Shoshone
passport (not the official U.S. passport), because he recognizes himself as a Native American, and
because his own people recognize themselves as Native Americans; they were able to travel all the
way to Guatemala with their Tribe’s passport to attend the III Continental Summit of Indigenous
Nations and Pueblos of Abya Yala, and return, and then go to Europe using the same passport, and
return. Now, we are not at that level —I am talking about the Mexican people, the Chicano people,
those who have had their memory stolen. We are not at that level because, how can we go before
the immigration authorities and tell them: “you know what?, I am Native American,” when the
individual doesn’t even see himself as one, you see?, when you don’t even recognize it. For us,
that is the struggle that we have in the long term. In the short term, education is a priority, to
achieve awareness at all levels possible, and to try to preserve the opportunities that have opened
up, like the Macehualli Day Labor Center, the businesses that have been opened through the
street taco vendors, the Tonatierra building that we have; to begin and continue with the Peace
and Dignity Journeys that will resume in 2008, and the international links with South America —I
called it “America” because that is the common term, but in reality it is “Abya Yala”, which is the
name of our Continent—; all these achievements where having links with the Peoples and among
the same Peoples is going to change the national states. If we are not linked to those Peoples, the
national states aren’t going to change. For example, thanks to these links among the Peoples, —
when all the Native American Peoples attend, represented through the United Nations Permanent
Forum on Indigenous Issues— and when they come before the Papal Nuncio, and the Papal Nuncio
tells them that the Papal Bull Inter Caetera is abolished, in other words, that the Vatican has
revoked it and it is not valid any longer, that is a change, isn’t it?; at least on the legal level. The
Papal Bull wouldn’t have been abolished without the pressure these Peoples applied. That’s what
needs to be done. Here in Arizona, we need to work at the “ant’s level,” because we have to be
working in the neighborhoods, to continue working with the Calpullis —even if the families don’t call
themselves Calpullis—, people assemblies, or however we may want to call them, produce the
same effect and work toward the same goal; where instead of trying to have, as I mentioned
earlier in this interview, massive mobilizations of people, we need to do the work in each
neighborhood and manage to organize —the basic organization that is needed—, so we can later
have —for example, when something is going to be submitted for a vote, or when we’re voting for
a candidate—, to have at least the network to be able to say, “you know what?, in the city of Mesa,
we have to drive Russell Pearce out of office,” and that there would be quite a bit of people to drive
him out, or to another politician like Jim Weiers, or someone like State Representative Ben Miranda
—why not say it— so we can at least “hold his feet to the fire” and tell him: “how can you be voting
(in favor) of these initiatives, when you claim to be on our side?” That is what the people need to
do: to avoid being used, manipulated or bossed around, like politicians like to do to them.
Barriozona: Is it easier for people to be followers of a so called leader that gives them “the
formula” and who tells them, “you just follow me,” than to be willing to work at the family and
neighborhood levels that you talk about?
Salvador Reza: Look, it depends on the type of work you do. People become mobilized because
there is a void, and when there is a void, a voice in the void is heard. The void is the lack of real
organization, and the organizations that we have are media-centered; they’re media-centered
either by the same political powers of the City of Phoenix, the various non-profit organizations, or
even organizations such as Inmigrantes sin Fronteras (Immigrants without Borders), that manage
the media very well. Therefore, they control the message. Since the void is there, that voice is the
one that makes the call. Nevertheless, the true work is going to be the work that is done in the
neighborhoods. Besides that, if there’s a mobilization, and since there’s nothing else available out
there, people are going to become involved, because they are desperate. Many people tell me:
“you know, I am going to participate in the march,” so I ask them, “why are you going to
participate,” and they answer me, “because there has to be a change in the immigration reform,”
so I ask them again, “do you know what is being demanded by that march?,” and they reply to me,
“well, to achieve an immigration reform,” so once again, I ask them, “Okay, regarding the guest
workers program, do you specifically know what this program is all about, do you know workers
would need to be tied to an employer?”, so they ask me, “what do you mean I have to be tied to
an employer?”, so I explain to them, “only if an employer requests you, you will be allowed to
come; if no employer request you, you won’t be able to come; do you know that? And they don’t,
they don’t know about that. So regarding these issues, leaders don’t make enough information
available for the people; it is handled with ambiguity. This is like handling democracy, isn’t it? —
everybody is pro-democracy— but they ignore what “democracy” means, and they ignore it
because the democracy they’re familiar with is like the nationalism, is like the mother country, and
that’s what happens. I think that individual leaders within the system that we operate are going to
continue having an effect, and will continue to mobilize people —let’s say 100 thousand people—,
but when the demonstration is over, these 100 thousand people go back to their homes and
continue in their same routine, and they don’t become organized in their neighborhoods, they don’t
become organized in their schools, they don’t become organized in their churches —perhaps
churches are somewhat more organized, because they already have an organizational system.
Then, for example, when school personnel are mistreating their children, or the children are not
being taught properly, they do not go to put pressure at the school, to the superintendent or to
the teacher so they can change their behavior. There is where the changes are done or aren’t, and
as a result, —for example, by now— we should have an organized people, so Tom Horne, Arizona’s
Superintendent of Public Instruction, wouldn’t be able to implement the “English Only” policy, which
is even more damaging for us than many other issues, because they say, regarding the children,
“sure, they can attend school because the Supreme Court establishes that,” but once in the school,
if they speak Spanish, they are punished; they also punish the teacher if they speak Spanish.
Shortly after, on another instance, if someone goes to a City’s department requesting some
information, personnel ask people for their documents that prove their legal status. They ask, “are
you sure you are a legal resident in the United States?”, because they don’t speak to them in
English. So the “English Only,” and all these are matters that can be changed, if we were
organized. If we are not organized, then a voting takes place there in the Legislature, and the
Legislature always wins. That’s why we need to be sophisticated, and by this I don’t mean that
many organizations are not sophisticated, there are having a great deal of sophistication, such as
the organization called “We Are America,” and the unions; there’s much sophistication, but even
they don’t come from the base up, but the opposite. Of course, they stopped the initiative that
Legislators wanted to approve, the plan to make police officers function as immigration agents.
“We Are America,” with the help of the unions, stopped that initiative. They challenged the votes,
they challenged the signatures; they played the same game legislators play, and they stopped it. If
that initiative would have become a law, we’d be in a much worse situation than we are now. But
the City itself made known that they made a deal with Homeland Security to train ten cops and ten
immigration agents, and those ten cops are going to eventually become one hundred, one
thousand, three thousand; shortly after, all police officers are going to be enforcing immigration
laws. Another change in tactics the police made, is that they do not let go of drivers who have a
bogus Mexican driver license, when in the past they didn’t care whether it was legal or not; but
now they are verifying that; if the Mexican license is bogus, they are going to automatically charge
the driver with possession of fraudulent documents, they’ll put the driver in jail without bail; they
don’t allow them to be bailed out anymore; then they just deport them, as simple as that. So they
are utilizing the same tactics used by ICE, but they don’t call themselves immigration agents. So in
sum, if we are not organized, we won’t be able to stop these practices.
Barriozona: Are we better or worse in the year 2007, than when Salvador Reza, the child, was
swatted three times in kindergarten for speaking Spanish?
Salvador Reza: We are worse now, because we are being swatted invisibly.
—and elsewhere in the country— what are the challenges that we can expect in the immediate
future?
Salvador Reza: Basically, within the context of the United States, it is very difficult to picture how
the situation can improve, because even if the situation improves for some people, it is going to
become worse for others. Even if it is possible for some people to be included in the famous
immigration reform —if it is approved, in the first place— many of them are going to be automatically
deemed as “criminals.” We don’t think the way out of this can be found in that direction; of course,
we are going to put up a fight to include everyone that can be included in the immigration reform.
At the same time, and for our own benefit, we need to arrive to a greater sense of awareness, to
reach a point where people know their history, so they can know where they come from, and be, in
a given moment, in the same position as Joe Kennedy, the Western Shoshone Native American man
who on March 27, 2007, traveled to Guatemala and entered this country on his Western Shoshone
passport (not the official U.S. passport), because he recognizes himself as a Native American, and
because his own people recognize themselves as Native Americans; they were able to travel all the
way to Guatemala with their Tribe’s passport to attend the III Continental Summit of Indigenous
Nations and Pueblos of Abya Yala, and return, and then go to Europe using the same passport, and
return. Now, we are not at that level —I am talking about the Mexican people, the Chicano people,
those who have had their memory stolen. We are not at that level because, how can we go before
the immigration authorities and tell them: “you know what?, I am Native American,” when the
individual doesn’t even see himself as one, you see?, when you don’t even recognize it. For us,
that is the struggle that we have in the long term. In the short term, education is a priority, to
achieve awareness at all levels possible, and to try to preserve the opportunities that have opened
up, like the Macehualli Day Labor Center, the businesses that have been opened through the
street taco vendors, the Tonatierra building that we have; to begin and continue with the Peace
and Dignity Journeys that will resume in 2008, and the international links with South America —I
called it “America” because that is the common term, but in reality it is “Abya Yala”, which is the
name of our Continent—; all these achievements where having links with the Peoples and among
the same Peoples is going to change the national states. If we are not linked to those Peoples, the
national states aren’t going to change. For example, thanks to these links among the Peoples, —
when all the Native American Peoples attend, represented through the United Nations Permanent
Forum on Indigenous Issues— and when they come before the Papal Nuncio, and the Papal Nuncio
tells them that the Papal Bull Inter Caetera is abolished, in other words, that the Vatican has
revoked it and it is not valid any longer, that is a change, isn’t it?; at least on the legal level. The
Papal Bull wouldn’t have been abolished without the pressure these Peoples applied. That’s what
needs to be done. Here in Arizona, we need to work at the “ant’s level,” because we have to be
working in the neighborhoods, to continue working with the Calpullis —even if the families don’t call
themselves Calpullis—, people assemblies, or however we may want to call them, produce the
same effect and work toward the same goal; where instead of trying to have, as I mentioned
earlier in this interview, massive mobilizations of people, we need to do the work in each
neighborhood and manage to organize —the basic organization that is needed—, so we can later
have —for example, when something is going to be submitted for a vote, or when we’re voting for
a candidate—, to have at least the network to be able to say, “you know what?, in the city of Mesa,
we have to drive Russell Pearce out of office,” and that there would be quite a bit of people to drive
him out, or to another politician like Jim Weiers, or someone like State Representative Ben Miranda
—why not say it— so we can at least “hold his feet to the fire” and tell him: “how can you be voting
(in favor) of these initiatives, when you claim to be on our side?” That is what the people need to
do: to avoid being used, manipulated or bossed around, like politicians like to do to them.
Barriozona: Is it easier for people to be followers of a so called leader that gives them “the
formula” and who tells them, “you just follow me,” than to be willing to work at the family and
neighborhood levels that you talk about?
Salvador Reza: Look, it depends on the type of work you do. People become mobilized because
there is a void, and when there is a void, a voice in the void is heard. The void is the lack of real
organization, and the organizations that we have are media-centered; they’re media-centered
either by the same political powers of the City of Phoenix, the various non-profit organizations, or
even organizations such as Inmigrantes sin Fronteras (Immigrants without Borders), that manage
the media very well. Therefore, they control the message. Since the void is there, that voice is the
one that makes the call. Nevertheless, the true work is going to be the work that is done in the
neighborhoods. Besides that, if there’s a mobilization, and since there’s nothing else available out
there, people are going to become involved, because they are desperate. Many people tell me:
“you know, I am going to participate in the march,” so I ask them, “why are you going to
participate,” and they answer me, “because there has to be a change in the immigration reform,”
so I ask them again, “do you know what is being demanded by that march?,” and they reply to me,
“well, to achieve an immigration reform,” so once again, I ask them, “Okay, regarding the guest
workers program, do you specifically know what this program is all about, do you know workers
would need to be tied to an employer?”, so they ask me, “what do you mean I have to be tied to
an employer?”, so I explain to them, “only if an employer requests you, you will be allowed to
come; if no employer request you, you won’t be able to come; do you know that? And they don’t,
they don’t know about that. So regarding these issues, leaders don’t make enough information
available for the people; it is handled with ambiguity. This is like handling democracy, isn’t it? —
everybody is pro-democracy— but they ignore what “democracy” means, and they ignore it
because the democracy they’re familiar with is like the nationalism, is like the mother country, and
that’s what happens. I think that individual leaders within the system that we operate are going to
continue having an effect, and will continue to mobilize people —let’s say 100 thousand people—,
but when the demonstration is over, these 100 thousand people go back to their homes and
continue in their same routine, and they don’t become organized in their neighborhoods, they don’t
become organized in their schools, they don’t become organized in their churches —perhaps
churches are somewhat more organized, because they already have an organizational system.
Then, for example, when school personnel are mistreating their children, or the children are not
being taught properly, they do not go to put pressure at the school, to the superintendent or to
the teacher so they can change their behavior. There is where the changes are done or aren’t, and
as a result, —for example, by now— we should have an organized people, so Tom Horne, Arizona’s
Superintendent of Public Instruction, wouldn’t be able to implement the “English Only” policy, which
is even more damaging for us than many other issues, because they say, regarding the children,
“sure, they can attend school because the Supreme Court establishes that,” but once in the school,
if they speak Spanish, they are punished; they also punish the teacher if they speak Spanish.
Shortly after, on another instance, if someone goes to a City’s department requesting some
information, personnel ask people for their documents that prove their legal status. They ask, “are
you sure you are a legal resident in the United States?”, because they don’t speak to them in
English. So the “English Only,” and all these are matters that can be changed, if we were
organized. If we are not organized, then a voting takes place there in the Legislature, and the
Legislature always wins. That’s why we need to be sophisticated, and by this I don’t mean that
many organizations are not sophisticated, there are having a great deal of sophistication, such as
the organization called “We Are America,” and the unions; there’s much sophistication, but even
they don’t come from the base up, but the opposite. Of course, they stopped the initiative that
Legislators wanted to approve, the plan to make police officers function as immigration agents.
“We Are America,” with the help of the unions, stopped that initiative. They challenged the votes,
they challenged the signatures; they played the same game legislators play, and they stopped it. If
that initiative would have become a law, we’d be in a much worse situation than we are now. But
the City itself made known that they made a deal with Homeland Security to train ten cops and ten
immigration agents, and those ten cops are going to eventually become one hundred, one
thousand, three thousand; shortly after, all police officers are going to be enforcing immigration
laws. Another change in tactics the police made, is that they do not let go of drivers who have a
bogus Mexican driver license, when in the past they didn’t care whether it was legal or not; but
now they are verifying that; if the Mexican license is bogus, they are going to automatically charge
the driver with possession of fraudulent documents, they’ll put the driver in jail without bail; they
don’t allow them to be bailed out anymore; then they just deport them, as simple as that. So they
are utilizing the same tactics used by ICE, but they don’t call themselves immigration agents. So in
sum, if we are not organized, we won’t be able to stop these practices.
Barriozona: Are we better or worse in the year 2007, than when Salvador Reza, the child, was
swatted three times in kindergarten for speaking Spanish?
Salvador Reza: We are worse now, because we are being swatted invisibly.
Salvador Reza: A Long-Term Struggle
The organizer analyzes the difficult social and labor landscape, talks about education as a
foundation of historical affirmation, and insists that the immigrant struggle will be won through
neighborhood-level organizing.
foundation of historical affirmation, and insists that the immigrant struggle will be won through
neighborhood-level organizing.
By Eduardo Barraza Read Part I Read Part II
Eduardo Barraza is a journalist and writer,
Barriozona Magazine's editor, and director of
the Hispanic Insitute of Social Issues.
E-mail: editor@barriozona.com
Barriozona Magazine's editor, and director of
the Hispanic Insitute of Social Issues.
E-mail: editor@barriozona.com
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MOBILIZING "People become
mobilized because there is a void, and
when there is a void, a voice in the void
is heard." Photo by Jonathan E.
Barraza/BARRIOZONA
mobilized because there is a void, and
when there is a void, a voice in the void
is heard." Photo by Jonathan E.
Barraza/BARRIOZONA
