The tremendous explosion of marches in Los Angeles, Dallas and other cities across the U.S. heralds the rise of a new civil/human rights movement among undocumented workers and their allies. Max Blumental’s reported on the Los Angeles march on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/sensenbrenner-awakens-a-s_b_17894.html I have just returned from the largest, most energized demonstration I have ever witnessed in my life. Over 500,000 people filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles to march against HR 4437, a bill authored by Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner … which would turn 11 million undocumented immigrants into felons, punish anyone guilty of providing them assistance, and construct an iron wall between the US and Mexico.
The rally reached a crescendo as thousands of demonstrators lined the walls and bridges above the 101 freeway waving flags and cheering while an endless parade of cars and trucks blasted their horns in support. It was the sound of a sleeping giant awakening.
The past weeks has been nothing less than a political earthquake, comparable to the beginnings of the African-American Civil Rights movement. The rumblings of this new movement are part of a continent wide indigenous awakening, starting among the Native and Inuit peoples and spreading to Mestizos/Chicanos/Cholos and mixed bloods. It will lead to the new Western Hemisphere/Turtle Island/Pacha Mama civilization of the Eagle-Quetzal-Condor.
John Curl, a European-American man went to the First Continental Conference of 500 Years of Indian Resistance in 1992 in Quito, Ecuador. His report back, The Dance of the Condor begins: Many thousands of years ago the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South joined their tears to form Central America, concentrating their wisdom on that small piece of earth….[land of the Quetzal bird and the Zapatistas]“When the Condor of the South and the Eagle of the North come together again, the union of their tears will heal the wounds of the Indian peoples and fortify their spirit, body and thought. A new generation will spring forth who will reach out their hands to end oppression, exploitation and injustice, and will write the word liberty in the sky.”
This vision is elaborated further in my on line journal: Eagle-Quetzal-Condor:
http://fc.umit.maine.edu/~robert.mendoza/newjournal.htm
We may have a coup by an openly right wing Christian fascistic government in 2008, if it the defeat of the Republican candidate cannot be prevented by fear tactics and vote rigging. This new fascism, if it can direct this hatred against undocumented workers from Mexico, could lead to race/civil war. Samuel Huntington sets the stage for this in his book, The Hispanic Challenge: The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from Los Angeles to Miami—and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream.
A plausible reaction to the demographic changes …could be the rise of an anti-Hispanic, [really anti-Native] anti-black, and anti-immigrant movement composed largely of white, working- and middle-class males, protesting their job to immigrants and foreign countries, the ‘perversion’ of their culture, and the displacement of their language.
White nationalism is “the next logical stage for identity politics in America,” … making the United States “increasingly at risk of large-scale racial conflict unprecedented in our nation’s history.”
“Such a transformation would not only revolutionize the United States, but it would also have serious consequences for Hispanics, who will be in the United States but not of it…There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English.”
But this Anglo-Protestant dream has never been Indigenous peoples dream.
Actually, the Indian-Dream-in-America was one of harmony and peace with the land and co-existing with all of the elements on Mother Earth. Since the European-Dream-in-America had little to do with peace and harmony, it became a nightmare for Native peoples.
Ramon Lopez-Reyes
While Huntington and his ‘Clash of Civilizations’ ideas speak for the elites of this country, I think that we Native and Chicano people need to follow the example of the Zapatistas. To organize our people as a revolutionary force for democratic change, and to set our goal as nothing less than a new Indigenous based civilization in the Western Hemisphere. The old Anglo-Protestant dream has turned into a nightmare for our people and for all poor and working class people in this hemisphere. It is time to start building a new civilizing movement in the U.S. that will replace it. Young people, poor/working class people of all races—all who also have a great love for this America/Turtle Island—will join us in this great undertaking.
John Curl talks further about the role of European-Americans in this new movement:
“…our civilization has not yet made its peace with this continent: we are on it but not yet of it. To become indigenous people, European-Americans must first make our peace with history and with the Indian people. What has been lost in the European-American version of liberty, is community. We have gained mobility but have paid the price of rootlessness. “
“… it is time for us to grow up and face the historic realities of the European invasion of the Americas in all its pain, time for us to turn to a new mythology…In looking for new myths, where is there to turn but backwards, to the very oldest stories of our hemisphere. Here in America (or in Appia-Yala, as they say in the Andes), perhaps our greatest hope for a livable future lies in the joining of the Condor’s and Eagle’s tears.”
Our people will lead this new movement, just like Blacks led the earlier civil rights movement. But we must reach out and makes alliances with other oppressed groups, especially Blacks and Asian Americans. We must also join with the anti-war, anti-globalization and environmental justice movements. Encourage them to take heart in the courage and organization shown in these huge marches. Imagine how large the size of the movement to stop the war in Iraq (and possibly Iran) could be if these movements joined together as allies in a common fight for justice, peace, economic democracy and environmental justice. This is how we can rise above strictly identity politics and become a broad based movement that will create lasting change for the better in the U.S. Si, si puede! Yes, we can!
Bio: I am Native (Muscogee) and Chicano (Spanish/Tarascan/Basque) and have been a writer and political organizer for the Native, Latino, anti-war, Bioregionalist and Green movements for over 35 years. I am currently helping organize a Maine Social forum and starting a new Journal of spiritual politics called: Eagle-Quetzal-Condor. I am also an intern with the Mexico Solidarity Network.
I can be reached at: quetzalhombre<<>>gmail.com
