Prop. 187 has far-reaching implications
by Rodolpho Carrasco
Saturday, May 1, 1999 in San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group
(Rodolpho Carrasco is associate director of Harambee Christian Family Center in Pasadena, Calif. and a columnist for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Check out more articles by Rodolpho Carrasco here.)
Whether he is documented or undocumented was unknown. But before Jose was done clearing the table at Carmine's Restaurant in Manhattan, he had disclosed that he is from the Mexican state of Puebla, he had watched the previous night's soccer game between Mexico and Paraguay, and he lives on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens amidst a burgeoning Mexican community.
Mexicans in New York City -- go figure.
While Californians tried to slam the door on illegal immigraation earlier this decade through Proposition 187, New Yorkers barely noticed as their primarily undocumented Mexican-origin population rose from 56,000 in 1990 to over 300,000 in 1998, the New York Times reported recently.
Figures like this from New York and other states show that California Governor Gray Davis' recent attempt to resolve the five-year-old fracas over Proposition 187 has far-reaching implications for the entire nation.
U.S. Census Bureau population estimates for 1998 reveal that a New York-style Hispanic population boom has occurred in many other states, including those the casual observer might consider least likely. From 1990 to 1997, Georgia's Hispanic population rose from from 109,000 to 206,000; North Carolina, 76,000 to 149,000; Arkansas, 19,000 to 45,000.
These figures are for citizens and documented immigrants. The Census Bureau estimates that another 3.2 million Latinos are undocumented.
The Hispanic population explosion in North Carolina, according to Daniel Ramirez, a Ph.D. candidate in American Religious History at Duke University, can be attributed to the "grim economic picture in places like Mexico, the hostile environment in California, and the readiness of industries to pull in low wage labor wherever they can."
This "readiness of industries" cannot be understated in the current diaspora. Long-time residents of Kentucky, Iowa, and South Carolina understand exactly what their new neighbors have come to do. Not just businessmen, but every day people adroitly explain that Hispanics are filling labor gaps on horse farms outside Lexington, egg processing plants in Sioux Center, and construction near Hilton Head.
One's images of the South hearken to slavery, leading one to expect a similar hostility toward Latino newcomers. But instead there are many exclamations that this primarily Mexican labor force is comprised of "very good workers." Religious leaders are reportedly scrambling to plant churches among the new arrivals, with the support of longtime residents.
There is no Proposition 187 type legislation in the works in these areas. But it is only a matter of time before illegal immigration is publicy and vehemently debated. The prospect unnerves me, because Latinos in these non-traditional Latino locations have less resources with which to protect themselves. It may be odd to imagine, given that nearly half of the San Gabriel Valley 1.8 million residents are Latino, and that Los Angeles County is home to four million Latinos, that Latinos somehow need protection. If anything, media images and stereotyping often portrary Latinos as the people from whom one needs to be protected. But many Latinos are poor and marginalized, and indeed in need of protection.
The Bible, natural law and plain old common sense tell us that we have an obligation to protect those who are weak. When I try to imagine solutions to the illegal immigration dilemma, that is what I have in mind, a moral obligation. I continue to oppose Proposition 187 for this reason. I do not oppose 187 because it's a Latino thang and I am forced to march lock-step with the group, nor because I hold some radical, pre-Columbian ideal of re-conquering the Southwest for Mexico. Much to the contrary, the pro-187 position has many merits, chief among them the concerns for use of public dollars and the degree to which our nation may be Balkanized by unacculturated newcomers.
Governor Davis has proposed a mediated solution to illegal immigration. The advantage to this approach is the possibility that people on both sides may emerge not only with some satisfaction, but with an open dialogue toward further resolutions.
Whatever emerges, justice demands that we remember the weak like Francisco Renteria. Francisco, a twentysomething Mexican immigrant, lost his life at the hands of police brutality four years ago in Lincoln, Nebraska, another one of these funny places where Latino immigrants are popping up. Officers had a warrant for a suspect fitting Francisco's description, but they got the wrong guy. Nevertheless, says the family, he was an easy target and they teed off on him. After being hog-tied in the back of a squad car, he choked on his own vomit and died in the hospital the next day. The family had few local legal resources to turn to, so attorneys from other states who were members of the family's religious denomination stepped in. Eventually they settled a wrongful death suit where the Lincoln police department paid $200,000 to the family.
Was it bad cops? Good cops gone bad for the moment? Was there an social environment that said they would not have to be accountable for what they did to a weak person like Francisco? These are the questions, not just questions about public tax dollars and American cultural character, that Governor Davis's mediation must answer, and to which we the electorate must hold them accountable.
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