IMMIGRATION DEBATE: Historical and Global Perspective

November 27 2007

The controlled movement of labor has been essential to the working of the plantation economy since 1492. Criminalizing, and de-humanizing people has made it easier to justify the denial of their basic human rights in this process.

Immigration of people from the Caribbean region to the United States is rooted in the economic history of the region. With the passage of the NAFTA, CAFTADR, GATT, CARICOM, and other free trade agreements in recent years ( since the mid 1970s) the practice of multinational corporations crossing borders without impunity to find the cheapest labor costs, and protect themselves for environmental and safety legislation and local taxes has been codified. At the same time controls on labor who want to cross borders have increased.

The immigration debate in the United States today has roots in U.S. immigration and labor history. The criminalization and dehumanization of immigrants and Latinos and low-wage workers, the denial of citizenship rights to particular ethnic and racial groups that we are seeing today in the United States is not new. It has it roots in the history slavery, plantation agriculture, railroad construction and 19^th century urban sweatshops.

West Africans, forced to migrate to work as slaves on plantations of the Carolinas Georgia and Virginia and Maryland from the 17^th- 19^th century were described by those who owned them, as heathens and barbarians. Still these English Plantation owners were happy to profit from their labor. Any slave who sought their freedom by escaping north was considered a fugitive and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 specified that anyone harboring an escaped slave, even in a free state, were themselves criminals. After abolition when former slaves sought to divorce themselves from the plantation, landowners sought to keep hold of their farm-workers. Southern states passed vagrancy laws that criminalized anyone who refused to return to the plantation. The dream of forty acres and a mule was replaced by the sharecropping system– a form of debt peonage exacerbated by company towns that robbed former slaves of the opportunities afforded European immigrants to seek their fortune when the government gifted Native American land to those who could farm it through the Homestead Act of 1862.

However, first-generation European immigrants also experienced exploitation. In the 1750s English colonists tried to figure out what to do with the influx of Scot’s Irish and German immigrants who had their own way of doing things. They saw German’s inability to speak English as a sign of ignorance. Benjamin Franklin called them the “most stupid of their nation.” Thus stigmatized as second class citizens, they were ghettoized in the outer reaches of the colonies where Franklin’s English-speaking colonists sought to create a buffer between themselves and the Native Americans.

When the potato famine in Ireland led to a huge influx of Irish immigrants to the United States they were shunned, due to their Catholic religion and impoverished condition. They were given the most menial jobs and the lowest wages. Thousands walked off the ship only to board a train for the southwest to fight and die in the U.S. Mexican War (1846-48). Not good enough to be considered proper U.S. citizens, they were good enough for cannon fodder.

In the 1870s railroad and mining companies recruited thousands of Chinese immigrants to blast rock and lay track. They came to the United States to work for reduced wages: the policy on the railroad was ½ of the wages paid white workers. Many lost their lives on the job. Instead of organizing the Chinese workers, the nascent American Federation of Labor led a campaign to ban Chinese workers from the United States. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act did exactly that. Overnight these super-exploited builders of U.S. capital were designated the first “illegal” immigrants.

Anti-Asian sentiment grew during the last decades of the 19^th century leading to the so- called Gentleman’s Agreement in which Japan agreed not to issue visas to Japanese people wanting to come to the United States. The first border guards on the Rio Grande were unconcerned about Mexican immigration. One hundred years ago their only concern was making sure that no-one from China or Japan used the Southern border to enter the United States.

It was not until 1917 that border taxes were issued on the Mexican border to control Mexican immigration. The border tax was selectively enforced: anyone recruited by an employer did not have to worry about the costs. Recruiters for factory-farms would stand at train depots in Mexico and promise high wages across the border. Thus began a century of legal relativism on the border – that is the employer’s needs of the moment and not the “rule of law” decided the legal status and the application of laws on the books concerning immigrant workers form the Caribbean region.

The anti-immigrant movement of the early 1920s targeted primarily Europeans -- Southern and Eastern Europeans, Catholics and Jews, Italians and Poles. Business leaders and labor unions came together to push for immigration quotas. The same organizations that today lead anti-immigrant campaigns, the – They succeeded in pushing through the Emergency Quota Act that specified who was desired (Northern Europeans) – and who was not. The Quota act continued to prohibit Asian migration and citizenship. Native Americans did not become U.S. citizens until 1926.

Although there was much discussion about including quotas for Mexicans in 1924, employers were successful in protecting a population that was becoming their primary source of cheap temporary labor. Geography made Mexicans a favored group for temporary labor – people you could recruit for a season and get rid of when the harvest was done. A pattern of circular migration began. Those who did settle found themselves subject to deportation in the early 1930s. After the Stock market crash of 1929, jobs were scarce. The United States government, the Mexican government, social service organizations, employers and unions cooperated to deport Mexicans, citizen or not, documented or not. About 1/3 of the Mexican-American population left during the early thirties.

One decade later the United States government was in desperate need of workers to fill war-time positions. The Bracero program, begun in 1942 recruited Mexican workers to come and work in the United States for 11 month stints. The Bracero program lingered on for two decades after the war was over and reached its acme in 1954. Three times as many Braceros (Arms) were hired in the mid-fifties -not a period of labor shortages- as during WWII. The Bracero program codified the policy of using Mexican workers for low wage temporary work especially in the agricultural industry. The year the Bracero program ended in 1964, Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers began their long term farm workers’ strike and boycott of Northern California vineyards. Meanwhile U.S. and Mexican businesses partnered to create border factories or maquilas to continue the exploitation of cheap labor on the other side of the border.

In 1952 U.S. Congress passed another restrictive immigration law. The Immigration and Nationality Act barred “subversives” from entering the United States. Those suspected of being homosexuals or communists were explicitly barred. Anyone involved in labor or civil rights work was also considered suspect. Dominant civil rights organizations and labor unions, fearful of landing on a McCarthy-era blacklist, did not oppose the bill.

Historically employers, consumers, politicians, and hate groups have used new immigrants to fill the role of substandard laborer, while vilifying them as outside agitators and/or inferior beings due to their race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference, and organized labor has been unwilling to stand up for the rights of new arrivals.

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In 2007 we have our share of vilifiers. There are the Lou Dobbs’ and Pat Buchanan’s, whipping up anti-immigrant sentiment in small towns and urban neighborhoods. Since December of 2006 the U.S. immigration organization I.CE. has been defying the rule of law, conducting illegal raids of immigrants in their homes, workplaces and communities, with no regard for due process, search warrants and other legal protections. An anti- immigrant, anti-Latino wave is reflected in the way this issue has been discussed on the campaign trail by both political parties. The recent resignation of Cuban American Mel Martinez as chair of the Florida Republican Party, stating his dismay at the racist rhetoric used by presidential candidates on the immigration issue, is one indication that today there is a racial/ ethnic divide in consciousness on this issue.

Today, as in the past, there are also those fighting back. A significant part of the organized labor movement is supporting immigrant rights. In the 21^st Century U.S. labor unions find that they must think globally and act locally if their movement is going to grow. They know that the corporations they work for cross borders at will, to seek the cheapest labor, forcing unions to organize solidarity on an international scale. When workers cross U.S. borders in search of employment, some union locals are welcoming them, with or without documents. These include UFCW, AFSME, SEIU and UAW locals. They are joined by religious organizations; Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim organizations who view the issue as a moral one, pointing to religious scriptures that direct followers to welcome the stranger and seek justice for all. And in our public schools the next generations are developing relationships across ethnic lines and without regard to citizenship status.

Many citizens of color, including Native Americans—the only group who has the right to complain about immigrants in the United States-- are defining immigrant rights as a 21^st century civil rights issue. Organizations like the NAACP and AIM have taken up the issue of immigration as a civil rights issue. Most importantly, immigrants themselves are speaking up, in numbers, that are at least as large as those of any of the largest civil rights and labor and civil liberties movements we have seen in the history of the United States.

Vilifying and criminalizing immigrants and low wage workers while enjoying the fruits of their labor may be a long standing tradition in this country ----but some have decided it is not one we need to preserve.

Anne Winkler-Morey

November 27 2007.

HATE CRIMES Sowing Love

February 14 2007

Sowing Love

Applying for jobs and wondering what a curious perspective employer might find, I googled myself the other day. Turns out I’m on an internet hate list. It is called the “SH*T list of 7,000 self-hating Israel-bashing Jews”. It seems that what the 7,000 on the list have in common is a commitment to join thousands of Israelis in speaking out, as Jews, against Israeli foreign policy.

OK, I know it just the work of one lone kook; and I know it is quite an honor to be associated with the likes of Naomi Kline, Rachel Corrie, Adrian Rich, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky Rabbi Lerner, and Amy Goodman. Still, I felt a pain in my chest seeing my name next to the words “kike bitch.” I imagined how it might effect someone considering me as a future colleague. Being told you’re a self-hater, somehow bites.

I thought about other times in my life when I encountered hate groups.


Early 1980s Mora Minnesota: Members of a local church mobilized to attack gays and lesbians. People from all over Minnesota came to Mora to counteract the organized bigots. My mind is foggy on the particulars. What I remember is standing there with so many strangers in good company, united in our desire to counteract hate.

1989 Northern Wisconsin: Native Americans asserted their spear fishing rights and encountered an angry mob. WAMM, among other groups, organized people to go stand in solidarity.. Signs saying “Spear an Indian, save a Walleye” left a shocking impression. But again those who came to support treaty rights vastly outnumbered the local hate group.

2001 Minneapolis Minnesota: In the aftermath of 9/11, in response to attacks on Arab Americans, students, staff, and faculty gathered at the University of Minnesota to express solidarity with their Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters. It was an unusually diverse crowd. People representing different ethnic racial and religious groups gathered together to speak out against these hate crimes.

2005 Owatonna Minnesota, a march in support of immigrant rights. The circle we formed around the local square was penetrated by a group of European Americans in their 50s and 60s armed with signs saying ‘go back to where you came from.” The ugly looks on their faces strengthened the resolve of those gathered not to rest until every one understands that “no human being is illegal”.

2006 St Paul. The Minutemen, a hate group that hangs out on the U.S. Mexican border and dedicates themselves to harassing immigrants, came to the Minnesota Capital hoping to whip up some support. Instead they were met by three hundred immigrant’s rights advocates. As people gathered to speak and chant and sing, the Minutemen got on their motorcycles and drove away.

More insidious than individual or private hate groups however, are the hate policies of Government. I’m not talking just about historical legally sanctioned hate: slavery, Jim Crow, Indian Removal, Chinese Exclusion, Mexican Repatriation. No, I’m thinking now of the arrests of hundreds of Latino meat packers by U.S. immigration (ICE) in Worthington Minnesota last month, the ongoing torture of Guantanamo prisoners, using techniques aimed at defaming the Muslim religion; our Minnesota Governor’s promise last fall to make sure the children of undocumented immigrant children in will not be allowed in-state tuition; the refusal of our government to fund reconstruction and social construction in impoverished black neighborhoods in New Orleans and Minneapolis, instead pouring more of our young people and money into the destruction of Iraq.

Taking action against hate committed by private groups or by the government, creates some powerful coalitions. The arrests in Worthington have brought together Labor and Latino activists, Christian and Jewish groups, and hundreds of others appalled at the crime of family separation and impoverishment, due to government action. They have been protesting at Coleman’s office and conducting community hearings, organizing relief funds, food and toy drives for affected families. These are actions of self-love, and love-of-humanity- you can tell because they feel good.


Happy Valentines Day

IMMIGRATION, WAR: "Out Now!" A beautiful/ ugly slogan

October 2007

e good news is that as the 2008 presidential campaign heats up opposition to the war in Iraq is overwhelming. Everywhere Democratic candidates go they meet crowds demanding OUT NOW. In red, blue, purple and green regions, rural and urban communities, within virtually all racial groups, creeds and economic classes, majorities oppose the war.

How will the U.S. government maintain legitimacy when the government clearly disregards the will of the people? The people must be distracted! And distracted they are. People have found an issue that rivals, even overwhelms the war as a social cause worthy of their time and passion.

Besides the war, what is inspiring the masses to signing a petition, lobby congress, write a letter, attend a meeting, or actually taking the risk to stand in public with a protest sign? Health care? Education? Mortgage foreclosures? Global warming? Mass transit? Housing?

No my friends, the masses have decided they can accept collapsing bridges and under-compensated flood damage. Overflowing classes, over-inflated mortgages, overheated atmosphere--these can be tolerated.

What raises the blood pressure here in Minnesota, among the heirs of Polish, German, Swedish, Finnish, Italian immigrants today is ATM machines that ask “English or Spanish”. It’s José and Mohamed playing soccer where baseball and Bobby and Jane should be. It’s familia picnics in the park, Muslim prayer rooms and Hmong communal gardens. It’s anytime other-than-English-speaking-people dare to take space formerly filled by the anglo-phonic.

Why, at this historical moment, did English speakers in this Ojibwe and Dakota land get the idea that they have a special right to always understand and be understood? The current self-righteous hate wave here in MN, and around the country, is part of long xenophobic tradition. As the republican candidate Rudy Giuliani said back in 1996, referring to 19^th century Know Nothingists and the Chinese exclusionists, the periodic rise in anti-immigrant sentiment is a pattern in the United States. The Chinese exclusion campaign was a response to a moment when the railway companies were squeezing farmers and workers in every part of the country. Instead of demanding fair wages for all workers they demanded an end to Chinese immigration. The Chinese , who were paid half the wages of white workers, became, overnight , the first “illegal immigrants” and the non-Chinese workers and farmers still had to overcome bosses intent on breaking worker solidarity anyway they could.

The problem for Giuliani today is he is not eager to criminalize low-wage workers he knows are essential to keeping profits high and the cost to consumer goods low. Yet he wants to build support for a criminal war. He knows the anti-immigrant movement does dampen the peace movement as those most squeezed by the war-time economy are susceptible to calls for scape-goating by media jerks like Lou Dobbs.

We who oppose the war have the inverse problem from Giuliani. How do we build a movement for social justice when those who will whisper out now with us are simultaneously shouting OUT NOW to their immigrant neighbors?

When anti-immigrant sentiment emerges in white and black communities that are suffering the most from the war–time economy, communities with more than their share of loved ones in Iraq, who are struggling to cope with the physical and mental wounds of returning soldiers and heal the hearts of those left behind—those communities where the schools are the most crowded, and decent jobs the hardest to find, -we know the corporate moguls are winning at that age-old divide and conquer game.

So what do we do? On the one hand we want to build a movement based on one goal we can all agree on-- bring in the largest numbers. The immigrant rights movement is making the same calculations, concerned that if they talk about the war they will lose support. Hey, as a nominal member of both movements, I do both, that is, I hold my tongue all the time.

But it occurs to me that the cost of not making the connections is that fascism grows.

LABOR, ENVINRONMENT: A new Model for Ford; Workplace Democracy

A New Model for Ford: Workplace Democracy That Provides Win-Win Solutions December 2006

Can you imagine a plan that would save jobs at the Ford plant in St. Paul, fulfill Minnesota’s transportation needs, address the problem of global warming, boost both the Twin Cities and the Iron Range economies, and encourage democracy in the workplace? If that sounds utopian to you, I’m with you. If it sounds impossible, please read on. A group of Ford workers, union members, and environmental activists have come up with a proposal to transform the Ford plant into a publicly owned, worker managed manufacturer of wind turbines and solar-powered light rail trains. Leaders of this effort include Lynn Hinkle, Health and Safety Representative of the United Auto Workers Local 879 that represents the Ford plant, Christine Frank of the Climate Crisis Coalition, and Alan Maki, union organizer and DFL activist. The proposal is a visionary response to four major catastrophes facing our local community, our nation, and our planet: 1) The loss of tens of thousands of union jobs in the auto industry; 2) a climate crisis of global and cataclysmic proportions; 3) an oil-centered economy that is costing thousands of lives in wars to secure petroleum supplies; 4) the global trend toward privatization of industries essential to human needs – like water and transportation, thus increasing global inequality and eroding livable wages. The immediate catalyst for this unique proposal was the recent announcement that in 2008 the Ford Motor Company will be closing its Twin Cities assembly plant on Ford Parkway in St. Paul as part of a major restructuring, destroying 1,885 jobs locally and 30,000 jobs nationwide. Ford’s layoffs and closings follow similar massive downsizing at General Motors. The organizers believe that public ownership and retooling of the Twin Cities Ford plant could be the beginning of a nationwide solution to our transportation needs that puts the needs of workers and society ahead of the profits of CEOs and shareholders. Climate scientists are predicting that we have a small window of opportunity to retool our economies, our priorities, and our energy consumption habits before global warming becomes global destruction. While the climate crisis affects every human being and living creature on the planet, it is highly industrialized nations, especially the United States, where the greatest changes must take place in order to reverse the current trend. What better place to start than at the Ford plant in St. Paul, turning Ford Rangers into solar-powered light rail engines? The majority of people in the United States currently oppose the war in Iraq. Reasons for this opposition vary. However, there is a growing consensus that big oil companies are behind the perpetuation of this unpopular war. Many are appalled by the growing death tolls of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens, in a war that appears to profit only the likes of Halliburton and other multinational corporations. Also there is growing awareness that this “volunteer” army is a working-class army. Our young people deserve decent union jobs and college educations. They are not cannon fodder for oil corporations. The move to endorse the production of E85, the 85% produce-based fuel, is one manifestation of this concern. However, producing corn for fuel does not fulfill our need for nonpolluting sustainable energy. Transforming the Midwest from a bread-basket of the world to another source of dirty energy does not represent a solution to either our needs for clean energy, decent urban and rural jobs, transportation, or sustainable food sources. The natural gas- and water-guzzling E85 may provide a short-term boon to Minnesota farmers. However, it moves us away from an economic model of sustainable agriculture that can feed the Earth’s people and provide a decent living for farmers and agricultural workers. A publicly owned, worker-managed plant that assures decent wages and a product that meets society’s needs would provide a powerful alternative to a world where even resources as basic as water are becoming privileges of the rich. An industrial plant that actually provides blue-collar jobs that fulfill the wage and benefit needs of working families would be a beautiful antidote to the horrific crime of workers without healthcare, and full-time employees without homes that defines our economic reality today. If you think this creative proposal to save jobs at the Ford plant and create environmentally sound mass transit warrants at least a full hearing, then learn more from the United Auto Workers Local 879 or www.ClimateCrisisCoalition.org. You may also want to attend the Labor and Sustainability Conference, where this plan and others to merge labor and environmental agendas for the good of our community will be fleshed out. The conference will take place on January 19 and 20, 2007 at the UAW 879 Union Hall, 2191 Ford Parkway, St. Paul, MN. For more info: lhinkle@peoplepc.com. Sponsored by the Climate Crisis Coalition.