There is a new biopic of Cesar Chavez that was screened at the White House on March 19. Some of us were wondering if it would honestly deal with Chavez’s vehement opposition to illegal immigration. Not really. No one for a moment believed that Chavez’s fight to prevent illegal immigration from Mexico would make it onto the screen. Not now that his legacy has been co-opted by the open-borders crowd. The concealment of Chavez’s unambiguous support for a secure and well-regulated immigration system betrays over a century of struggle by the labor movement to protect American workers from excessive immigration – a struggle that current leaders of national labor unions have abandoned.
As the head of the United Food Workers, Chavez used union workers to set up a “wet line” to prevent illegal aliens from crossing the border to break strikes by UFW farm laborers. Chavez unabashedly insisted that the rights and well-being of American workers, no matter their ethnic or racial background, were his first priority, and much of what he said directly contradicts those who pretend who speak in his name. Specifically, he wanted nothing to do with ethnic pandering:
…when you say ‘la raza,’ you are saying an anti-gringo thing, and it won’t stop there. Today it’s anti-gringo, tomorrow it will be anti-Negro, and the day after it will be anti-Filipino, anti-Puerto Rican. And then it will be anti-poor-Mexican, and anti-darker-skinned Mexican….La raza is a very dangerous concept.
Cesar Chavez did support the 1986 amnesty because, like Ronald Reagan who signed it into law, he believed that it would solve the problem once and for all, because that’s what politicians promised. It is impossible to know what Chavez would say now about our porous borders and the plight of working-class Americans. But what Chavez did say and what he did do as head of the UFW is not, as Ruben Navarrette Jr points out, a matter of interpretation:
Chavez earned many titles in his life, but “champion of immigrants” was not one of them. He was primarily a labor leader who was concerned about illegal immigrants undercutting union members, either by accepting lower wages or crossing picket lines. He never pretended to be anything else, and he resisted attempts by others to widen his agenda. When he pulled workers out of the field during a strike, the last thing he wanted was to see a crew of illegal immigrant workers take away his leverage.
When Chavez coined the phrase Sí, se puede, you can be assured it wasn’t a pro-amnesty slogan.
11 Comments
Just a quick comment on Leland’s notes. I could not agree with you more. You hit the nail right on the head. It’s a win win situation for the GOP. For the life of me i cannot firgure out why they embrace two mutually exclusive concepts. Champion birthcontrol via whatever means and cut down on the minority(?) birthrate.. duh!!!!
The filmmakers behind the Cesar Chavez biopic are peddling left wing propaganda under the guise of biography. They are either liars or they did shallow research on the subject of their film.
The charming belief that the the immigartion debacle is only a creation of the left is what will be FAIRs undoing. The main fuel driving this fire is the desire by corporate America to maintain a supply of cheap exploitable labor. The majority of Corporate oligarchs identify as conservatives although this does not stop them from donating to both sides when it suits thier agenda. Add in the desperation of GOP politicians to try and tap into the Latino and other immigrant vote and you have the perfect storm. The dysfunctional nature of the current congress may help keep this at bay through the mid term elections but ” Comprehensive immigartion reform” (not) will go down in the next congress even if a republican majority somehow gets elected. The GOP has to have it to any shot in the 2016 general election and the fix is in.
The Foreign/Corporate Controlled/Funded Open Border Pundts Have No Rationale for Destroying America’s Economy With Overpopulation
So they lie that all Latino back them up. That’s racist against Americans.
If this country did not still have a racism problem, that would not be the case. Its not that black don’t want a job its mainly because whites will not hire many of them.
wrong story.
Chavez was a fighter for immigrants no American workers. This is important too, but lets’ keep it real.
Brenda Get a New Paradigm on You Democrats
They’re simply funded by foreign corporate lobbyists for open borders, with History Channel evidence this NWO influence is also likely overlapping the old American Confederate Secret Society [The Golden Seven]wanting a 2nd Civil War to get their slavery back.
The Confederates/NWO is racist against blacks and Latino [whites too for that manner]; by making current increasing overpopulation strain against America’scurrent legal population citizens’ depopulating stagnant labor force, with more and more wage mitigation insourcing/immigration of unnecessary foreign overpopulation [slavery].
I can guess possible why they won’t hire them.
1) Actual racism.
2) Fear of being called a racist and dealing with issues of terminating a poorly performing black worker.
3) Better qualified workers are available and the employer chooses the best person period.
4) Communication issues where different cultural backgrounds lead to interpretations of statements differently,
but because there is common language the expectation about that communication are different than if one was
dealing with someone who was recently a citizen of another place, so “they” are not expected to know the
little differences and are given some slack.
A story earlier this week said that immigration advocates from this country were urging the pope to support amnesty. A far more productive endeavor would be for the the catholic church to change it’s birth control policies. They condemn it’s use and then insist that the nations like the US and Europe have to take in the third world poor their policies produced.
I really have no idea why the Republican party opposes paying for birth control here. It’s the biggest bargain in the world. I would rather pay for cheap birth control than for some single mother who has seven kids. It’s a two birds with one stone thing. Make women happy, most of whom dislike the GOP for their stand, and cut down on welfare costs. What’s not to like.
Amen — couldn’t agree more. While no one is really “pro-abortion” (it’s generally considered a last resort for birth control), why are so many of the so-called “pro-lifers” also “anti- birth control”? Obviously they’re not thinking things through very well. Consider virtually any environmental problem — climate change, energy and water shortages, species extinction– as well as certain economic issues, e.g., unemployment, the income gap, etc, and over-population is the root cause. We need to protect the USA with immigration control, and the world with birth control. Too bad there’s so few politicians, religious leaders, and journalists who understand this concept.
Wouldn’t matter if they changed their policies…people have to use it….they don’t want to!! These same people…shout out about “my religion, my religion”, when they have all these kids by not using birth control. Oddly, they’ll have sex outside of marriage with numerous partners…..which by the way, is also against “their religion”…funny how that escapes them!! Then we foot the bill to support these kids, because the fathers won’t, or they don’t know who the fathers are. Stop allowing these children born to illegals to be handed citizenship!!! If the parent is here illegally, the child should not get anything from the government, especially citizenship. Nor should kids brought here illegally be handed drivers licenses, education, nor anything else!!! The parents need to see there is a price paid for breaking the laws. However, since none of the electeds have enforced our laws for decades, nothing is going to change the way it should, which is strict ENFORCEMENT..not reform!!!!!