Posted on 12/12/2003 5:00:51 PM PST by stevie_d_64
LOS ANGELES - Hundreds of Hispanics protested the repeal of a law allowing illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, taking to the streets Friday in a statewide boycott of schools and businesses.
AP Photo
The daylong boycott was intended to highlight the economic contribution of California's Hispanic community, the nation's largest.
About 400 people marched into East Los Angeles, waving signs that read, in Spanish, "Yes, we can" and "We want licenses now."
"People come to this country for opportunity. That's what we're fighting for," said Pablo Lopez, 44. Lopez said he was an illegal immigrant for 12 years and drove without a license, but was always afraid of getting stopped and deported.
"We come here to work hard and we have family that we have to protect. If we don't have a license, we won't be able to do that," he said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) fulfilled a major campaign promise last week when he repealed the license law, signed in September by then-Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites).
The extent of the boycott was not immediately clear. At 11.9 million, Hispanics make up about a third of the population of California.
The protest was planned to coincide with the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Planned events included a march of school children in Los Angeles and rallies in San Jose and San Francisco.
At least one school system tried to pre-empt a student walkout. The Santa Ana district offered to raffle off a color TV for those who came to school, and sent home a note to parents urging them not to keep their children home.
In downtown San Jose, more than 150 people set out on a march to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Jesse Castaneda, 38, said Friday's strike is just a start.
"It's kind of awakening a sleeping giant," said Castaneda, who is Mexican-American. "They talk about illegal immigration, and they want to get rid of all the illegal immigrants. What would happen at a state level if that were to happen? They'll realize that we are needed here."
Another target of the boycott was Clear Channel, which owns 1,200 radio stations nationwide and broadcasts a Los Angeles-based talk show that Hispanics say frequently attacks immigrant rights. Clear Channel did not immediately return calls.
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Associated Press writers Deborah Kong and Gillian Flaccus contributed to this report.
What planet is this guy from? America was built by the sweat of european and asian labor - not Mexicans. All they want to do is come here and take away the fruits of other peoples labor.
Needed? Since when do we need our neighborhoods Mexicanized and destroyed by them? What right do they have to come here and plunder the welfare system and place the Burden on American taxpayers? What right do they have to try to tell us what to do?
Do you think Vicente Fox would tolerate this insanity for a moment? No!! Why are we?
Goody! Now take a look around before everything turns green and red and is printed in spanish. Take some pixs too, `cause if you get your little wish and after the pc history police get done in 20 years this version of America will be passed off as the former nazi era, and will be lied about in the "schools." You know, before the wonderful, smart, highly productive, no handouts accepted, tax paying, non-bigoted, openminded, law abiding, "future southern citizens" decided to pack up their wildly benifical personal wealth along with their occasionally disease infested couisns, brothers, grandmothers, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, sisters, and "immigrate" north using the international illegal invasion idea.
Why hell, not much more than 3 - 5% of them are carrying malaria, head lice, leprosy, multi drug resistant (MDR) TB, and hepatitis A, B, and C, Chagas Disease, Hemmorhagic Fever, E-coli intestinal parasites and Dengue Fever! What difference will an additional 1.8 to 2.3 MILLION criminals per year make?
Shoot, have `em move right on in my back yard and they can play their polka from pluto music till 2-3 am every frickin day! And by the time they crush the infrastrucure COMPLEATLY and the schools are only in spanish and the hospitals create more illness than they cure I will be just floating on air about the "new progresive" America!
Now, back to reality . . .
My family came to this continent before there were immigration laws, before immigrating here was a popular idea, before there was a united States of America and dang near before there was ANYTHING besides dirt, rocks and trees to immigrate to. We ran around with the likes of more folks that you USED to read about in history books (when "history" was not considered to be a political issue and was regarded as a science) which built this country from scratch than I can usually recall. From the Virgina Colonies to the initial western expansion, when the west was considered to be anything further than 200 miles from the eastern coastline. We had more family fight in most major battles in the Civil War than most entire towns contributed in the entire war. We were in every war this continent fought in anywhere on this planet, participated in every expansion of European civilization from the shores of the Atlantic to the Pacific.
In short, one could say I damn sure got a horse in this race. I consider your attitude and ideas to be non-productive at best, worthless as a whole and subversive on the occasion. The idea that a bunch of ignorant racists from a third world county are going to run me and mine out is not only naive to the point of endangerment, it is something we have F - O - U - G - H - T _ _ W - A - R - S over, both on this continent and the continent we came from. By the way, we still own all that land as well.
Of course, I could be wrong. We have only been successful at this for a mere 600 years as a family. We could be overrun at any minute . . .
TLI
The one I'm living in now hasn't been yet, but I know it's coming. No community in the country will be spared from the government's incompetence and sellout of its own people.
You let your indignation get the best of you on that one.
Hehe... check around in some of the factual posting of this thread for projected population balances in the next thirty years.
Guess what. Even the most conservative projectiions place Mexicans as the overwhelming majority in the United States by 2030.
That's population, voting, political, social, and economic majority dear friend.
This is not my projection. These are scientific projections by knowledgabel unbiased people making them based on 2003 trends and averages from the past twenty years.
When you're talking about your "lineage," trust me, I'm right there with you on heritage and longevity on this continent (I can trace back to 1100).
But none of that matters now. Notta. Not even.
Our own personal lineage, history, and sovergnty with the good ole' USofA is about to go up as a vapor on a hot summer day.
You watch, in the next six months, Dubya is going to grant blanket amnesty (as was also done in 1996).
About 2 years ago private developers moved in and began rebuilding the neighborhood.
Now the Mexicans are gone becaused they can't afford the rent. Basically we priced them out. So, our neighborhood is regaining respectability and the Mexicans had to move somewhere else and find another area to destroy.
I have been all over the United States and I have yet to see a neighborhood that they have moved into and improved.
Good luck finding a new place to live.
In a few years they'll probably find a way to make that illegal. Henry Cisneros talked about putting subsidized housing into the more expensive neighborhoods, so I think the plan is unless you own a hundred acres of land you will be forced to accept lower property values and slum conditions.
Welcome to the new America.
We are having a big battle here about HUD wanting to build a housing project in a high class neighborhood. So far HUD's plans have been put on hold.
Why should they be given what other people have had to work for?
It's time for the government to get out of the business of social engineering.
Good analogy. And we need more like that.
And the music. Is there Latino music played at full decibel levels with the accompanying thumps and booms at all hours of the night?
I fled a neighborhood that had become Mexicanized a few years ago and the loud, accordian, horns and Spanish caterwauling music being blasted at all hours was what annoyed me the most.
Not on your life.
Neither party will actually take this subject beyond hints and 'well maybe" until after the election. Sure, there will be some talk, some pressure from below, but neither the two parties nor the media wants to see immigration as an issue in election.
Both parties support illegal immigration, what do they have to debate other than which one has lied best over the past decades?
And, NO I do not believe we need illegal immigration for a single US business to prosper but would wholeheartedly support a guest worker program just as soon as:
All the 'guests' we now host are sent packing and new applicants, with absolutely NO record of ever being in the USA longer than a week end, show up at the recruitment center.
"Guest workers" to be paid fully in accord with our labor laws and have the equivalent of their Social Security taxes held in trust until they leave.
With stringent laws in place restricting the amount of money any bracero could send back to mexico in any year and controls over the banks that facilitate it (Citibank).
And, to promptly return home as soon as US citizens or legal residents apply for the same job and can pass the entry level requirements.
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