Indian Country Today May 26, 2005. All Rights
Reserved
Posted: May 26, 2005
by: Roberto Rodriguez

As has been universally acknowledged, Antonio
Villaraigoza's recent victory as mayor of Los
Angeles is of historic proportions. Coupled with
two other major developments, his election takes
on an even greater national, and historic,
significance.
Last weekend, some 40 anti-Mexican bigots were
chased out of nearby Baldwin Park as they went
from protesting immigration to protesting the
Mexican-Indian heritage of the region and
continent.
What drew their ire were several inscriptions on
a monument. One reads: ''This land was Mexican
once, was Indian always and is, and will be
again.'' Another one reads: ''It was better
before they came.'' Artist Judy Baca said that
the latter quote refers to a statement by a white
civic leader who was lamenting the influx of
Mexican immigrants into the area - not an
anti-white statement, as the detractors were
claiming.
The protest revealed that the anti-immigrant
movement is indeed anti-Mexican and anti-Central
American, and that these communities are not
docile and dormant. In response to the protest,
some 500 counter-protesters sent the small group
of extremists scurrying home, reminding the world
that accepting insults belongs to another era.
These hatemongers had been emboldened by the
armed Minuteman militia project (encouraged by
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and egged on by Lou
Dobbs at CNN) that patrolled the Arizona border
last month.
Another equally important development is this
week's inauguration of the Department of Chicana
and Chicano Studies at UCLA. It's been a long
36-year wait, and the symbolism is stark.
Villaraigoza attended UCLA during the early years
of Chicano Studies (early '70s), when students of
color were scarce and not welcome and Chicano
Studies was viewed as an illegitimate discipline.
This was also the early years of MEChA
(Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), a
student activist organization that was also
viewed in a similar light. (Some high schools and
universities across the nation continue to view
MEChA negatively.)
Despite the efforts of the extreme right wing to
demonize MEChA (along with Chicana/Chicano and
Ethnic Studies), Villaraigoza's victory is not so
much a vindication of the era's politics of
decolonization as it is an affirmation of the
larger and current global struggle for equality,
human rights and human dignity.
Villaraigoza's victory comes at a time when the
anti-immigrant movement has been invigorated by
the passage of the REAL ID Act - an
apartheid-type law that restricts undocumented
immigrants from entering federal buildings,
boarding planes and getting a driver's license.
Aren't we all comforted by the knowledge that the
next terrorist who plows a truck bomb into a
federal building, airport, hotel or shopping
center will be fully licensed?
The reality is that it is a fear-driven,
anti-Mexican measure, not unlike many other
Department of Homeland Security initiatives.
While DHS anti-terrorism operations at airports
and other facilities have snagged some 1,100
undocumented workers in the past two years, they
have netted zero terrorists.
This is why Villaraigoza's victory is historic:
because it affirms the politics he has been a
part of since the 1960s. Normally this would be
irrelevant, but his are the politics that the
extreme right has been vilifying for years. It is
these same extremists that have been haranguing
Villaraigoza and other elected officials over
their involvement in the human rights struggles
of that earlier era.
This is also why the inauguration of the Chicana
and Chicano Studies department is of equal
importance and linked to his victory as well as
to the situation in Baldwin Park. Ethnic Studies
is about memory - and this is precisely why it is
in the crosshairs nationwide of those same
forces. Without that memory, the extremists get
to invent their own history and challenge not
just the humanity and indigenousness of the
people, but of the land itself.
The anti-immigrants are deluded by their own
biases, convincing themselves that they are not
anti-Mexican nor anti-immigrant - just
anti-illegal alien. Here's a news flash by way of
every major religion and great world philosophy:
Ningun ser humano es ilegal - no human being is
illegal.
Humanity's challenge is not to create more
illegal categories or larger hunted populations,
but to chart a course for the day when there will
no longer be any more legal or illegal
citizenship or human categories.
That may take 100 years, but that course can be
charted now. Villaraigoza has to run the city of
the future, but if he so chooses, he can also
join in that other leadership role. Either way,
he deserves a historic congratulations.
This is a first-person column by Roberto
Rodriguez. Along with Patrisia Gonzales,
Rodriguez has been writing the syndicated Column
of the Americas since 1994. Rodriguez is pursuing
an advanced degree on the topic of origins and
migrations, and co-teaches, with Gonzales, a
class on Indigenous Geography at UW-Madison. He
can be reached at XColumn@aol.com. (c) Column of
the Americas, 2005.