Tony Herrera <[email protected].

NET>

5-20-24

SOME BACKGROUND ON OUR EXPERIENCE WITH THE IMMIGRANT RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN

PHOENIX

It is important to understand the history of how things developed to appreciate where things are at
now. Things are much different than 20 years ago when the immigrant rights movement surged and
seemed to come out of nowhere and commanded everyone’s attention across the country.

How this plays out will affect the immigrant community either positively or negatively for the foreseeable
future as ultimately laws will be put in place to dictate how and under what terms that labor will be put to
use. In addition, it will impact our domestic labor force tremendously as well either positively or
negatively.

My wife (Linda Herrera) and I moved to Phoenix in 2004. Almost immediately we became aware of laws
that were being proposed to penalize the undocumented and make their lives difficult. There was an
intense anti-immigrant campaign focusing on the undocumented presence in our state. Both my wife and
I quickly searched out any organization we could that in any way was involved in the defense of the
immigrant community on the one hand and the Latino community in general. We “reported for duty” to
throw our energy in this fight.

We joined the Arizona Hispanic Community Forum (AHCF) which had its roots going back to the great
Chicano movement of the 60’s and 70’s that arose in Arizona with much activism. There we joined the
efforts going on via this organization. Coming from San Francisco, we were fresh blood coming onto the
scene with new energy, ideas, tactics and a strategic outlook on things. We quickly assessed the
situation and proposed after several months of community involvement a plan for the building of a broad
coalition made up of the best elements working on behalf of the Latino community.

The coalition proposed was to be called "Unidos en Arizona '' and the organizing group that had formed
to head this off was called the "Unidos en Arizona project". It was immediately adopted by the
AHCF. The strategic vision of the Unidos en Arizona proposal was to form a round table made up of our
best leaders and organizations working under an umbrella to tackle the myriad of problems our
community faced, from unemployment to poor health care, poor schools, etc. The immediate focus was
on the attack on the undocumented residents of our community because that's where the attacks were
aimed and a crisis developing. We fanned out and started hitting up every organization and leader under
the umbrella of the Hispanic Forum. That opened doors for us and shortcut the time it would normally
have taken to be able to get the ear of leaders in the community.

INMIGRANTES SIN FRONTERAS, THE SPEAR TIP OF THE UNDOCUMENTED STRUGGLE

We succeeded in gaining recognition quickly especially when we made contact with an immigrant
organization called "Inmigrantes Sin Fronteras". This organization was like no other I have witnessed in
my years of community activism. It grew totally from the grassroots and was composed almost entirely of
undocumented immigrants who rallied around Elias Bermudez, a notary and document preparer who had
a radio show that served as his voice to the community and it became a tool for spreading the word far
and wide. They would organize protests and began setting up an organizational structure with
representation from the entire Phoenix valley and all its surrounding cities. To illustrate the energy and
commitment they had: I was speaking at one of their meetings (of about two hundred or so people) giving
the message of Unidos en Arizona and afterwards they passed a collection hat for their organization. In
about 15 minutes they had collected $2500 dollars! Unbelievable! We (our Unidos en Arizona project
group) were able to gain the confidence of much of their leadership because we recognized the
importance of their organization and helped them in every way we could. However, this was also to the
disdain of our parent organization The AHCF, who saw their leader as a fraud and accused him of
misleading the community. Elias was a Republican I should add which created an interesting situation.

Our message was that the situation of the undocumented is not just because people decided to cross our
borders because the grass was greener on this side. It was because factors directly related to our trade
agreements and policies with the poorer countries created a climate unable to support their
workforce. For example, the NAFTA trade agreement led to the bankruptcy of hundreds of thousands of
small family farms. They went bankrupt unable to compete with our mechanized corporate farming
system that was dumping our corn on their market cheaper than they could produce it. They had no
choice but to leave or face starvation. Central America was a different story as their population and
economies were directly impacted by the U.S. “dirty war” , the civil war in El Salvador or the military
dictatorship in Guatemala, Honduras, etc. People had to leave to flee the violence and corruption. In
short, we pointed to our government’s policies as the culprit behind the massive stream of people leaving
their countries. No one was talking about these realities, as though people jumped our borders leaving
everything they know and loved behind because they simply didn’t want to “wait in line for their turn” and
enter legally.

2006 RIVERSIDE CONFERENCE AND THE DECISION TO ORGANIZAE A MARCH IN PHOENIX

On March 16th of 2006 Armando Navarro convened a conference at the University of California Riverside
to unite the immigrant rights movement around marches to take place in late march. We attended and It
drew about three hundred or so people from around the region who decided that there would be marches
in March of 2006 all across the country. We were able to convince two leadership members of
Inmigrantes Sin Fronteras to attend with us and when we returned, they were all fired up about making
the march happen. Because of the alliances we built with Immigrantes Sin Fronteras we were able to tap
into their base and pull forward some of their best leaders to work with us. We were able to successfully
stage a huge march on March 24th, 2006 of somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 which for Phoenix
is historical. It was a march without a permit on one of Phoenix's major streets, the flood of people kept
coming and there was no stopping the march. Ironically, many of the "old guard" (Democratic Party)
community "leaders" pushed their way to the front of the march as if they were leading it for picture
ops. It was almost funny watching them having nothing to do with making this come about, running after
the march to put themselves at its head. This march represented the first major milestone for Unidos en
Arizona as the variety of activist organizations and participants in making it happen coordinated at our
meetings. The vision of a true grassroots coalition that Unidos en Arizona promoted was beginning to
give fruit. I must emphasize that Unidos en Arizona did not pull off the successful march, we were the
glue that brought the leading elements together to make it a success. Please remember this point as I
believe it holds the key for consolidating and rebuilding our movement.

In addition, that year there were also several work stoppages on the part of undocumented construction
workers and their supporters called by Inmigrantes Sin Fronteras, the largest of which was when around
an estimated 60,000 workers shut almost all construction sites down across the Phoenix Valley. It was
never reported on the mainstream media but the Spanish media routinely reported on it, made a call for
people to bring water for the picket lines, etc. There were picket lines set up at businesses that
contributed to the anti-immigrant hysteria that was sweeping Arizona.

The mass march on the 24th of March of that year moved the undocumented community to stand on its
feet and begin to pro-actively take action on their own behalf.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SEIZED CONTROL OF THE IMMIGRANT RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Unknown to us, the Democratic Party had its eye on Phoenix (and other cities across the country) where
the immigrant rights movement at the grassroots level had broken through the silence and was strong.
They developed a plan to swoop in and assume control of the immigrant's rights movement. They sent
organizers to Phoenix and dozens of other cities, got their unions involved in creating an alternate
coalition and succeeded in pushing the legitimate immigrant leadership that grew out of the grassroots
aside. The immigrant rights movement was still in an embryonic state when they stepped in with all their
hired organizers. In Pheonix, a few of their puppets succeeded in infiltrating Unidos en Arizona and
creating total confusion and sabotaged a follow up meeting of our fledging coalition. The infiltrators sent
out emails saying that the meeting had been moved to a new location (at one of the local union halls) and
urging everyone to spread the word. Before we could react, they succeeded in convincing the majority of
the other forces involved in building that first march to attend. It was a takeover and they finalized plans
to host a much larger march on April 10th. That march drew in around 250,000 and was a great success
from a number’s standpoint. Identical marches were held that day in over 100 cities nationwide under the
“Somos America Alliance” with the theme "Today we march, tomorrow we vote". This was a coordinated,
organized move on the part of the Democratic party to seize control of the grassroots movement and they
successfully pulled it off.

They turned the once great immigrant rights movement into an appendage of the Democratic Party by
turning it into a vast voter registration machine, get out the vote, become citizens those that had papers,
convince your citizen friends and family members to vote Democrat, movement. With the shot of
adrenalin that the immigrant movement provided across the country, they succeeded in harnessing the
wave of energy that the REAL grassroots leadership of the immigrant rights movement had built and got
Obama elected with the Latino vote on the promise to that community that the legal status of the
undocumented would be addressed.

Once Obama got into office, they walked away and let the newly found coalition (they built) flounder. It
still exists today but is a shadow of what it was and no longer a voice for the community. In its wake the
Democrats left the immigrant movement in tatters, its leaders demoralized and burned out which has
lasted until today. Many have since left activism having been shown that it was all for nothing as nothing
changed, only gotten worse. New blood has entered the picture with the introduction of the dreamers
who have taken the reins for their cause but even they have now become disillusioned as promises from
all sides have failed to materialize. The Democratic Party is directly responsible for the state of the
present immigrant rights movement which is splintered and without clear strategic leadership.

CHICAGO STRATEGIC CONFERENCE FOR THE IMMIGRANT RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Unidos en Arizona continued as an organization. We made contacts with our peers in other cities and
started communicating with them. Since the beginning of the Unidos en Arizona project we kept pushing
that we must have a strategic plan, that this was not going to be solved by protests alone and along that
vein we sought out the more advanced elements, those who responded to our message. In 2006 we
attended a conference in Chicago with the title something along the lines of "Strategy meeting for the
immigrant rights movement". We thought we had struck gold because that's exactly what we proposed
needed to be done and there were people who were on the same page as us. Three of us attended
along with about 400 organizers from around the country. You can only imagine our
disappointment when the "strategy conference" was anything but that. To make a long story short, the
only thing that came out of this experience was an agreement to put together a group email list so that we
could maintain communication after the conference was over and everyone went back home. That email
list and the conference in Chicago adopted the name “National Alliance for Immigrant Rights” or NAIR for
short.

We became active members of the NAIR email list and continuously raised the need for plan and
strategy. We were attempting to initiate a polemic to stimulate thinking and debating to come to a
conclusion or disagree. It is a failure to willingly engage each other critically that is stagnating the
immigrant rights movement. I believe it’s fair to say that probably the entire progressive movements in
general (what is left of it) is either stuck pursuing the "protest politics" route or is engaged in a specific
"movement" that is more important in their eyes and don't have time for debate about strategy. That is
not to say that there is not good work going on for immigrant rights but those efforts are dispersed and
without coordination, without a common strategy and objectives.

To our dismay, the NAIR mailing list, though composed of hundreds of organizers, did not engage in
anything remotely related to discussions over what to do. Instead, messages went back and forth about
some activity or protest or march or vigil or press conference, reports of conditions in the detention
centers, the need for street patrols to warn of ice checkpoints, etc., etc. All this is well and good, but it is
not the most essential discussions we should be having, but we could make no dent. Not to belittle all
those engaged in the community on behalf of the immigration rights movement, it is the meeting of what I
call the "thinkers" that is desperately needed. The fact is then as it is today that without a center made up
of the best leaders engaged in this arena, no cohesive movement can emerge, there will continue to be
pockets of resistance scattered around the country operating in the blind each with their own agenda,
their own priorities and engaged in their own local or regional efforts.

Unidos en Arizona was picking up steam and we were well respected among the other forces we worked
with and they listened to our messages and we had a lot of support in the community, people opened
their doors to us freely and sought us out.

At one point we had the president of an association of Hispanic legislators offer to bring a team of lawyers
to sit with us to begin drafting a new bill that reflected the needs of the undocumented. We could not pull
away from our other duties to take advantage of their offer and lost a great opportunity.

I need to mention that those years between 2004 to 2010 were very intense with the level of activity
coming from the community responding to the need to defend itself was unimaginable. Depending on
conditions, things can change and move very quickly and things that might take years to develop could do
so in a matter of months, or days. Such was the experience here. It was like being able to glimpse into
the future and see how a community can move itself, with all its varied forces in motion in a mighty joint
effort, like an orchestra playing a symphony of hope. Taxi companies provided free rides to groups of
people attending demonstrations or marches, restaurants provided free food for thousands of people
engaged in protests and marches. Students walked out of schools across the Phoenix valley, clandestine
clinics were formed as people stayed away from the hospitals for fear of being reported, employers
provided legal help for their workers to help them obtain legal status, etc. Almost all the immigrant
businesses contributed water for marchers or protesters during work stoppages. The community was
alive and, on the march, the energy was high and the community had bought into supporting the fight to
end the persecution and for legalization of their undocumented brothers.

One note on the dreamers is that it created controversy because there was one view that said that they
were splitting the immigrant rights movement by going after a solution for their situation and hung the rest
of the immigrants out to dry. The other view says that something is better than nothing and that once
legalized then they can become a powerful voice for the rest of the immigrant population. I’m not sure
which is the right solution but I lean towards letting a few in the door that can then turn around and help
the rest.

2007 “ENDGAME” THE PLAN TO RID THE COUNTRY OF ALL UNDOCUMENTED

In 2007 we discovered a plan developed by Homeland Security called "Endgame". It was a 12-year plan
to wipe the undocumented community off the face of the U.S. map. We now began to pick up our pace
as this threat was real. We began exposing this plan and called for the immigrant community to start
making preparations for the repression. What will happen to their kids left at school? Their businesses,
their homes, their investments, their aging parents or disabled family members? We started drawing up
plans and guides that people could use to make preparations, such as power of attorney to authorize
someone to take their kids in the event they were no longer around, to conserve their money and not get
into major purchases, to have food stockpiled, to think how they would survive without being able to work
for months on end. We organized support groups made up of undocumented and their friends and
families with the aim of setting up cooperatives, etc. At one point we had about ten such groups with 20 to
30 participants each.

We openly talked about “Endgame” on the radio, in TV interviews, in our flyers in our messages to the
rest of the immigrant rights movement while we worked to create models that other communities could
emulate based on what we were doing. This task had never been undertaken before and the huge array
of tasks related to helping a community survive the repression called for work on many levels from things
as simple as having friends or relative do their shopping, pick up their kids from school to figuring out how
they were to generate income when they started firing them from their jobs when the word reached
employers to clean their workforce of “illegals”.

Luckily Endgame was never fully implemented and seemingly put on a shelf while aspect of its measures
was broken down into pieces and converted into state laws. Such an effort was the SB1070 bill,
introduced in 2010, that criminalized the presence of an undocumented person in Arizona. It passed and
signed into law known as the “show me your papers” law. In 2010.

2010 UNIDOS EN ARIZONA CONVENES ITS FIRST REGIONAL CONFERENCE

Finally in 2010 we were able to organize a conference on the same day as a huge protest march against
SB1070. We published a selected invitation based on an agreement to a criterion we set. For example,
you had to agree to the need to have organized strategy planning among our movement and not be into
"protest politics". There were about five points. So, when we were just getting into our presentation of
the problem and our proposal a couple of busloads of people from LA entered the room and created
havoc. The meeting effectively came to an end. Either it was sabotaged by an enemy who wants to
derail any efforts to unify or the person who was part of the planning, failed to follow the rules we set
when they brought that crowd in. Maybe even more important, it could be that they themselves don't get it
and took it as just another movement meeting that it would be good for students to sit in on. Our attempt
to create a center of strategic planners for the immigrant rights movement failed.

THIS MOVEMENT NEEDS ITS “BRAIN” WITHOUT WHICH IT WILL FLOUNDER

The putting together of the “brain” of the immigrant rights movement remains the most important task
today as it’s only with its best, most committed leaders working together that has links to the grassroots
can the movement move forward with a plan and the ability to see it through. Our experience in Arizona
allowed us to “see” into the future as we were able to catch a glimpse of how a community can organize
itself to fight and defend itself utilizing all its rich talent and creativity.

The threat of the mass deportation that Trump promises regardless of whether or not it takes place must
be taken seriously. While this is the immediate danger the lack of a unified vision and strategy must be
solved otherwise the immigrant community is totally at the whim of politicians whose interests they
represent. The undocumented community must have an organized way to express itself, organize itself
and learn how to use its strength of numbers on every level.

TRENDS NEED TO UNIFY

The immigrant rights movement is composed of various trends working steadily on its behalf. There are
the legislative and electoral folks that take the lead in looking for ways to gain the support of legislators or
electorally back new progressive ones coming on the scene. There are the non-profits providing services
and aid to the immigrant community and finally there are totally grassroots efforts like Unidos en Arizona
that just rolled up their sleeves and go down into the community and started building from scratch utilizing
any and all connections into the community from church groups to community center exercise classes,
union activity, etc., you name it.

What Unidos en Arizona attempted to do was locate others engaged in this movement that saw the same
things we did, to begin to network and lay the groundwork for a pocket of strategic thinking that could
analyze the situation in all its complexity, propose ideas to move us forward and engage in actual
grassroots work building the bases that will be needed for an organized community, not just one that is
called upon to march and protest but is intricately involved in charting its own future. By the same token
the other trends need to seek each other and unify their efforts so it is not a scattering of organizations
each oblivious to the other.

OUR COMMUNITY IS ALREADY ORGANIZED IN SO MANY WAYS

Our community is like a living body complete with limbs and organs. It has a natural nervous system via
networks that extend outwards in many directions. For example there are social organizations like say,
“Club Guanajuato” or “Salvadoreños Unidos” or “Club Guerrero” or block clubs. There are soccer and
baseball or softball leagues of all types, cities, countries, regions. There are church groups, food banks
and distribution, there are free clinics, there are cultural groups and grupos fokloricos, there are
community centers with groups that provide meeting places with specific agendas and so on only limited
by our imagination. These are the natural organizational forms our community takes (all communities for
that matter) that we must be able to tap into. During our time in Phoenix, we saw ALL the various classes
and sectors spring into action from abuelitas to grade school youngsters, from sympathetic police to
teachers, pastors, mother and fathers, high school students, etc. It was so wonderful to see and I thank
God for letting me experience it as it gives me hope that if it was done before, it can be done again. This
time better, deeper, richer. This fighting spirit must be brought back and our old, idle leaders recruited
back into our ranks and new ones brought in by our messages that we need to fan out at all levels using
all means at our dispos

WHERE ARE THESE THINGS EVEN TALKED ABOUT?

One of the things that defined the era when I was coming up in the early 70’s was the proliferation of
debates and polemics that helped define the direction we decided to take. For example, there was the
debate between cultural nationalism vs. revolutionary nationalism. There was the debate between brown
capitalism vs. class outlook, between violence and non-violence. Between reform or revolution. There
was the debate between going and living off the land and starting communes and a model of a new
society vs. working within and changing our current one, etc. Each one was necessary as it helped the
various trends to find each other on the one hand and on the other define their differences and help chart
their direction.

Today the debate isn’t as fundamental as that epoch, its more practical, nuts and bolts, over what to do
and how to do it. Each of the various trends that duked it out in the previous period actually had positive
aspects to them that at the time were not taken into account because there was an extreme tendency of
being black or white. Today, looking back I think of how we isolated allies because they had a different
outlook and how to do things. Today we are much wiser and know an ally when we see one despite the
differences we may have. Do you realize how much knowledge and experience we’ve gained over the
years? We hold the key to helping our movement get out of the stagnation it is in.

CONCLUSIONS

It is my intention to seek out all those who believe as I do that not only can these things be done, that
they MUST be done if our most vulnerable members of our community are to have a fighting chance. I do
not propose to have all these answers, what I propose is that I have ideas and the right questions (as
most of you already do as well). I want to try and get the ball rolling whether or not my reality enables me
to continue my ability to contribute even if in the realm of ideas. Everything starts out as an idea. I don’t
care what it is, be it an invention, a dream of building a business, the solving a problem. Thus, I’m
throwing these ideas out for others to weight them against their own views and assessment of the
situation. If anyone is inclined, lets talk.

In solidarity,

Tony
PS: I will be posting the debate we attempted to start back in 2007 among our peers. In it, you will be
able to see concretely our argument. We were directing our attention to the dominant thinking that it was
enough to engage in endless protests after protests or to tail and kiss ass after politicians. We did not
discount those efforts, only pointing out that they are not strategies to win, they are merely tactical moves
with no long term vision.

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