Minutemen

Last Saturday, I met up with some other Chicanos in the L.A. area for a counter minutemen protest. We first went to a protest in Santa Monica, there were only a few minutemen/sos members there but as I was there, I saw several signs these minutependejos were carrying around and parading with. Afterwards we went to the Glendale homedepot protest.

On the Minutemen website, it says they are against “illegal” immigration, yet all of their members carry signs that are xenophobic if not outright racist. Yes, it may seem like I am regurgitating what others are already saying but when you see with your own eyes people carrying signs that say: “No Raza Bronze”, it makes one think what their intentions really are.

For those who don’t know, sometimes Mexicanos and Chicanos are referred to La Raza Bronce because of our brown skin, since brown is similiar to bronze. It makes one think “I thought these people were against “illegal” immigration” but their picket signs say otherwise. Their inability to understand what “La Raza” means enables them to spread misinformation to the general public. They deem “La Raza” as a racist thing but in reality, in spanish it means “The People”. When a Mexican/Chicano says “La Raza” he/she is referring to our own people. The Minutemen twist it and build propaganda that we are calling ourselves “The Master Race”, or “The Race” as pseudo-nazi propaganda. When they twist information in this manner, it is not surprising they gain recruits. The media refuses to report what the SOS members are really saying, all they have to do is look at the SOS forum and see what kind of xenophobic/racist statements they are making.
The minutemen use their campaign and the message of stopping “illegal” immigration as a cloak for their xenophobia and racism. To exercise their hate and disdain for us “browns” as they refer to us as. Joe Turner and company are known to refer us to us as “brownies, browns”. They complain that us “browns” are doing this and that, etc. That us “browns” have no respect for the law when it comes to immigration. They clearly bring out their xenophobia through their statements.

Another simplistic piece of propaganda from the SOS members is that we “browns” are stealing jobs from americans. First of all, newly arrived immigrants clearly do not speak english fluently, so they are forced to take jobs in manual labor. From cooks in restaurants, busboys, field workers, to construction workers, nannys, you name it. However they ignore the “influx” of canadian illegal immigrants who have been proven to have better lives because of their ability to speak english since it is their first language. The Canadians are in more of a position, and HAVE been taking american jobs. However you won’t hear a peep from the SOS/Minutemen regarding this issue.
In their campaign to prove that english is “better”, the SOS forum provided a link to how canadian illegal immigrants are doing better off because they speak the english language. Ignoring the fact that they are “illegal”. They applaud the Japanese for not allowing other languages and forcing immigrants to assimilate, which gives substance to the claims that SOS and the Minutemen are xenophobics.
Lastly, they make a remark that California is turning into a “Third World Cesspool” because of the undocumented immigrants. It is true that the undocumented immigrants are relatively poor and live in poor neighborhoods because they are working meager jobs that do not particularly pay well. They turn and use it as propaganda, it is a well known fact that poor neighborhoods all over the country are not particularly clean because there is not enough tax money coming in for those districts to effectively pay for street sweeper machines and whatnot to keep the area clean. It is not an “illegal” immigrant problem, it is a problem of poverty.

~ by xicano on January 14, 2006.