Immigrant Rights in the Shadows of Citizenship

9. What Explains the Immigrant Rights Marches of 2006? Xenophobia and Organizing with Democracy Technology

209 chapter 9 What Explains the Immigrant Rights Marches of 2006? Xenophobia and Organizing with Democracy Technology Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Angelica Salas During the spring of 2006, millions of people, most of them Latino immigrants of various nationalities and ages, took to the streets to raise their voices and placards demanding justice in immigration reform. The marches were in favor of immigrant inclusion and civil rights—specifically, the right to legal status. Among the protestors were many people without legal, authorized immigration status. Cries of “Hoy marchamos, manana votamos” (Today we march, tomorrow we vote), and placards demanding “Full Rights for Immigrants!” but also “We Love U.S.A. Too!” filled the streets. Many of the marchers wore white, to symbolize peace, and carried American flags. Hundreds of marchers in Los Angeles wore a t-shirt featuring the imprint of El Cucuy, a popular Spanishlanguage DJ who was instrumental, along with a few of his DJ colleagues, in disseminating the call to get out in the streets. The t-shirt succinctly 210 Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Angelica Salas summarized the rationale behind the marchers’ claim to legalization: “This nation was built by immigrants! And that’s it!” New immigrants were claiming the right to legal status, and ultimately American citizenship, not on the basis of existing laws but on the basis of their economic contributions as immigrant workers. These largely Latino mobilizations peaked on April 10, 2006, with “The National Day of Action for Immigrant Social Justice,” when immigrant rights marches and rallies occurred in over sixty cities. The mainstream media was taken aback by the dimensions of the marches and by the simultaneity of large demonstrations in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, and many smaller cities. In fact, not only the English-language media but also political pundits, social movement observers, and political scientists were caught by surprise. But this movement did not drop out of the sky overnight. The marches were not spontaneous. These had been quietly brewing, nurtured by key grassroots leaders and organizations for many years. We argue that three themes explain the development of this massive immigrant rights mobilization. First, different tributaries flowed into the immigrant rights marches of spring 2006. A long process of organizing by people in many sectors, including organized labor, legal advocates, traditional civil rights leaders, different religious organizations, and an emerging sector of immigrant rights activists allowed for these manifestations to emerge. Bringing the different strands together into a finely coordinated national effort was a long-term process. Second, the immigrant rights movement developed in reaction to growing restrictionism. It emerged in reaction not to growing immigration but, rather, in response to the urgencies posed by racialized nativism (directed largely, but not entirely, against Mexicans), xenophobia, and restrictionism. Third, national coordination and mobilization of the masses hinged on the harnessing of communications technology for democracy. These included Spanish-language radio broadcasts and the dedicated efforts of a handful of Los Angeles–based but nationally distributed DJs, themselves Mexican and Central American immigrants, and the dissemination power of communications technologies . Telephone conference calls and the long arm of Spanish-language radio emerged as the new democracy technology, as important disseminators of information. At the local level, cell phones and internet technol- What Explains the Immigrant Rights Marches of 2006? 211 ogy helped bring youth to the streets. These tools enabled networking and tightly coordinated collective action, allowing for the mass, nationwide mobilizations for immigrant rights. The Legacy of Immigrant Exclusion and Restrictionism The burgeoning immigrant rights movement has emerged in tandem with and in response to restrictionist immigration laws and legislation. For this reason, we begin by noting the legal legacies and dimensions of contemporary immigration to the United States. Our starting point is this: The United States is a nation of immigrants with a long legacy of anti-immigrant and blatantly racist exclusion laws. In fact, the nation’s first major federal immigration law was one of explicit racial exclusion, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. With a few exceptions, U.S. immigration laws have been more about promoting exclusions, barriers, and quotas rather than integration, social cohesion, and inclusion. Still, there are distinctive periods of immigration legal history. The period from about 1965 to 1980 was one of liberal reform in immigration law in the United States. That liberal era was inaugurated by the 1965 Immigration Act, which ended racial exclusions for Asians and promoted...