RSSTurning point in immigration march
Yakima Herald-Republic
E-mail
Print
Comments
More 'Local'
- Avalanche control impedes traffic
- Right Pro Hardware closing after 15 years
- Wapato homicide is county's 20th this year
- Woman's family sues for medical negligence
- Recount for Selah CIty Council race is Dec. 7
- Shortfall may force budget cuts in Wapato
- Local job growth gets a financial lift
YAKIMA, Wash. -- She says the first march shaped her.
It was the spring of 2006. Beljica Cortes was an Eisenhower High School sophomore when she joined thousands who marched in the streets of Yakima in support of rights for illegal immigrants.
Until then, Cortes said, she never thought much about politics, immigrant rights or racism.
"Then I went to the marches, and you saw these white people telling you to go back to Mexico," said Cortes, now a 20-year-old Yakima Valley Community College student. "Mexico is where my parents come from and, yeah, I'm proud, but I was born in the U.S.
"Them saying that was eye-opening. I didn't think racism was focused on us even though we were people of color. I never thought I was part of that until I saw it happen in the march."
On Friday, Cortes will join others taking to the streets here and across the nation in similar marches.
And while the national debate on immigration policy has quieted, it remains very much an issue in the Yakima Valley, where a majority of agricultural workers are in this country illegally.
The experiences of Cortes and her family offer some insight into their motivation for taking part in Friday's march.
Beljica's parents knew life in the United States wouldn't be easy if they immigrated illegally. Guadalupe Cortes warned his wife before they left their hometown in Colima, Mexico.
"I'd been living here, traveling back and forth to Mexico, for about eight years," said Guadalupe Cortes, who first came as a teenager in the 1970s. "I told her she had to work too if she wanted to come, that rent and utilities are expensive, and the pay isn't good."
The prospect didn't faze her. From the time she was 9, Berenice Cortes said she worked -- making pozole, enchiladas and sopes at a neighborhood cafeteria, selling clothes at a store and packing mangoes in a warehouse. For his part, Guadalupe Cortes recalls picking and selling peppers and lemons from age 5 to supplement his family's income, before crossing the border illegally at 19.
Once in the Yakima Valley, Berenice and Guadalupe Cortes accepted as fact that they'd never rise above their jobs of picking and packing fruits.
But they wanted something better for their children, who were all born in the United States. In addition to Beljica, they have Ricardo, 19, who graduates from Davis High School this spring, and Mayra Alejandra, 13, a seventh-grader at Washington Middle School.
"In Mexico if you come from a rural, low-income family, you can't get an education," said Guadalupe Cortes, 49, who never attended elementary school. His wife, 43, only reached sixth grade.
"You won't have the connections to get a job. I thought if our children were born here, they could do anything," Guadalupe Cortes said. "If they wanted to be professionals, they could be professionals."
Beljica Cortes believed her father when he said she could go anywhere -- including a university. But in high school she didn't know what she wanted to study after graduation. She wasn't interested in immigration issues, yet.
But in the days before the first march in 2006, the Corteses told their children that school and work were not as important as hitting the streets.
In cities across the country, millions demonstrated in support of rights for illegal immigrants. At the time, Congress was considering a number of immigration bills -- including one to construct a wall along parts of the Mexican border, and another to pave the way for illegal immigrants to gain legal status.
"It was all over the radio and TV," said Berenice Cortes, who had never participated in political demonstrations before. "The marches were something of a novelty then."
Estimates from the 2006 march in Yakima varied wildly, with somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 taking part.
The couple marched because they wanted a repeat of the amnesty granted to illegal immigrants through the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. They both gained legal residency within a year of the act. In 1996, Berenice Cortes became a U.S. citizen.
******
They still want similar amnesty for their friends, relatives and co-workers.
At her high school, Beljica got swept up in the excitement of student-led demonstrations that preceded the march.
On May 1 that year, when she marched alongside her then-boyfriend, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, she was surprised to hear taunts from counter-demonstrators.
"I don't know why all these people say, 'Go back to Mexico,' because we're the ones who do all the (agricultural) work," Beljica Cortes said, referring to friends and relatives here illegally, as her parent once were.
The counter-demonstration prompted her to become politically active -- joining a Chicano activist club, MEChA; tutoring children of migrant farm workers, and even running unsuccessfully this year for student body vice president at YVCC, where she studies business.
She wants to continue her studies at Heritage University, where she also hopes to earn a teaching certificate. "You don't see a lot of Mexican teachers," she said, "and there's a lot of Hispanic students that need role models."
While the Corteses took part in the 2007 and 2008 Yakima marches, the overall turnout dropped.
Only a few thousand people participated in 2007, and less than 1,000 the following year, according to police and organizers. Nationally, the political debate had shifted to war and the recession.
Organizers blamed low turnout partly on rumors that "la migra" -- or immigration authorities -- would deport people at the march. This year, internal disputes at Radio KDNA, the Valley's only Spanish-language public radio station, have weakened its local coverage of march organizers.
"Perhaps people won't go because there hasn't been propaganda for it on the radio and TV," said Guadalupe Cortes, who was unaware of the march this year until his daughter found out at school.
Berenice Cortes has been telling her friends to go. She hopes another massive turnout will remind the Obama administration that the Latinos who overwhelmingly supported his presidential campaign expect something in return.
"The result of this march, I hope, is to show Obama what is happening to us, what our needs are," said Berenice Cortes, who voted for Obama. "I want Obama to give them amnesty like we got. Immigrants should have the chance to live well and come out of hiding."
******
Many friends here illegally fear a knock on their door, she said.
"We all know people who opened their door, and suddenly they were taken away" by immigration authorities, Berenice Cortes said. "Families get separated when parents get taken back to Mexico. Who are their children supposed to stay with?"
She and her husband see a path toward legalization as an opportunity for the government to boost the economy -- by charging fees to illegal immigrants who go through the process.
Her daughter says she understands even more now why people choose to break immigration laws. Beljica Cortes has a 10-month-old son from her ex-boyfriend, who is still in the U.S. illegally.
"I want the best for my son and I'll do everything within my reach for him," said Beljica Cortes, who worries about what would happen if the father gets deported. "I didn't go to university like I'd planned; I went to community college.
"I want him to go to university. That's what parents try to give their kids -- a better life."
* Melissa Sánchez can be reached at 577-7675 or msanchez@yakimaherald.com.
Demonstrations
On Friday, two very different demonstrations are planned in Yakima. One urging rights and amnesty for illegal immigrants, the other adamantly opposed.
Today: The immigration issue viewed through the perspective of the Corteses, who came to this country illegally and raised three U.S.-born children.
Thursday: Another view of illegal immigration as seen by members of Grassroots of Yakima Valley and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, who oppose amnesty and want immigration laws enforced.
Ok this whole issue is something that i have such mixed feelings about. I realize alot of the towns in Mexico are poor therefore alot of people migrate here for a better life for their families. My husband himself did this same thing. However we as a family have spent literally thousands of dollars to get him legalized and i feel everyone else should have to do the same if they want to remain here. Yes i know that is alot of money and trust me it isn't as if we both have wonderful jobs. He works in the fields and i work retail yet we found a way to keep him here legally with his family. I believe everyone has the right to a better life but handouts no. My husband and even my brother in law never got them so why should anyone else. You want to be here legally fine...get legalized like others have done.
Report ViolationImmigration is a difficult issue, there is no debate about that at all. Tough or not, we need to work together to find a way to bring immigration policy back into synch with the modern world. Nobody is asking for a handout. All anybody is asking for is a way to get legal status like others have done, for people who are already here and contributing. Right now, there is no way. That's wrong.
It is also helpful to remember that the first marches were triggered by proposed legislation that would have also made felons out of innumerable US citizens: religious workers, legal services providers, home health care workers, and on and on. More than anything, the marches are an attempt to remind people that immigrants exist in our society and that what is being asked for isn't all that outrageous. Telling every brown person you see to "go back to Mexico" is outrageous. And worse, it offers exactly nothing in the way of resolution.
Very well said. The easy amnesty in 1986 caused most of the problems we have today. While I understand the economic situtaton in Mexico is what drives people to the US for jobs..but we are no longer able to support the medical, educational, and welfare system. Local farmers need to quit hiring illegals and pay decent wages.
I supported the legalization program that requires exit and then re-entry with a fee for the process along with verifiable documentation that the person is who they say they are and it should not be cheap. A loyalty oath to his country is a must and those that chose to return and be American citizens need to committ bettering the community. Tolerate no drugs and no gangs!
By the same token the Anglo community needs to quit having Hipanic panic and get over it. The demographics are changing and Hispanics will become the majority in this region as they are the only ones producing children in enough numbers to replace the future workforce. And they will vote, they will pay taxes, and as the writer above will be conservative to social welfare maybe even republican!
"...quit hiring illegals and pay decent wages."
The problem with doing this, would be the higher prices for produce. Foreign produce will then have a competitive advantage over local produce because they don't have to pay the higher wages.
"Tolerate no drugs and no gangs!"
By this, you mean alcohol and tobacco as well, right? Because with legalized drugs, such as these, we can see what kind of contribution they can make to our economy (tobacco companies & local wine industry). However, when they are illegal, we can see the direct relation to the power that is given to gangs when a black market is created.
Here's a thought, if you are an "illegal immagrant" that means you are here illegaly. So, you are breaking the law. "Illgal" means - unlawful, is used to describe something that is prohibited or not authorized by law or, more generally, by rules specific to a particular situation
Report ViolationSuprising enough, rheitzm, you are not the first person who ever thought about that. For example:
"Portraits of the Undocumented Immigrant: Epiphany Through Dialectic," by Stephen H. Legomsky, Washington University School of Law. Georgia Law Review, Vol. 44, 2009. Washington U. School of Law Working Paper No. 09-04-01.
Abstract:
Few subjects can match the pure polarizing power of illegal immigration. Yet surprisingly little attention has been devoted to identifying, much less evaluating, the critical assumptions that have driven either the perceptions or the policy prescriptions of the opposing camps. To fill that gap, this article asks a fundamental question: Who is the undocumented immigrant? Drawing on the grand tradition of Henry Hart and his successors, this article uses dialectic to explore what lies at the heart of the contentious debate over illegal immigration. Through a spirited dialogue between two fictional professors with polar opposite views on illegal immigration, the article paints sharply contrasting portraits of undocumented immigrants. As the two antagonists debate both the impact of illegal immigration and the appropriate policy responses, the moderator notices two recurring patterns. First, the more restrictive position reflects what this article calls "aggregation," or "clustering." This position visualizes undocumented immigrants en masse and thus emphasizes their collective impact on the host society. The less restrictive position, in contrast, starts with a mental picture of individual undocumented immigrants and their families, and consequently is more prone to emphasize the impact of a proposed policy on the individual immigrants. Second, while both sides agree that every undocumented immigrant is by definition both a lawbreaker and a resident, they attach different emphases to these two components of identity. On every policy response that they debate, emphasis on the lawbreaker attribute turns out to be a necessary predicate for almost all the arguments in support of the stricter view, while emphasis on the resident attribute turns out to be a necessary predicate for almost all the arguments in support of lenity.
When the dialogue concludes, the article turns to the relevant social science literature. Drawing on the empirical data from that literature, the article demonstrates that in their daily lives undocumented immigrants resemble other residents far more than they resemble other lawbreakers. Because the opposing arguments rely so heavily on their respective depictions of undocumented immigrants as lawbreakers versus residents, that empirical conclusion supplies a strong normative case for generally lenient policy responses to illegal immigration. At the same time, the article encourages a fuller and more balanced public discourse that acknowledges and weighs the effects of proposed immigration policies on both the individual and the larger society. To that end, the article mines the same empirical literature for insights on the nature and magnitude of those effects. While the overall impact of illegal immigration on the larger society cannot be conclusively described as either a net positive or a net negative, the effects of the various policy proposals on the interests of the undocumented immigrants themselves tend to be more clearly positive or negative - another reason for prioritizing the individual interests when the policy questions are otherwise close.
"Then I went to the marches, and you saw these white people telling you to go back to Mexico," Are you kidding me? White people you mean Americans are tired of footing the bills for these criminals.
Report ViolationCriminals Yakima4life? Please explain to me how a 22 year college educated kid, who pays taxes using a TIN because he doesn't have a SSN, and who is in this great country only because his parents brought him when he was 2 years old is a criminal? I understand your frustation of having to "foot the bills for these criminals," but it's ignorant to make hasty generalizations and assume all illegal immigrants are abusing the system. Some of these people actually work and give back to the system. You think business owners care whether or not the people buying their products are 'illegals'?
Report ViolationYes it is ignorant to think ILLEGAL aliens are not abusing the system. If they are not legal and they get anything they are abusing the system. If the people who come here and do everything right and become legal residents are not angry about the CRIMINALS not following the rules like they did then i would be suprised. It is racism to call a group of people "The white people" she should have said law abiding legal residents dont like us who cheated the system and steal from the legal citizens.
Report ViolationI'm curious if Beljica is receiving State Aid since she apparently is not married to her child's Father. I also wonder about the status of her illegal alien (former) boyfriend? It is that entitlement mentality that will have her out protesting against the Laws of our Country on Friday morning, and cashing a Welfare check from our State Government on Friday afternoon. She probably also uses Spanish as her primary means of communication with her "assimilated" parents.
I am curious about the entitlement mentality the makes it permissible to speculate about and bad mouth a fellow native born United States citizen whose only reported transgression is calling white people "white people."
Report ViolationMartha my dear...I guess the key word to your comment is "Reported" transgression. Do you really think a YHR reporter will a Spanish sir-name is going to ask Bejica if she is getting welfare benefits from the State of Washington? It would be refreshing for the local newspaper to do that. However they are too invested in "comprehensive immigration reform," which we all know is code for "amnesty." I'll bet you a nickel she and her baby are getting welfare benefits from Washington State. Trending most likely would bear this out.
Report ViolationIt was the spring of 2006. Beljica Cortes was an Eisenhower High School sophomore when she joined thousands who marched in the streets of Yakima in support of rights for illegal immigrants.
Until then, Cortes said, she never thought much about politics, immigrant rights or racism.
"Then I went to the marches, and you saw these white people telling you to go back to Mexico," said Cortes, now a 20-year-old Yakima Valley Community College student. "Mexico is where my parents come from and, yeah, I'm proud, but I was born in the U.S.
"Them saying that was eye-opening. I didn't think racism was focused on us even though we were people of color. I never thought I was part of that until I saw it happen in the march."
---------------------
The English teachers at Eisenhower should be fired. I'm sure a new school will improve education for a person who would have been educated in Mexico had their parents not entered the USA illegally.
Flying the American flag is racist? Is that why Obama refused to wear the flag lapel pin?
(This comment has been removed by a Yakima Herald-Republic moderator)
Posting Guidelines - Updated Aug. 21 2009
Readers are encouraged to use these forums to discuss issues affecting the
Yakima Valley. Debate the ideas presented in stories and other comments, but
refrain from personal attacks and offensive remarks aimed at others; e.g.,
you may call an idea idiotic, but don't say the person is an idiot. The
Herald-Republic reserves the right to remove any comment for any reason.
Examples include material that is obscene, encourages illegal activity or
stereotypes based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and
other factors. Continued violation of these guidelines can lead to
suspension or revocation of your ability to post comments. If you believe a
comment is inappropriate, you can bring it to our attention by clicking the
"report violation" link by each comment. Guidelines revised Aug. 21, 2009.
Registered User?
