Phoenix, Arizona, June 16, 2007 - Barriozona: In Arizona’s social landscape, and elsewhere, we
hear the word “activist,” and “activism,” but we don’t see the same level of effectiveness in all
those who proclaim themselves to do activism. In your opinion, having already worked in different
places and issues, what elements do you consider as really bringing success to any action deemed
as “activism”?
Salvador Reza: Well, I’m going to tell you what a friend of mine, Wing Lam, from Chinatown, in New
York; says: “I don’t want activists, because activists just get activated, and then when the issue is
gone, they disappear, and are not out there anymore.” He says that he prefers “organizers,”
people who organize. I think that organizing, in the long run, implies to work but not necessarily
being in the public eye all the time; rather it means to do the “ant’s work,” as people call it. You
have to be going to the work centers daily, to the corners, with the street taco vendors, finding out
what their problems are or something that’s happening, trying not to be someone who is just
passing by. I spoke with Ernesto Galarza just before he passed away, when I was still at the
university, in the seventies, and something that he told us was that, if we want to organize a
place, at the very minimum, we have to work for ten years to earn the community’s trust. It’s not
just coming out of nowhere and then leaving; you have to be there in the barrios. I think that the
organization does not have to be a political organization or a barrio organization; it has to be an
organization of families in different barrios where, for example, the Murphy District, there is already
a whole activity going on, an entire method of defense. You’re not going to reinvent it all again, just
simply and plainly being there to contribute with what you can. With what we can contribute is with
what we know about government, with what we know about how politics at the state or federal
level work, and not necessarily just go there and suddenly go as far as saying, “hey, look, I
represent these people,” but in reality, if you have to say that, you don’t represent them or
anything; perhaps you mobilized them for a march and never see them again until the following
march, but you did not toil to see whether they need pavement, sidewalks, or teachers that don’t
abuse them at the schools; everything that a community encompasses in the barrio, and that come
from the families, and if you don’t work with the families, you don’t know what’s happening. This is
how I see it. I’ve been part of giant, hierarchic organizations, that at the end they say that they
work from the base up, grassroots, but that in reality they are rather organizations that have a
missionary’s mind; in other words, they have the formula and are going to liberate the “poor little
ones” with their formula. The other day I was talking about Paulo Freire’s popular education, and
people asked me what I thought about it. I told them that the mistake I see in Paulo Freire’s
method, is that they don’t go out and learn from the communities that they are supposedly going
to liberate. In reality, they just go and see how they work, how they function, so they can take
them to (liberation) to fulfill the liberators dream as they see them. That was the same mistake Sub-
comandante Marcos made when he went to Chiapas, Mexico; he believed that he was going to
organize the Mayan Peoples, when in reality they were the ones who organized him. They taught
him how to really be a socialist or collective, because they have done things collectively since
before the arrival of the Spaniards. One can learn much from the people, if one goes to learn with
the people; not necessarily to try to tell them your missionary style formula: “I’m going to save you,
because you don’t know how to save yourself.”
Barriozona: In recent years, all these outbreaks of racism and rejection, particularly against the
immigrant community, and as you already mentioned it —the problems with the students, street
taco vendors, day laborers and so forth— we arrive to the current situation that can be considered
a more vigorous movement. However, we have seen that part of that movement has been
ineffective. In your opinion, what is this awakening lacking, what are the elements to channel it into
something more effective?
Salvador Reza: What’s happening —and this is how I see it— is that everybody knows they want
legal documents, and that they want to work without fear, but they don’t know why they’re
marching, because we do not dictate the law; we are just reacting to the laws that the Ultra Right
is dictating to us. The Minutemen, who were never autonomous nor a movement that came out of
nothing, rather was a well financed movement, well orchestrated from the high political spheres;
right now, for example, they have penetrated strong sectors of the State Legislature, from where
the anti-immigrant laws are coming out. At the same time, they’ve penetrated the Republican Party
at the federal level, where the propositions are being pushed by them. Yet, we have not been able
to put our own propositions or push our own interests, because we don’t even know what we
want. What I mean by this is that —just in Phoenix— you have legislators of Mexican descent that
come out as if they are leading the marches, however, when they take the votes in the Legislature,
they vote for sanctions against employers (who hire undocumented workers), supposedly to punish
the employers for the mistreatment they give to the migrant worker, but they know well that what
they are doing is playing the Ultra Right’s game, because the one who is going to receive the
mistreatment, the abuse, and everything else, is the migrant worker. They are still going to employ
them, but they are going to underpay him or they are not going to pay him at all. Not knowing
where we are heading and what we want, some individuals come and tell the workers: “no, what
we want is just a work permit.” Fine, for a day laborer who just arrived to the country, that is being
persecuted by the police on 36th Avenue and Thomas Road or in the City of Chandler or anywhere,
and that he’s being harassed, to him a work permit is awesome, but what they don’t tell him is that
he won’t qualify for a work permit, because he doesn’t have stable employment. According to this
proposition —how this law is proposed— implies that he has to be tied to a stable employer, and
this comes from Think Tanks from the Right; they propose what you need to accept and what’s not
acceptable. We just react to that, and we react by saying: “yes, we’ll settle for this.” Now, there is
not a profound analysis of what it is, what we can and can't do, and to what extent we can —
without legal documents or not— to influence, if not directly through the vote, indirectly. Many
times, there are movements of marches and all that, but in reality these marches carry out two
messages: one from the ones who seek full citizenship, and the other from the ones that just want
a work permit. And the ones who carry out the message that they want just a work permit are the
ones that are going to be heard by the Ultra Right, and probably the ones that are going to reap
the political capital at that level. But the rest of the people are going to be in a worse situation,
because what the reform will bring is the criminalization of thousands and thousands of people,
and if you think we are being persecuted right now by ICE, just wait until this bill Strive Act is
approved. We are going to be persecuted, twenty times more, where they will pick you up from bus
stops, the streets, the street corners, and the workplace, so they can maintain fear against us.
That’s why, for me, what we need is just not to fight for whatever we can achieve, but to fight for
what people really wants. When millions and millions of people come out to the streets like they did
in the 2006 marches, nobody really asked them what it is they want. They were told what they
could obtain, but never asked the millions of marchers, “What is it you want?” In the march that
just happened on May 1, 2007, nobody was asked what they want; they were told what’s being
sought, but not asked what they want. And if we don’t have a public consultation, in which we
really are representing what people want, then we are not doing things right. Now, if people say,
“we want a work permit,” I am sure that they’re going to add, “yes, we want a work permit, but
without having ties to an employer,” then we’d win something. And if we can get the legislators to
accept that, then we are winning even more. I seldom lose political battles; once in a while, I lose,
but very seldom —I lost with the Governor last year. What we need to analyze first is what people
want, and then push it to wherever we can, but not begin from the stance of “no, I am just going
to ask for this because it is all that I can get; this is the little slice of cake they are willing to give
me, and that’s all I’m getting.” That’s easy to do when in reality you don’t have a public
consultation with the people, face to face, everyday. For instance, anything that I do, affects
directly in one way or another the day laborers of the Macehualli Day Labor Center, but also the
ones that are on the street corners. I have to be aware of that, because it is easy to say, “you
know what, yes, it’s okay, a work permit would be just fine,” but in the process you are already
eliminating about 118 thousand day laborers that are on the streets every day, and in reality this
translates into 500 thousand day laborers. Not just them, you are also affecting all those people
who are going to stay in between jobs, you are affecting all the people that in one way or another
are going to be wanted by the law, and persecuted with new laws which are turning police officers
into immigration agents. For one to accept that, one has to be aware that people know the
consequences of what they are accepting. And I don’t believe we are consulting with the people;
what we see is proselytism, as if they (the leaders) are the intellectual ones, the intelligent ones,
and the people don’t know anything, so they are going to tell the people what’s best for them.
Unfortunately, that is what’s happening, and since we don't even have the main stream media or
anything else controlled, —the Right does— they can manipulate the message, send the message,
send the message, send the message, send the message —continuously— until all of a sudden, an
Anglo person sees a Mexican national looking for work on the streets, he or she is going to say,
“he is a filthy person, he comes to rob my house, he is a drug addict.” And the message is sent
daily, daily, daily, daily, daily, and daily. We don’t have the means to play it down, and even when
we are able to play it down, instead of really playing it down, we end up playing the game of the
same people that are shooting at us the same message through the English TV channels.
Read Part III
hear the word “activist,” and “activism,” but we don’t see the same level of effectiveness in all
those who proclaim themselves to do activism. In your opinion, having already worked in different
places and issues, what elements do you consider as really bringing success to any action deemed
as “activism”?
Salvador Reza: Well, I’m going to tell you what a friend of mine, Wing Lam, from Chinatown, in New
York; says: “I don’t want activists, because activists just get activated, and then when the issue is
gone, they disappear, and are not out there anymore.” He says that he prefers “organizers,”
people who organize. I think that organizing, in the long run, implies to work but not necessarily
being in the public eye all the time; rather it means to do the “ant’s work,” as people call it. You
have to be going to the work centers daily, to the corners, with the street taco vendors, finding out
what their problems are or something that’s happening, trying not to be someone who is just
passing by. I spoke with Ernesto Galarza just before he passed away, when I was still at the
university, in the seventies, and something that he told us was that, if we want to organize a
place, at the very minimum, we have to work for ten years to earn the community’s trust. It’s not
just coming out of nowhere and then leaving; you have to be there in the barrios. I think that the
organization does not have to be a political organization or a barrio organization; it has to be an
organization of families in different barrios where, for example, the Murphy District, there is already
a whole activity going on, an entire method of defense. You’re not going to reinvent it all again, just
simply and plainly being there to contribute with what you can. With what we can contribute is with
what we know about government, with what we know about how politics at the state or federal
level work, and not necessarily just go there and suddenly go as far as saying, “hey, look, I
represent these people,” but in reality, if you have to say that, you don’t represent them or
anything; perhaps you mobilized them for a march and never see them again until the following
march, but you did not toil to see whether they need pavement, sidewalks, or teachers that don’t
abuse them at the schools; everything that a community encompasses in the barrio, and that come
from the families, and if you don’t work with the families, you don’t know what’s happening. This is
how I see it. I’ve been part of giant, hierarchic organizations, that at the end they say that they
work from the base up, grassroots, but that in reality they are rather organizations that have a
missionary’s mind; in other words, they have the formula and are going to liberate the “poor little
ones” with their formula. The other day I was talking about Paulo Freire’s popular education, and
people asked me what I thought about it. I told them that the mistake I see in Paulo Freire’s
method, is that they don’t go out and learn from the communities that they are supposedly going
to liberate. In reality, they just go and see how they work, how they function, so they can take
them to (liberation) to fulfill the liberators dream as they see them. That was the same mistake Sub-
comandante Marcos made when he went to Chiapas, Mexico; he believed that he was going to
organize the Mayan Peoples, when in reality they were the ones who organized him. They taught
him how to really be a socialist or collective, because they have done things collectively since
before the arrival of the Spaniards. One can learn much from the people, if one goes to learn with
the people; not necessarily to try to tell them your missionary style formula: “I’m going to save you,
because you don’t know how to save yourself.”
Barriozona: In recent years, all these outbreaks of racism and rejection, particularly against the
immigrant community, and as you already mentioned it —the problems with the students, street
taco vendors, day laborers and so forth— we arrive to the current situation that can be considered
a more vigorous movement. However, we have seen that part of that movement has been
ineffective. In your opinion, what is this awakening lacking, what are the elements to channel it into
something more effective?
Salvador Reza: What’s happening —and this is how I see it— is that everybody knows they want
legal documents, and that they want to work without fear, but they don’t know why they’re
marching, because we do not dictate the law; we are just reacting to the laws that the Ultra Right
is dictating to us. The Minutemen, who were never autonomous nor a movement that came out of
nothing, rather was a well financed movement, well orchestrated from the high political spheres;
right now, for example, they have penetrated strong sectors of the State Legislature, from where
the anti-immigrant laws are coming out. At the same time, they’ve penetrated the Republican Party
at the federal level, where the propositions are being pushed by them. Yet, we have not been able
to put our own propositions or push our own interests, because we don’t even know what we
want. What I mean by this is that —just in Phoenix— you have legislators of Mexican descent that
come out as if they are leading the marches, however, when they take the votes in the Legislature,
they vote for sanctions against employers (who hire undocumented workers), supposedly to punish
the employers for the mistreatment they give to the migrant worker, but they know well that what
they are doing is playing the Ultra Right’s game, because the one who is going to receive the
mistreatment, the abuse, and everything else, is the migrant worker. They are still going to employ
them, but they are going to underpay him or they are not going to pay him at all. Not knowing
where we are heading and what we want, some individuals come and tell the workers: “no, what
we want is just a work permit.” Fine, for a day laborer who just arrived to the country, that is being
persecuted by the police on 36th Avenue and Thomas Road or in the City of Chandler or anywhere,
and that he’s being harassed, to him a work permit is awesome, but what they don’t tell him is that
he won’t qualify for a work permit, because he doesn’t have stable employment. According to this
proposition —how this law is proposed— implies that he has to be tied to a stable employer, and
this comes from Think Tanks from the Right; they propose what you need to accept and what’s not
acceptable. We just react to that, and we react by saying: “yes, we’ll settle for this.” Now, there is
not a profound analysis of what it is, what we can and can't do, and to what extent we can —
without legal documents or not— to influence, if not directly through the vote, indirectly. Many
times, there are movements of marches and all that, but in reality these marches carry out two
messages: one from the ones who seek full citizenship, and the other from the ones that just want
a work permit. And the ones who carry out the message that they want just a work permit are the
ones that are going to be heard by the Ultra Right, and probably the ones that are going to reap
the political capital at that level. But the rest of the people are going to be in a worse situation,
because what the reform will bring is the criminalization of thousands and thousands of people,
and if you think we are being persecuted right now by ICE, just wait until this bill Strive Act is
approved. We are going to be persecuted, twenty times more, where they will pick you up from bus
stops, the streets, the street corners, and the workplace, so they can maintain fear against us.
That’s why, for me, what we need is just not to fight for whatever we can achieve, but to fight for
what people really wants. When millions and millions of people come out to the streets like they did
in the 2006 marches, nobody really asked them what it is they want. They were told what they
could obtain, but never asked the millions of marchers, “What is it you want?” In the march that
just happened on May 1, 2007, nobody was asked what they want; they were told what’s being
sought, but not asked what they want. And if we don’t have a public consultation, in which we
really are representing what people want, then we are not doing things right. Now, if people say,
“we want a work permit,” I am sure that they’re going to add, “yes, we want a work permit, but
without having ties to an employer,” then we’d win something. And if we can get the legislators to
accept that, then we are winning even more. I seldom lose political battles; once in a while, I lose,
but very seldom —I lost with the Governor last year. What we need to analyze first is what people
want, and then push it to wherever we can, but not begin from the stance of “no, I am just going
to ask for this because it is all that I can get; this is the little slice of cake they are willing to give
me, and that’s all I’m getting.” That’s easy to do when in reality you don’t have a public
consultation with the people, face to face, everyday. For instance, anything that I do, affects
directly in one way or another the day laborers of the Macehualli Day Labor Center, but also the
ones that are on the street corners. I have to be aware of that, because it is easy to say, “you
know what, yes, it’s okay, a work permit would be just fine,” but in the process you are already
eliminating about 118 thousand day laborers that are on the streets every day, and in reality this
translates into 500 thousand day laborers. Not just them, you are also affecting all those people
who are going to stay in between jobs, you are affecting all the people that in one way or another
are going to be wanted by the law, and persecuted with new laws which are turning police officers
into immigration agents. For one to accept that, one has to be aware that people know the
consequences of what they are accepting. And I don’t believe we are consulting with the people;
what we see is proselytism, as if they (the leaders) are the intellectual ones, the intelligent ones,
and the people don’t know anything, so they are going to tell the people what’s best for them.
Unfortunately, that is what’s happening, and since we don't even have the main stream media or
anything else controlled, —the Right does— they can manipulate the message, send the message,
send the message, send the message, send the message —continuously— until all of a sudden, an
Anglo person sees a Mexican national looking for work on the streets, he or she is going to say,
“he is a filthy person, he comes to rob my house, he is a drug addict.” And the message is sent
daily, daily, daily, daily, daily, and daily. We don’t have the means to play it down, and even when
we are able to play it down, instead of really playing it down, we end up playing the game of the
same people that are shooting at us the same message through the English TV channels.
Read Part III
Salvador Reza: Learning From the People
For the day laborers' organizer, what's needed is not just to fight for whatever it can be achieved,
but fighting for what people really wants.
but fighting for what people really wants.
By Eduardo Barraza Read Part I Read Part III
Eduardo Barraza is a journalist and writer,
Barriozona Magazine's editor, and director of
the Hispanic Insitute of Social Issues.
E-mail: editor@barriozona.com
Barriozona Magazine's editor, and director of
the Hispanic Insitute of Social Issues.
E-mail: editor@barriozona.com
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Published by the Hispanic Institute of Social Issues in Phoenix, Arizona
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LEARNING "What we need to analyze
first is what people want, and then push
it to wherever we can, but not begin
from the stance of “no, I am just going
to ask for this because it is all that I can
get." Photo by Yolie Hernandez/BARRIOZONA
first is what people want, and then push
it to wherever we can, but not begin
from the stance of “no, I am just going
to ask for this because it is all that I can
get." Photo by Yolie Hernandez/BARRIOZONA
| Documented Dreams |
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