Transcripts For CSPAN3 30 20240703 : vimarsana.com

CSPAN3 30 July 3, 2024

National organizations held a meeting in San Francisco so that we could be a part of the around prop 187 and see some of the and the organizer thing firsthand. So that was a really important part of my the early part of my career. And its coming full circle now today. And of course, the ripples prop 187 have been felt throughout the last 30 years, throughout my entire career. Today we have a really distinguished of panelists who are here to discuss prop 187 and its aftermath. Im going to introduce everybody very briefly here to my left, we have gustavo arellano. Hes columnist at the los angeles times, where he covers politics and issues in Southern California. He previously wrote a column called, ask a mexican, and that is also a book now. Correct. And hes also the author of taco usa how mexican conquered america. Next, we have veronica terriquez. She is a professor in the department of chicano and Central American studies, and she is a director of the Chicano Studies Research center at ucla. Her research focuses on inequality and immigrant or incorporation as well as transitions to adulthood. Next. Next to her, we have kevin johnson, who is the dean and may be a policy professor of Public Interest law and professor of chicano at university of california, davis. Dean johnson is an expert on immigration and Critical Race Theory and has published extensively these issues. Next, we have sarah coleman, an assistant professor of history at texas university, where her focus is on immigration, race and rights the 20th century. She is the author of the walls within, which discusses immigrant rights. After 1965 and then last but not least, we have rigoberto rodriguez. He is an associate at california state university, long beach in the chicano and latino studies department, and he focuses on latino immigration and integration. So thank you all for being here today. I want this to be a true roundtable conference session. We are going to im going to start by posing couple of questions. And i want the panelists to engage in conversation each other and with all of you, of course, as well. So were going to start with background. Im always shocked when my students dont know about proposition 187 and it makes me feel very old. And so lets just get started with some basic facts. What is proposition . What is what . 97 . What was it . What are we talking about . And im going to turn to kevin to kind of kick us off with some facts. Thank you very much, john. Yes. Okay. Good. Thanks, michel, for that kind of introduction. Ill be very brief. I have to say that its always dangerous. Giving a microphone to a lawyer. And so but i promise to try to be short promises when 87 in some ways when it was one of the immigration milestone ones of the 20th century and is still having lasting impacts in november 1994, california voters. After your campaign, im sure well hear about passed by a 2 to 1 margin a strict antiimmigrant law after. But i would characterize as a very racist campaign. It passed by a 2 to 1 margin with latinos. The measure by a 3 to 1 margin. Lawsuits immediately were shot filed, challenging the constitutionality of proposition 27. And some of the lawsuits were filed just a few blocks away in spring street. The old federal courthouse still. A federal judge mariana belzer since passed away. She entered an injunction barring most of the proposition going into effect and ultimately the proposition 27 for the most part did not go into. It was it was later. The litigation challenging it was later with a new democratic governor, somebody who replaced republican governor pete wilson came into office. Now, one of the odd things about the prop 187 litigation is that while many people thought that it was a racist initiative, the federal Court Decision and the ruling that it was uncosted official didnt focus on race all. Rather, it found the federal government, not the states had exclusive authority to regulate immigration and who admit into the country and who to deport from the country into the state of california didnt have that power. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it that you want a 50 state system of uniform admissions and removal requirements as opposed to different states having their own immigration policies for for me, you could imagine kinds of mischief being conducted if states were allowed to have their own immigration policies. And we may see we see some of that today. Now, the battle over federal and state power continues today. And im sure well talk about it in a little bit. But, you know, the legal legacy of proposition 27 is actually incredible. And well probably talk about that in a bit. Many states followed, prop 27 later on. It hit alabama, georgia, South Carolina. In the 21st century. It affected federal Immigration Reform in 1996, in a major way. And it continues to have a big impact on how we look at immigration in immigration law. Let me stop there. Thanks so much, rigo. I know you also here in california in 1994. Would you like to talk a little bit about your experience and what you take from that . Sure. So i want to say, im not a historian. And in fact, so much of my native historian that when i came today, i actually got to the biltmore first and i saw a lot of folks dressed in russell gear. So it turned and i thought, wow, historians must dress interestingly. Turns out it was wrestlecon i was at. But i thought. Okay, so do you have more of a geographer by training. But at that time in 1990 394 i was living santa ana Orange County, which is the birthplace of 187. And i just want to share reflections around what it felt like at point. And then in the dialog we can expand. But i was in a nonprofit that basically served mexican immigrants who were still coming to the nonprofit after 1986. Erika and regularizing their status and all of that. And when in 1993, we started to about the collection of signatures was to qualify the ballot. A number of us started getting together. The sister of saint joseph formed a Political Action committee at that point in Orange County, pumped in about 75 grand. I was appointed. I was 20 midtwenties. I was appointed as the treasurer of that campaign. We hired some folks, conducted focus groups to see like what would help us decrease the of folks who would vote in favor of it or at least keep them from voting. So what kevin was saying around a 2 to 1, thats what we discover when we were interviewing folks, the whole conservative ideology of law and order values, all of that was so deeply entrenched. So we developed these scripts where we werent opposing the dominant ideology. We were just, all right, if you if you assume that immigration is an issue, this is the way to vote, this is actually going to bring in government more into your life. So we were trying to flip the conservative script and i think the reflection i have is just how deeply, deeply embedded this it was really a hegemonic ideology at that point and an Orange County the kind of the power block of you know Dana Rohrabacher or bob dornan, scott barr, who in Orange County, along with folks in san diego, were pete wilson, comes from really dominated the Republican Party politics at the state level. And so really the reflection i have to start with is really where we were at that point and not that weve changed but ill give some reflections around maybe shifts that have occurred, certainly at the state level, maybe not so much at the national level, but at the state level and the local level. Some changes that i think are occurring or have occurred that might signal some shifts and possibilities. So thank you. Do you have anything you would like to add about the origins or the Campaign Around prop one . Yeah. I was a sophomore high school, anaheim high when 187 and was through the campaign because that was november of 94. And i remember i had clue about it until someone on a group of white teenager, you know, yeah, white teens yelled at me. 187 and i had no idea what that meant. I go to my home and i see on Channel Nine News walkouts, protest and people talking about that. And i just remember being perplexed why would anyone be against undocumented immigrants . My dad was one. A lot of my friends were undocumented. A lot of my cousins that was born in the United States and it was just it was a question that always me as i went, you know, as i became an adult and i became a reporter, its something that always haunted me. So i ended up doing a podcast actually called this is california the battle of 187 you could find it on Itunes Spotify wherever you get your podcasts. But for me you i ended up partly because of that wont get too much to my story right now but partly that haunting the idea of racism haunted me professionally, academically and through the rest of my life. And i that my career to writing about especially those Hidden History and especially really wrestling with in Orange County that the rest of the country either knows the real housewives of Orange County or the political like, you know, reagan, this is the land where all the good republicans go to. You mentioned, you know, dornan and all those people. Yes. Its like the the the whack jobs of the whack jobs of Republican Party politics for decades right. Until donald trump came from Orange County in 187. Was that manifestation. It was the explosion of all that. So i just for me when it and looking back and all this one lady i know were going to talk about this but i now tell people 187 was one of the most interesting double edged sword ever discover, because on one hand, it as chicano generation was sort of petering out, you had the what i would call the immigrant generation, people like myself were children of mexican immigrants who had no ties at all to Chicano Movement and came the values, the conservative values of, you know, ranchers of Like Northern and central mexico. So im talking about jalisco michoacan, zacatecas, especially where my my parents are from to all of a sudden be told that youre you dont belong here radicalized that generation radicalized that generation and brought back Chicano Movement. The republicans were this close to making mexicanamericans hispanics once and for all. And they blew it. But at the same time though, going to kevin was talking about it also inspired the xenophobes across the United States to replicate the 187 model sb 1070 in arizona, alabama. And you had the direct connection in between 187 and donald trump going to the white house to the point where at a notorious rally in phenix, there was a woman named cathy words, whose son got killed after someone in in Orange County in sacramento. There was a brawl between teens, latino teens and mostly white teens in a beach town called san clemente. Someone threw a paint roller that went through the brain of steve and that was literally xray of steve woods, a paint roller through his head was used at these 87 rallies where he you had cathie woods talking about that and saying if unchecked migration comes to the United States the way it did in california, this is whats going to happen to you. So that to me, thats what 87 is, its Orange Countys revenge. So this is already fascinating. Weve talked to you know, weve heard the name pete wilson weve been talking about republicans. Several people have mentioned this was a very racist campaign. Can we just talk about that a little bit more . Who was supportive of prop 187, who oppose it . What happened to jenny . Who wants to jump in . Someone who has not talked yet that anything go go ahead. Okay. I mean, theres theres a theres a Large Coalition, both for. Im sorry. Thank you. Theres a Large Coalition for and against it. But i think its also important to remember the larger state politics theyre going on that time. Right. So we have a Gubernatorial Race going on between wilson and brown. We have a senate going on between feinstein and michael. Congressman michael huffington. Right. So you have sort of a campaign about this proposition and then you have these two incredibly tight statewide campaigns and the way they sort of play into each other is sort of a really interesting right in the sense each of them, each of these candidates in in the the feinstein huffington race. Right. Theres a real debate with it for dianne feinstein. Right. As to what position to take on this. Right. Shes really struggling with this issue and she ends up coming up coming against proposition one, 87. But she sort of frames it very much of trying to appeal to this sort of Orange County taxpayer thing. Right she says basically, what is the impact of it . The reason you should oppose it is not because of sort of the vast sort of racism, but because of the tax impact. It would have on the state. So just thinking about the ways in which shes sort of even in the Democratic Party, right, really. Hedges that political response at the moment. And im happy to walk through the different, but i feel like there are other ill just jump in with specifically with pete wilson. Pete wilson this was the uc senator before he became governor of california and before that he was mayor of san diego. And he had a reputation as being a relative moderate, as moderate as a republican could be. In 1980s, reagan but when it came to the issue of undocumented immigrants in san diego had actually had coalitions with some of the chicano groups in the area. He had actually told his Police Department when he was hearing stories of coyotes exploiting and even raping women, he had San Diego Police officers go down to the border, try to help out. But he had in midnight, early nineties, california, this was a state with a recession. You are starting to see people leave the state. The more things change and was way behind on the polls when you said brown it was kathleen brown, the daughter of pat brown, former governor of california, and the brother of jerry brown. He was losing. He losing badly. Then this one, lady seven starts bubbling up. And at first the Republican Party was like they were just sad. These are just crazies, know forbes no way is this going to happen. But once it once it was able to qualify, pete wilson hitched his sinking ship on to 187. I was able to sail to a very easy victory victory. I could say a few words about the other, the coalition on the other side that emerged so proposition one, 87 occurred at a very interesting time. It happened after what people call the l. A. Riots and the l. A. Riots or l. A. Uprising. Some people call it brought together a coalition of, africanamerican, latino and some Asian Americans that were starting to realize that they were having common interests and common goals at the same time, there was a growing Labor Movement that included a lot of immigrant states. And proposition 187 brought those groups together in opposition to the initiative. There were this was an important moment when africanamerican and asianamerican and latino communities felt like they were attacked. Being under attack, a Labor Movement that had a lot of undocumented immigrants felt like they were under attack. And so the coalitions that emerge in places like los and the bay area were critical to developing a Larger Movement that emerged throughout the rest of the 1990s and expanded and really changed the politics cool landscape in the state of california, if i could add, just a little bit, i agree with all thats been said. I just want to highlight sort of the racist nature of the campaign favor of proposition 27. You had pete running for governor and as gustavo said, in latching his his campaign on to prop 187, running a sort of pseudo documentary type of saying they keep coming and showing sort of grainy pictures of the border. I thought its on youtube and, you know, they dont have to say who they are, but you get the distinct idea who they are when see the pictures of people, migrants on the border, you have a supporter, actually one of the cosponsors of prop 187, ron prince, who says, you know, when hes you know, s. O. S. Is the posse. Save our state is the name of the initiative. You know, actually, you are the posse. S. O. S. Is the group, you know, sort of ideas of lynching which is, sadly enough, popular this state, as well as many others while back. You have another supporter from Orange County, barbara coe, saying, you know, these arent shiny faced. You know, people, shiny faced kids, theyre theyre theyre little efforts. And you have a whole campaign. And i want to emphasize 11. I know Orange County was sort of perhaps the epicenter of a lot of antisemitic sentiment. But this this proposition gained the support of californians all over the state, including many, many of the latinos voting voted in favor of it. So its its not just Orange County thing, but part. What what was tapped into was this general fear, concern. And sadly, in my estimation, mexican immigrants. I can really quickly put it in the context of california history. 1994 as proposition one, 87, 1996 is proposition 209, which bans affirmative action in california. Public education in 1998 is proposition 227, which outlawed bilingual education in california. So 94 187. It wasnt just anger against mexican. So anger at the modern day california, one of a diverse ca

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