La Raza La Radicals

By Jim Simpson

Outrages are coming so fast and furious these days that I am numb. It has become difficult to be outraged when practically everything politicians of both parties are doing is outrageous. But a recent proposal in Congress deserves mention. HR 1999, proposed in April by co-sponsors Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) and Rick Renzi (R-AZ), would provide $10 million a year to a radical immigration group, the National Council of La Raza (meaning “the Race”). The bill offers funds for “community development and affordable housing projects and programs serving low-and moderate-income households,” for families of “Hispanic origin.” So giving immigrants the same free medical care, education, food, housing and income support available to all low income groups is not enough. Now we have to single them out for special treatment, empowering a radical organization in the process! And the bill does not discriminate between legal and illegal immigrants. I don’t need to tell you where most of the money will go. It is bad enough there are already programs that do this. The real dig is that NCLR gets to distribute the money, keeping them well endowed and cementing their position of influence within the immigrant community. NCLR challenges the “radical” label that Michelle Malkin, U.S. Congressmen and others have placed on them. On the NCLR website they make a forceful argument claiming they oppose illegal immigration, disavow separatist or racist Hispanic movements and only seek to bring Hispanics into the American mainstream by teaching English, respect for our laws, etc. Sounds truly inspiring. Of course the Congressman who had the guts to call them radicals has since conveniently died, and thus has no way of responding further. I like to be factual. Anyone who reads my columns knows that. So I looked into some of the organizations and causes they support. Remember proposition 187, the 1994 California ballot initiative that would have denied social services to illegal immigrants? What reasonable person would deny it’s insane to allow illegal immigrants to not only flagrantly violate our border laws, but then get all kinds of social services to award their criminality once they get here? It passed with 58% support. Any rational taxpaying citizen, Hispanic or otherwise should support it, right? Not La Rasa. They, along with other groups, successfully defeated it in court with the help of then Governor Gray Davis. Here’s their answer, as expressed in an address by former NCLR President Raul Yzaguirre at their 2003 Annual Conference:

Proposition 187 in California and similar proposals elsewhere were ugly efforts to hurt the Latino community. They were direct and blatant attacks.

But we fought back. We didn't passively sit back and accept someone else's fate for us. Maybe we surprised the bigots and the xenophobes. We got angry when they expected us to be meek.

Now the Hispanic community is being assaulted once more. This time they don't want to make you angry, so their tactics are subtle. But no matter how many nice words and glossy photos they hand us, a knife in the back is deadly even if it's delivered with a smile.

“Bigots,” “xenophobes,” that’s what we are. And “a knife in the back is deadly even if it's delivered with a smile.” That last snide remark was aimed at George W. Bush and other Republicans trying to court the Hispanic vote. Not bigoted? Not racist? Not radical? Certainly not grateful. This group has relied extensively on generous American foundation and government grants since its inception in 1968. They received $5.8 million from the Feds in 2005, according to their Annual Report, and now they may well get an additional $10 million/year for their trouble. How nice. It gets better. Have you heard of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, better known by its acronym MEChA? If you live in California, you have. This group’s website states “We are Chicanos and Chicanas of Aztlán reclaiming the land of out birth…” which according to their revisionist history includes areas of the Southwestern US. In their answer to critics’ charges of support for this radical separatist group, NCLR explain that MEChA is really just a “student organization whose primary objectives are educational” and that their founding charter’s radical goals don’t matter. To make their pathetic case, they cite, of all things, a passage from an LA Times article by one Gustavo Arellano that “few [MEChA] members take these dated relics of the 1960s seriously, if they even bothered to read them.” So we’re supposed to take the word of a Hispanic LA Times reporter as an answer to this serious charge?!? I went to the MEChA website. The first page states in bold print “The following documents are essential to the philosophy of MEChA. Every MEChista should be familiar with them,” referring to MEChA’s “National” Constitution, El Plan de Santa Barbara, and El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. The Constitution states in its preamble: “Chicano and Chicana students of Aztlán must take upon themselves the responsibilities to promote Chicanismo within the community, politicizing our Raza [Race] with an emphasis on indigenous consciousness to continue the struggle for the self-determination of the Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlán (emphasis mine).” To get a flavor for how these “liberated” people think, go to the following Aztlán news link, where the author discusses how the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse saga is being exploited by “Jewish pornographers,” or visit their news site, for a treatise from these enlightened Mexicans on their charming views of Americans. This is the same tripe you’d find coming from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the American Socialist Party or MoveOn.org, Daily Kos, or Michael Moore come to think of it. Simply amazing how predictably similar they all are. The fact is that NCLR has teamed up with blatantly radical groups like the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) to thwart illegal immigration reform at every turn. NCLR’s website has a clean, professional look and their propaganda carries all the buzzwords designed to make them look moderate, very much like the equally-radical Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). They have similarly wrapped themselves in the mantle of moderation by cultivating friends in both parties, flattering gullible lawmakers. So are they polished? Yes. Do they fool a lot of people? Apparently. Are they really moderate? No. According to WorldNetDaily, NCLR had “virtual veto power” over the most recent Senate immigration proposal. These are the folks pushing immigration policy in the U.S. Is there anywhere left to turn?