Published: March 11, 2008 10:45 am      

Organizer decries immigration bill

The co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association was at Goshen College Monday to spread her message of social justice.

Approximately 150 people were at College Mennonite Church for a community dialogue meeting to hear Dolores Huerta speak on “How to Create Communities for Social Justice.”

Huerta, 75, the first member of her family to receive a higher education degree, co-founded the Stockton Chapter of the Community Service Organization in 1955.

According to a news release from Goshen College, the CSO battled segregation, police brutality, led voter registration drives, pushed for improved public services in Latino communities throughout California and fought to enact new legislation.

There, she met Cesar Chavez and both realized the immediate need to organize farm workers because of their dire conditions.

They began the National Farm Workers Association, the predecessor to the UFW.

Huerta urged the public to act against the current bill in the Indiana Senate which would fine employers who hire undocumented workers.

“Who are undocumented and what are they doing? They are preparing food, cleaning buildings and taking care of our children,” Huerta said.

Huerta added that “there is racism behind this bill.”

“They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t working. These attacks are against hard-working people,” she said.

Huerta also said that ID thefts take place because Social Security numbers are needed to obtain employment “so they are going to borrow or make one up.”

She provided a history lesson to the audience, explaining that when North American Free Trade Agreement was adopted, it allowed for American companies to establish roots in foreign land, with the profits going back to the United States, an idea that immigrants are trying to adopt with some resistance from Americans.

Huerta also mentioned The Marshall Plan, which allowed Germany and Japan to build up their economies post-World War II without reimbursing the United States.

Along with the issue of immigration, Huerta also spoke about the importance of gender and ethnic balance in government, which she said would go a long way toward a resolution.

“We can’t have a democracy if only half of the people vote,” Huerta said. She suggested writing legislators as well as trying to “reach out to immigrants in our own community.”

“We have to remind ourselves that we are all immigrants,” she said.