Another Wave of Protests....

Today, Monday Apirl 10, 2006 there was a protest in the downtown streets of Los Angeles along with many other American cities. The protests were to raise awareness of how much illegal immigration affects this nation. The people in the streets were either immigrants, supporters of those immigrants, and those loosely aware of the issues, but more so trying to press on their own agendas to the large crowds. Here is a link to the report that CNN posted on it’s website http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/10/immigration/index.html.

To brief you on the article:
There was an estimated 11-12 million undocumented immigrants on the street today. Jaime Contreras, the president of the National Capital Immigration Coalition said, “ The sleeping giant is awake. . .wide awake - - and we’re paying attention. . . What we want to achieve is to send a very strong message to the Senate, to the Congress in general and this administration that immigrants are fed up, that we are tired , that we work very , the hard.”

The largest demonstrations were in Washington D.C. ( around 500,000) and Pheonix, AZ (200,000).

In Los Angeles, Cardinal Rodger Mahony the city’s archbishop, urged lawmakers to pass immigration reform that allows for legalization for “all undocumented residents.”

There was a quote by Harry Pachon a professor, here at USC, that stated he was an expert on the issue. He said that many Hispanic Leaders were surprised that so many working class immigrants were stepping up and saying that they wanted their rights.

Then there were the quotes from the Republican and Democratic platforms. Bush says that he supports temporary guest workers provisions for non-citizens and that they need to get in line to get in the situation. Then the new cast reports that it is a rarity that the Republicans are supporting more of the Latino community- a territory that is typically Democratic. However, the conservative base still supports a strong crack down on illegal immigration. Hillary was also quoted on saying that immigration reform is a necessity for America but the bill that is being passed in the house (supporting 700 mile-long security wall and making illegal immigration a felony) is not the right process. The main consensus is that Senate is more supportive of something called “amnesty” but in layman’s terms it could be referred as “earned citizenship.”

I would like to point out some of the tactics used in this article. Like W. Lance Bennett has written about in his book, News: A Political Illusion, the article definitely has to have the opinions of the government officials to get a sense of legitimacy. The Journalist Allan Chernoff labeled Bush the figurehead of the Republican party and paralleled Hillary as the figurehead of the Democratic party. Since when did Hillary become the face of the democrats? I suppose this was to prepare the public that reads this to think of her in this light for the next presidential elections.

Benette also talks about the fragmentation of the news and how it is harder to see the bigger picture (News 36-70). I agree because there is not a lot of historical context to this story. There is an assumption that the reader is already aware of the issue and this is just some added facts. If I didn’t already know about the rising problem of immigration I might be confused of why all these protests are going on.

Questions that maybe should be looked into further for daily reporting is what is wrong with Mexico and other third world countries that make illegal immigration to happen with such large numbers in the first place? Did America have something to do with these undesirable conditions of these third world countries? People intuitively know that these illegal immigrants come to America for a better life from which they came. What is the effect of capitalism on their daily lives and how does it keep the poor down and widen the economic barrier between rich and poor. American is known for it’s American Dream, that if one works hard enough he or she can become a rich person, but that is rarely the case now. America is a country full of middle class people that are working to get by. So how does a poor immigrant relate in this equation? Well the middle class allow for the immigrants to come in and do all the dirty jobs that the middle class doesn’t want to touch. But we allow them to work with out health care and on a barely livable wage. With a selfish egoism that says that at least a typical American does not have to live that life. But Latinos are a rising population in the U.S.A. and soon they will be the majority. How long will it be till the majority will be oppressed in these conditions?

This seems like it is almost going back to the times of slavery in Virgina where the majority were blacks yet the elites were the white slave owners. Slaves didn’t have rights and then there was a major civil war. Will this situation now escalate into something of that nature? I would like to see more in depth reporting that brings up issues like that.