We are not Finished
Right now, everyone is busy talking about something else. The media is focused on legislative pay raises. Will the governor veto? Should the legislature have passed these pay raises? The Mississippi River is cresting high again, this time a bit further north, and so on.
What no one is talking about is a temporary victory for all immigrants and all Louisianans at the state legislature. What am I referring to, you may ask? I am speaking about the handful of ill-conceived immigration-related bills that were making so much noise only two weeks ago. What happened to them? Where’s the outcry about them? Well, there isn’t any. Why? Because, for now, they have been shelved. That’s right, the bills did not pass. We still have a week left, so anything is possible, but at this moment it does look like Louisiana has achieved a victory. It’s time to celebrate!
But wait, don’t celebrate yet. Or rather, celebrate, but celebrate with caution and with an eye to next year. I’ll tell you why in a minute, but let’s take a moment together to look at this amazing turn of events. This year, Louisiana can say to the rest of the nation that it is compassionate and thoughtful in its consideration of immigrants. This year, Louisiana can say that it withstood the wave of negative emotion and prejudice that often pushes for de-humanizing legislation. This year, as Louisianans, we can be proud to say that our legislators realized that punishing people who help others was bad for the State, bad for business, and bad for our communities. This year, and this year only, we can celebrate for a moment. But why only for a moment? The answer is simple; this year will soon end, and just around the corner is next year, and it comes fast and it comes hard, and with a larger set of bills aimed at seeing the light of day.
So now what? Aren’t we done? After all, we won. We stopped those ridiculously painful bills from passing at the state level and now we look like a fine bunch of people. We can get on with our lives, right? Next year is so far away, why worry about it. Truth is, we must worry about it.
I just learned yesterday that the average amount of time it takes for passage of anti-immigrant bills at a state level, according to national trends, is about three years. That is, an introductory set of bills come out the first year. If the community organizes, it is successful in defeating the bills. The second year, the creators of the same bills come back with more bills and more allies and more authors of similar bills. Again, the community fights it and defeats the majority of the bills (not all of them, and so the battle begins to shift). Then, in the third year, there is a large onslaught of bills that are hard to defeat. The community must organize again, but this time the force and will of those that would pass hateful bills is immense and the organized community is overwhelmed. Hate rhetoric fills the airwaves, talk shows talk about closing borders, sending “illegals” home, being tough on crime, etc. and the general public eats it up and soon no one wants to listen to a humanistic argument or even an economic argument. It’s happened in other states. It can, and probably will happen in Louisiana.
So there’s the short of it. We are not finished.
What has to happen now is that our community needs to work closer and prepare harder for next year. We have to find a way to sustain the energy we demonstrated three weeks ago when we talked on the radio, talked in kitchens and doctor’s offices, talked in our newspapers, and more about the dangers of the proposed bills. We rallied ourselves into a collective action that cannot afford to deflate. I am afraid that we will do just that. We will go back to our busy lives and pretend that we’ve won, that the problem is solved. Believing that this large victory is the end-all of our fight is similar to believing in the tooth fairy. We have hard work ahead of us and we will need each and every one of you to help us as you did in May. If we are successful in mounting similar opposition in the coming year, we may be able to position ourselves to win in the coming years. This is my hope. We are not finished, and it’s important that we, as citizens of this fantastic place we call home, remember this, stay united, and prepare.
LD
Tags: hispanic, hispanic community, hispanic louisiana, hispanic new orleans, latino, latino louisiana, latino new orleans, latinola, louisiana, louisiana i, Louisiana immigration, new orleans