Immigrants and the 99 percent
Sebastian Fernandez Girardo, a graduate student born in Colombia, worked the Spanish-language information desk at Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park. Several copies of the protest’s newspaper, “Occupy Wall Street Journal in Spanish," were laid out on the table for anyone to take for an optional donation.
Girado graduated with a double bachelor's degree in economics and international studies, and is currently enrolled in an M.A. program in Economics at North Carolina State. He is now $46,000 debts due to the student loans.
“It is better to invest in education and get a degree given the current economic situation,” he said.
Girardo came to the United States with his parents 12 years ago when his father got a job in Latin America marketing with Ingersoll-Rand. He traveled to New York from North Carolina just to participate in the protests.
He said that although the protests have been widely covered by Spanish-speaking media such as Univision, Telesur, RSN, CNN en español, Latino immigrants were generally low in numbers in the park or at the protest marches.
“Basically, there are not very many Hispanics involved,’’ he said. “They are afraid of getting arrested if they are undocumented.”
The Occupy Wall Street movement hasn’t generated the type of participation from Latinos or immigrants that was seen in the 2006 immigration marches across the country.
Javier Castaño, founder of the Spanish-language newspaper Queens Latino, says he did not see too many “darker faces” at first at the demonstrations.
“For those without papers, they have to be careful to not get arrested,” he said. He added that initially the only Spanish speakers he saw were from Spain. However, as the weeks went on, he said that the presence of Latin American immigrants living in the United States at the protests has been growing.
“Now I hear Latin music and there’s an information desk in Spanish. There is also the Occupy Wall Street Journal in Spanish,” Castaño said.
A month into the occupation of Wall Street, the first Spanish-language general assembly started. Flags and banners in Spanish were on display. The Movement for Justice in El Barrio and other community groups were present.
The meeting took place on Oct. 9 under the orange cube sculpture across the street from Zucotti Park, where protesters had been camped out since Sept. 17. After people were kicked out of the park at midnight on Nov. 15, the Spanish asambleas generales have continued to be held from 5-7 p.m. every Sunday at 60 Wall Street.
Thanu Yakupitiyage, an activist participating in Occupy Wall Street in New York, is a graduate student who was born in Sri Lanka. She has been involved in the protests for three weeks, and contributed to the formation of a working group for people of color.
“As this movement is taking shape, we are trying to figure out how to bring in more immigrant and undocumented workers. It is still something that is lacking,” she said. Yakupitiyage is helping to start an unofficial working group to plan permanent and ongoing immigrant rights protests to take place parallel to the Occupy protests. Similar to the labor march that took place on Oct.5, these protests would specifically focus on immigrant issues. She hopes they will also provide a safe space for immigrants and undocumented workers to participate without fear of arrest and possible deportation.
One of the reasons Yakupitiyage says immigrants are not participating is “because of language and how Occupy Wall Street is messaging itself. It does not have one single message.”
While the 2006 immigration reform protests were more focused on a single issue, Occupy Wall Street addresses a wide range of related issues around the economy, war, and unemployment.
“People have trouble understanding and latching on to immigrant issues and how they tie into broader issues,” Yakupitiyage said.
There seems to be a general consensus among protesters and organizers alike that the fear of getting arrested and deported is keeping many undocumented immigrants away from the protests.
Although Nicolas Perez, a philosophy student from Mexico, has a student visa, he only went to the protests as an observer because he was afraid of getting arrested and putting his visa at risk. “You have more to lose than a citizen. But I’m careful,” he said.
The Occupy Wall Street movement comes at a time when immigration remains a national issue, and some immigrant activists are upset about the record deportations under President Obama with more than one million deported in less than three years.
Tania Mattos, legislative coordinator at the New York State Youth Leadership Council, believes that the Occupy Wall Street protests are important in bringing immigrant issues back on the table, particularly when even stricter measures are being discussed around birth right laws.
“There’s a movement going on and a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment in this country, especially in states like Alabama,” referring to the new immigration law there.
“The face of racist America is coming up again in the South,’’ she said. “But at the same time, the immigrant rights movement is growing… The fight in New York is relatively easy. But change has to happen in the South.”
Nevertheless, she emphasized the Occupy protests could provide a forum for the U.S. born children of undocumented immigrants to push for the passing of a New York Dream Act, which the New York Youth Leadership Council is lobbying for when the next legislative session opens in January. She said there needs to be a shift in the message of the protests to address immigrant rights.
“There has to be a specific strategy in the movement. All members must understand that it is still developing. We have to go down there and represent economic issues of undocumented workers,” she said.
