LA GRAN PRIMAVERA EN LOS ANGELES 2006 COMMEMORATION
jesse diaz
I apologize for any crossmailings in my groups and or individual email lists. This is meant mainly for individuals that wish to join the committee to commemorate the organizing efforts by many individuals during the spring 2006 mass mobilizations in Los Ángeles.
In recent discussions we realized that many individuals were not recognized for their efforts and this is an opportunity to come together on the anniversary of La Gran Marcha 2006, and on the verge of an immigration reform, to recognize everyone that worked on that campaign, but in the hustle and bustle of the quickly changing political developments that followed that spring were not recognized for their contributions. It is a day of celebration of the past, and hope for a better future...
I again apologize and if this does not interest you, please feel free to delete here.
Dear organizer and or participant in La Gran Marcha and El Gran Paro Americano 2006:
The largest mass mobilizations ever witnessed in Los Ángeles occurred on March 25th, and May 1st, 2006, when millions of undocumented immigrants and supporters marched against repressive antiimmigrant legislation. The efforts leading up to and during the spring 2006 mobilizations provided a unique station from which many of us were able to interact with each other once again in the Movimiento during what is coined La Gran Epoca Primavera 2006, to organize the largest manifestations ever in US history, all in response to the most draconian antiimmigrant legislative attack shrouded in HR4437. It was natural for us to congeal our efforts as part of the longstanding immigrant rights struggle in Los Ángeles that has spanned for many years.
In Los Ángeles, antiimmigrant legislative attacks have transpired since the early 1970s, when Bert Corona led a band of young Mexicana and Mexicano activists and countless allies that organized the first proimmigrant manifestations in response to the Californian Dixon Arnett Bill, which sought to enact employer sanctions. That struggle culminated when employer sanctions was attached to the Immigration Reform and Control Act that also offered citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants, and crystallized the antiimmigrant movement that served to enact California Proposition 187 in 1994. The immigrant rights commnunity organized against 187, which sought to deny social services to undocumented immigrants, and drew over 100,000 undocumented immigrants and their supporters to the streets in downtown that signaled the beginning of the end of that bill later deemed unconstitutional in the higher courts.
By 2005, antiimmigrant legislation was on the rise, antiimmigrant vigilantes had become emboldened and began organizing in Arizona and in CA—in response; a conference in Southern California drew hundreds of proimmigrant activists that eventually confronted and shut down the Minutemen hate group in Eastern San Diego County during the summer. Through the fall of 2005 a handful of proimmigrant activists from Los Ángeles kept meeting as what became known as the La Placita Olvera Proimmigrant Working Group, which first organized the initial actions against the most draconian antiimmigrant legislation to date by way of HR4437, which sought to deport overnight 12 million undocumented immigrants, and felonize them and their supporters.
In early 2006 the Placita Working Group began to organize the largest march ever in the history of our country, superseding even the massive marches against the Vietnam War on the capitol lawns in DC. Although many activists and organizations were late to come aboard on the efforts, this handful of activists plowed forward with very little funding and outside support, it depended on inside donations that amounted to approximately $2,500, and from the City of Los Ángeles, as well as from two printers in the Inland Empire that printed for a minimal fee the hundreds of thousands of flyers and posters throughout La Gran Epoca Primavera 2006.
The groundwork of the Placita Group also caught the attention of the media, and was well underway when the group decided to invite the media to be a part of the outreach following the example of Chicago that worked with El Pistolero to organize the March 10th march there that drew an estimated 750,000 marchers from all backgrounds in that city. The Spanish media in Los Ángeles became instrumental to bringing out the nearly 2 million individuals on March 25th, 2006.
Although the media was key to bringing out folks that day, it worked against the Coalition on May 1st, 2006, when the Coalition called for national boycott it named, El Gran Paro Americano 2006. Yet, the word of mouth amongst the immigrant community and a massive groundgame in terms of flyering and postering the community, coupled with the controversy in the media between factions in the Immigrant Rights Movement, brought out an estimated 1.5 million marchers in Downtown Los Ángeles that also observed the national boycott. An estimated 500,000 of those marchers kept marching along Wilshire Boulevard to an afternoon rally in West Los Ángeles, and countless others marched into the night across the Southland.
In the week leading up to the Gran Marcha on March 25th, 2006, the Placita Group became known as the March 25th Coalition against the Sensenbrenner and King Bill, and by then had numerous activists that were new to the Movimiento, began organizing alongside the veterans in the Movimiento that had been organizing since the 1960s and 70s. In midApril 2006, the Gran Marcha Estudiantíl 2006 drew an estimated 25,000 students marched in Downtown Los Ángeles after having walked out of countless schools across the Southland, in unison with hundreds of thousands of other students across the country prompted by students in Texas. On April 10th, 2006, thousands of marchers converged on Placita Olvera, which helped along the whirlwind grassroots campaign of El Gran Paro Americano 2006. Later in the year, in memoriam of the sacrifice that Elvira Arellano took in Chicago, the all-woman march La Gran Marcha Laboral 2006 once again filled the lawns of City Hall, and history continued to be made.
During this epoch, there were few opportunities to recognize the many individuals that worked arduously to make La Gran Epoca Primavera 2006 in general, and La Gran Marcha 2006 in particular, a success, and never made it into the TV or radio media, in written articles, or in award ceremonies, etc., but given the much work that was undertaken by them, some individuals have come together and put forth a plan to recognize collectively all of the individuals that worked during La Gran Epoca Primavera 2006, on the 7th anniversary of La Gran Marcha 2006, on March 25th, 2013, at Placita Olvera.
The plan would be to bring together the many individuals that participated during La Gran Epoca Primavera 2006, commemorate the work we did and celebrate the fruits of our labor. The committee will begin working on Thursday, February 7th, 2013, at Placita Olvera, in the evening at 6:30PM. It invites everyone to come, especially to bring ideas, pictures, video, articles, and other props that would help in the commemoration of the historic events, La Gran March 2006, and El Gran Paro Americano 2006.
In the present time, there is a discussion of putting forth an immigration reform by the end of summer, we can argue that these mobilizations etched still in the mind of millions of Americans and politicians has never allowed for these individuals to forget that the presence of Latino and Asian immigrants and their countless allies, is a reality of US history, to which they need to act in response. There is no doubt the work that the many activists did during La Gran Epoca Primavera 2006 not only in Los Ángeles, but across the nation, still has implications in the current debate; those memories will forever be etched in their minds.
Therefore, we encourage you to come tomorrow, and once again bring light to the work the many of us did and remind the American public that we are still very much a part of the debate, by joining the committee to make this event a reality.
Contact
Jesse Díaz, Jr. 213.725.1714
Gloria Saucedo, 818.919.4718
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