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• The Dolores Huerta Foundation
• United Farm Workers
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Tavis: Dolores Huerta is a legendary figure in the labor movement in this country, along with Cesar Chavez. She co-founded the United Farmworkers of America, which is playing a major role in organizing opposition to proposed immigration reform legislation. Over the weekend, here in Los Angeles, over half, look at that photo.

Over half a million people turned out for massive rallies to protest these reforms. If the 'L.A. Times' tells you half a million, it was probably more like a million, Ms. Huerta, (laugh) but whatever it was, there were a whole lot of people out this weekend protesting this, all jokes aside. Nice to have you on the program.

Dolores Huerta: Thank you, it's nice to be here.

Tavis: For those who saw that picture on the cover of the "'L.A. Times' and saw those news stories all across the country, what was the protest all about? Why were so many people responding?

Huerta: Well, this immigration bill, the Sensenbrenner bill, it's just so onerous. This bill makes being in this country, undocumented, without legal residence, a felony. Up till now, it's been a civil offense. Now it would be a felony. The types of punishments that are in the bill for people who have been deported and come back go anywhere from one year to 20 years.

Any organization, be it a religious, a nonprofit organization, that tries to give any assistance to anyone who's undocumented can also face all kinds of punishments. They are talking about guest workers, but what the bill has, and this is the Specter bill in the Senate has the same language as the other bill does, 4437, but they're saying we'll give you a visa so you can work here temporarily.

But part of that visa says that you have to waive all of your rights in the United States, and it's a non-immigrant visa. You cannot immigrate to the United States. So, it's just unbelievable. I have never seen anything like this in our country. It's almost like okay, let's build more prisons, and now we can fill them up with people who are undocumented in this country.

Tavis: So the fight here, the rub here is about, just to recap here, about the fact that there is proposed legislation that getting really, really tough on undocumented workers, and you all find that unconscionable. And so across the country, folk by the thousands, tens of thousands, have taken to the streets.

Let me ask what's behind this movement for immigration reform that you obviously have a problem with, but what's behind this movement right about now? Why is this all coming to a crescendo right about now?

Huerta: Well, this is my opinion. I believe it's a distraction.

Tavis: From what?

Huerta: From the war. From the war in Iraq, from the fact that our economy, our tax dollars are going to the rich with these tax cuts, the fact that we're not creating jobs for our infrastructure. Our healthcare's being privatized, our schools are being ignored. And if they can distract the public, let's attack gays and lesbians, they're the problem.

Let's attack women's right to choose, abortion. That's the issue. And then of course it's the immigrants. So as long as the public can be distracted, they're not focusing on the real issues that are really hurting our country. The people who are undocumented, who are they? They're picking our food, they're taking care of our children, they're taking care of our elderly and our sick.

They're in our restaurants, cooking. They're cleaning our buildings so they'll be safe and sanitary for us. They're working every day. They're paying taxes when they go buy groceries or milk. They're paying taxes, but they don't get any benefits in return. So, they're sustaining our economy by the work that they're doing, so one can say that they have earned the right to have legal status in this country. They have earned it with their work and their contributions to our country.

Tavis: I want to ask you the same question about two sets of people. First the politicians, the elected officials, and then the American people. You've just laid out a brilliant analysis here of why many of us were opposed to Prop 209 in this state. Because to your point, if it were not for these workers, our manicures, our lawns at these gorgeous homes would not be manicured, our babies wouldn't be nannied.

The tables wouldn't be waited on, our cars wouldn't be parked. The list goes on and on, as you've laid out. I wonder if you think one, that the American people, those persons who benefit from these services, understand that or connect to that when they see these kinds of protests in the news? Do they get that? Do they see the connection here?

Huerta: Well, I hope that they do. I hope that they do. I think that there are some people that maybe that kind of a demonstration will make them even more anti-Latino. And it's kind of interesting, because they're talking about building this wall on the Mexican border. But they're not about building a wall on the Canadian border.

And the thing is that the only terrorists that ever come into the United States actually came in through Canada, not through Mexico. And if people actually are identified, the millions of people that are here that are undocumented, it really makes this for a safer society. Because people can stand up and be counted, and we know who they are. And this is why we need to have the right of legal residency.

Tavis: The second group, the elected officials, if you're right about the fact, and there have been any number of studies that underscore the point you're making about the positive impact these workers have on the U.S. economy, and what would happen if every undocumented worker pulled out of here at one time, on the same day, the economy would crash.

Huerta: Absolutely.

Tavis: And there are studies that underscore that. I wonder, given that reality, in your mind, what are the politicians who are pushing this kind of reform thinking?

Huerta: Well, I believe that it's mostly coming from the Republican Party, although I do have to say there is one positive piece of legislation by Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy which does have a procedure for immigration. But at least those very, very conservative Republicans that are pushing this kind of a measure, I think there's some racism attached to that.

Because I don't think that they would do this, it's basically aimed at Latinos. And so I think there's a racist element to that, and I think they're using it, again, to distract and to divide the country, 'cause it's always easy to attack people of color, as they're doing with these bills.

Tavis: For those who have not been following the story, what we've been talking about here so far is what's happening in Congress vis a vis legislation. Ultimately, whatever passes ends up on the President's desk. So tell me how President Bush factors into this debate right now.

Huerta: Well, it'll be interesting because when he first took office, he was very open about that he was going to do something about immigration. And then of course he backtracked basically because of the war in Iraq. And a lot of them have been afraid to come out and say anything since then. He has said publicly that he does want a guest worker program.

But this is kind of like slavery. You bring people in, you work them, you send them back to their native land. We keep their work, but they don't, again, get Social Security, they don't get unemployment insurance, and they don't get the benefits of residency or citizenship in this country. And that's what Bush is backing.

He's backing this so-called guest worker program, which in the old days we used to call the Bracero program, which we fought very hard to get rid of back in the sixties. And there's been legalization in this country for undocumenteds every 20 years. Back when the old Bracero program ended, public law 78, we legalized over half a million people, ex-braceros, with their families, without any legislation.

Then we fast forward to 1984-'85, we passed the Immigration Reform Act, and we gave amnesty to three million people, including one million four hundred thousand farm workers. And so here we are, 20 years later, and we have the same situation, where you have people that are doing these really, really hard jobs in our country, and that are now, you might say, in line for another legalization program.

Tavis: You were born in Mexico?

Huerta: No, New Mexico.

Tavis: I'm sorry, born in New Mexico. Thank you for correcting me. Born in New Mexico, so you have always been, from day one, an American citizen.

Huerta: Oh, in fact, my great grandparents were American citizens.

Tavis: Okay. How then do you respond, and I raise that only because you are an American citizen, but you have always, the balance of your life has been spent working for undocumented workers and those who are disenfranchised in this arena.

How do you, as an American, juxtapose the work that you do on their behalf with being an American citizen who ought to be concerned, in the minds of some, that every year, we see increases somewhere of a half million people coming across these borders illegally?

Huerta: Well, as an American citizen, I know that our foreign policy creates the problem. When he passed NAFTA, and you have small farmers in Mexico and Central America that have to compete with agribusiness, there's no way that they can do it. You have a small farmer, he hires maybe 30, 40 people to work for him.

But then he's gotta compete with the agribusiness (unintelligible) from the United States. So, he's put out of work. He's put out of business, and they have to come over here. Because under the types of policies that we have in Mexico and Central America, American companies go in there, they take the resources, they take out the profits that people over there barely make enough money to live on.

It's very different from the Marshall plan that we had after World War II, where our United States, we went in there in Germany and Japan, but we actually built those economies. These were our enemies that we defeated. But we didn't take the resources. We said okay, here, you build your own economies with your own people and your own government.

Very different from the type of colonization strategy that we've used in Latin America. So we've gotta change our whole thinking, and when we think that we're right on the Mexican border with Mexico and Central America, and we've gotta get rid of the xenophobic attitudes that we have, to understand that these are people that are in our backyard. These are our partners; these are our friends, our biggest trading partner.

People from Mexico that come to the United States to purchase along the Texas border, Arizona-New Mexico border, actually spend billions of dollars shopping in the United States.

Tavis: Let me ask you, as an organizer, a long-time organizer, how it feels, two-part question, how it feels to organize something like this. To see this kind of massive response and turnout by your community from California to the Carolinas. How does that feel as an organizer, number one? And number two, what do you sense happening in your community? 'Cause when you see that kind of turnout, something is brewing here.

Huerta: Well, it's been coming up for a while. We had Proposition 209 to get rid of affirmative action. We had Proposition 227 so they couldn't teach the children in the schools. Tens of thousands of Latino children didn't pass a high school exit exam. What's gonna happen to them? And I think the community is just fed up.

And this bill here just kind of capped it off, and people understand. And one of the great things that made that march possible are the media. The Spanish-speaking media. The radio stations, the television stations, the print media, they brought the information to the people, what's going to be happening to them, and people got riled up.

Tavis: I got 20 seconds, right quick. The story in L.A. today, 14,000 students in 21 schools walked out today to show their support of this kind of protest. What do you make of that?

Huerta: Well, I think that this is our new civil rights movement. It's one about civil rights, and it's one about economic rights. And all over the United States, there have been over 30 marches all over, in very different cities all over the United States, against these immigration bills.

Tavis: Yeah, well, honored to have you here, as always. You are a legend in your community and in this country. Ms. Huerta, nice to see you.

Huerta: Thank you very much.

Tavis: Glad to have you here. Up next on this program, the husband and wife duo that makes up Kindred the Family Soul. This first CD they had out a few years ago was amazing. They are now back with CD number two, and they are, as I said, a husband and wife duo, they work together. Fascinating relationship, fascinating music, fascinating life. We'll talk to Kindred the Family Soul, Aja and Fatin, in just a moment. Stay with us.