Books documenting the immigrant experience
By Luis Torres, Correspondent
Posted: 06/19/2010 08:04:57 PM PDT
Updated: 06/20/2010 02:19:14 AM PDT

Today’s headlines are filled with back and forth arguments over Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, SB 1070. The law allows local law enforcement to question suspected illegal immigrants about their status and demand proof that they are either U.S. citizens or legal resident aliens. They risk being deported if they can’t provide such proof.

Civil rights groups have called the law pernicious and have launched a boycott of all things Arizonan. They claim the law invites unfair racial profiling.

Supporters insist the Arizona law does not encourage racial profiling and claim the state is taking necessary steps that the federal government has neglected to take to stem the tide of illegal immigration. It’s against this backdrop that two new books about the immigrant experience have just been published.

One deals with Mexican Americans and the other with the Salvadoran immigrant experience, and by extension, the experiences of recent arrivals from other Central American countries such as Guatemala and Nicaragua.

“Hero Street USA” by Marc Wilson spotlights the remarkable story of a small town in Illinois that has the dubious distinction of being the home of a disproportionate number of its residents who died for their country in World War II and the Korean conflict – all of them Mexican Americans.

“Hope in Times of Darkness: A Salvadoran American Experience” by Randy Jurado Ertll is a slim and pithy
memoir by a Pasadena
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resident who overcame the kinds of obstacles that are common to recent immigrants from Central America.

Both books chronicle the challenges facing new immigrants and both subtly document the contributions immigrants have made to this country, in spirit and in practice.

Marc Wilson writes, “In a nutshell, the story is this: In a 15-month period ending in April 1945, six men from this once unpaved street in Western Illinois were killed in action in World War II. Two more men from the same block were killed in action in the Korean War. That may be the most killed in war from any one block in the United States. But the story runs even deeper.”

The small town, within the shadow of the broad shoulders of Chicago, is Silvis. Wilson traces the historical, economic and political circumstances that contributed to the migration of Mexicans to Silvis and the Midwest during the early part of the 20th century. His admirable research, as personified by these heroic families, reveals the “push/pull” factors that were the catalyst for migration from Mexico.

The Mexican Revolution – which began in 1910 and continued for nearly 20 years – created chaos and dislocation in Mexico. The revolution was a major factor in pushing immigrants across the border.
Simultaneously, there was a desperate need for cheap labor in the United States, because many young American men were in Europe fighting in World War I. That created a magnet for immigrants. Many of the families that eventually settled in the Midwest responded to fliers distributed by U.S. companies, urging Mexicans to come to the United States for jobs on the railroads and in the meat packing houses in and around Chicago.

Free train tickets were distributed to young men eager to work. Tens of thousands of Mexicans came to the United States. Their labor was welcome. Their presence was not.

It was the sons of these early migrants who, born in the United States and thus U.S. citizens, signed up to fight for their country: the USA. They fought valiantly for their country. Many were awarded the Medal of

Honor winners than any other ethnic group. Many were awarded the precious medal posthumously.

Eventually the little street in Silvis (originally Second Street) was re-named “Hero Street USA” in honor of the Mexican Americans who died for their country.

The experiences of Salvadoran immigrants reveal how United States immigration policy and foreign policy are joined at the hip. Randy Jurado Ertll’s personal experiences exemplify that.

The United States government’s unbridled support for the despotic Salvadoran government during the civil war of the 1980s created exiles of thousands of innocent Salvadorans caught in the cross fire of violence. Yet, the U.S. government’s policy of support for that regime made it contradictory for the U.S. to readily grant political asylum to Salvadorans. A pernicious “Catch 22″ for many Salvadoran immigrants.

The author of “Hope in Times of Darkness” followed an arc typical of tens of thousands of Salvadoran Americans. There is a twist to his personal story, however. He was actually born in the United States. His mother had come here without documentation. When Randy was an infant, his mother was deported back to El Salvador. And that’s where he grew up. Eventually, his mother was able to return to the United States with Randy. He was 8 years old. Monumental personal challenges lay ahead.

In his gritty little memoir, Ertll chronicles the trajectory of his life in Los Angeles and Pasadena. Living first in South Los Angeles, he struggled to survive elementary school because he didn’t speak English. Eventually, a love of learning and a few caring teachers helped him turn away from the lure of drugs and gang violence that permeated his neighborhood.

Many of his friends weren’t so fortunate, ending up dead or in prison. Ertll writes: “Poor minorities went on being innocent victims of drive-bys, armed robberies, beatings and murder. Those who suffered the most were beaten by both the police and gang members. They were scared to report crimes because they feared they would be deported or accused of the crimes. Unable to speak English, they had no way to defend themselves.”

Ertll found ways to defend himself – first, on the streets and eventually, through education. He graduated from Occidental College and worked for Congresswoman (now U.S. Secretary of Labor) Hilda Solis. Then he worked for Pasadena (now LAUSD) Superintendent Ray Cortines and eventually became executive director of Pasadena’s nonprofit El Centro de Accion Social. He is now devoted to helping other immigrants overcome the obstacles in their way to becoming productive, contributing Americans.

Both the tales of the Mexican-American veterans documented by Marc Wilson and the trajectory of Randy Jurado Ertll’s life story are reminders of the complexities and subtleties of the immigrant experience in today’s America. It has become a cliche, but it remains true: this is genuinely a nation of immigrants.
Luis Torres is a veteran journalist living in Pasadena who is a contributor to these pages.
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HERO STREET USA
By Marc Wilson
University of Oklahoma Press, $20
HOPE IN TIME OF DARKNESS: A SALVADORAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
By Randy Jurado Ertll
Hamilton Books (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group), $19

Please visit the following news links:

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/weekend/ci_15335590

http://www.dailynews.com/lalife/ci_15335590?source=rss

Why African Americans and Latinos Must Get Along
By Randy Jurado Ertll

Tuesday, 15 June 2010 22:48

African Americans and Latinos have too much in common not to get along better.

Both communities face high unemployment rates, high dropout rates, systemic poverty, gang violence, a disproportionate number of prison inmates and continual discrimination.

So why do so many African Americans resent Latin American immigrants, and why do so many Latinos fear African Americans?

Some issues that continue to create controversy between the two communities are immigration, job competition, bilingual education and political representation. These are tough issues that we need to address in a respectful and thoughtful manner.

Some African American and Latino leaders have tried to form alliances. But this has proven more difficult than you might think.

Take the big immigrant rights marches over the past couple of years. The pro-immigrant Latino leadership have not done enough outreach to include a wide representation of African American leaders and organizations. And few African American leaders and community members participated in this movement, except for the recent participation of the Reverend Al Sharpton who marched in Arizona against SB 1070. There is always room for improvement of communication and development of trust.

We need to do more to accentuate the history of alliances between African Americans and Latinos. We should stress that Mexicans played an important role in the underground railroad during slavery. Creating a southern route, Mexicans enabled an estimated 10,000 escaped slaves to arrive in freedom south of the border. And we should also recall that Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. were kindred spirits who actually wrote correspondence to each other.

There are negatives, too, that we must examine. And we all should be sensitive about the words we choose and the claims we make.

During this year’s pro immigrant rights marches, some Latino leaders continue to say that the immigrant rights movement is the new civil rights movement. This infuriates many African Americans who asked where were all the Latinos during the Civil Rights struggle? and who also point out that Latinos have benefited from the 1950′s and 1960′s Civil Rights struggle.

This bickering must come to an end. Both communities have suffered tremendously, and neither side can deny that fact. We should come together to demand that gang violence be curtailed in Northwest Pasadena, dropout rates must reduced within Pasadena Unified School District, jobs must be created for both communities and hate crimes be wiped out.

African Americans and Latinos alike simply want to achieve the American dream: to have a decent education, to have a stable job with benefits, to have the ability to buy a house, a car, and to be able to provide food, shelter and clothing to their children.

We should help each other achieve this dream first by studying and respecting each other’s history and culture and then by working together in common cause. Yes, we need our young students to read about their own history, culture, and to learn from other ethnic group’s struggles.

We cannot continue to blame each other, much less prey on each other. And we should not compete for the title of the country’s most victimized minority group. That is a losing game.

[Randy Jurado Ertll is executive director of El Centro de Accion Social in Pasadena and author of "Hope in Times of Darkness: A Salvadoran American Experience."]