Muscling A Web Site Into A Social Movement Va. Blogger Taps Into Illegal-Immigration Ire
By Nick Miroff Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 22, 2007; Page A01
Illegal immigrant ice cream vendors might be spreading leprosy in Manassas. Prince William County has been infiltrated by "unassimilated marxist radicals." Manassas Park police covered up the predations of five Hispanic men who gang-raped a woman in the street in June.
These claims, among others, have been made in recent months by Greg Letiecq, whose popular blog, Black Velvet Bruce Li, offers "Blog-Fu for Prince William, Manassas and Manassas Park politics" -- often making up in passion what it lacks in proof.
Greg Letiecq has targeted Democrats, illegal immigrants, ***s and others. (Jahi ****wendiu)
But Letiecq (pronounced LUH-teek) is not some mouse-pushing crackpot with a keyboard and an Internet connection. In the past 18 months, Letiecq has leveraged his blog to help elect allies, kill off opponents' campaigns and shape local public policy. Peers call his site the most influential local blog in Virginia.
Since April, Letiecq has used his blog to sign up more than 500 members for his anti-illegal immigrant organization, Help Save Manassas, quickly building it into one of the region's most effective social movements. He and his group researched, facilitated and wrote parts of the illegal-immigration resolution that Prince William officials adopted this month, working with the Washington-based Immigration Reform Law Institute.
The resolution -- approved unanimously July 10 -- seeks to deny services to illegal immigrants and sharply increase immigration enforcement by police. Its sponsor, John T. Stirrup Jr. (R-Gainesville), is Letiecq's district representative and also a member of Help Save Manassas.
"We worked with Stirrup" on the resolution, Letiecq said. "Our legislative committee helped transform it to fit Virginia codes."
Said Stirrup of the group's role: "I felt comfortable with what they were doing, and we vetted it with our county attorney."
A former insurance salesman who works as a programmer in the defense industry, Letiecq has seemingly been everywhere lately -- on national and local television, at local Republican party events and rallying his troops to "victory" at the July 10 board meeting.
His movement has tapped into a wellspring of simmering anger over illegal immigration and a general unease about the large influx of Hispanic residents who have moved to the region in the past decade, sparking suburban clashes over such quality-of-life issues as overcrowding, language, even lawn care.
Much of the illegal-immigrant backlash that has spread to Loudoun County and elsewhere in Virginia can be traced to the computer annex in the basement of Letiecq's suburban Manassas home. There, behind the stairs, he runs his two deeply entwined operations as blogger and activist leader amid a clutter of camping gear, papers and his young daughters' toys.
"We're inspiring people," Letiecq said. "A lot of citizens felt like there was nothing they could do."
When Letiecq isn't helping write county policy in Prince William, he can be found writing material of a different sort as Black Velvet Bruce Li. Among the ranks of the online martial artists who spin and strike across the so-called blogosphere, Letiecq is a virtual ninja, practicing character assassination, innuendo and exhortation with the skill of a black belt.
"He has by far the most well-trafficked local blog in the state and, as far as influencing public policy, one of the most influential blogs in the country," said Ben Tribbett, whose Not Larry Sabato blog covers Virginia politics.
David Mastio, who tracks 200 Virginia political blogs on his Blognetnews.com, ranks Letiecq "the most influential conservative blogger in Northern Virginia" and among the top three most-influential political blogs in the state. Letiecq's site tallies about 47,000 distinct page views a day and counts 5,000 unique visitors, although he said he earns only about $1.50 a day from the operation because he doesn't have time to sell much advertising.
"He's a hard-hitting, blunt, tough commentator on politics, and people like that," said Mastio, who is also an editorial writer for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.
"Fairfax County Harboring Illegal Aliens" was the title of a recent, and typical, Letiecq posting. Another warned "Zapatista Army Affiliate to Protest in PWC Today" -- taking yet another swipe at a favorite target, the immigrant rights group Mexicans Without Borders.
Letiecq even stars on the Web site of Mexicans without Borders -- playing the villain, of course. A photo of him smoking a cigarette and looking smug outside the Prince William County Board's chambers carries a caption that reads in Spanish: Greg Letiecq, "leader of the racist, recalcitrant anti-immigrant group 'Help to Save Manassas,' savors the hate, satisfied at having delivered a racist law for his group."
But to dismiss Black Velvet Bruce Li as the rantings of a fringe extremist underestimates Letiecq's reach and appeal. When he isn't fanning anti-illegal immigrant sentiment -- and providing a venue for raw, sometimes bigoted views, on his comment pages -- Letiecq reports on the minutiae of local news and politics to a degree no other media outlet has matched. Gossip, school board meetings, rumors, tax rate analysis -- it's all there on his site.
"He's filling a need for news at the local level," said Manassas City Council member Marc T. Aveni (R), who also is a member of Help Save Manassas.
Letiecq's blog is also more media-savvy than most, using video, photos and sn***y graphics. The blog is widely praised for its playful humor, often at the expense of local officials, such as a "Ham Sandwich for Commonwealth's Attorney" campaign mocking Democratic incumbent Paul B. Ebert, or the constant referral to a Democratic House of Delegates candidate, Jeanette Rishell, as "moonfruit."
Of French Canadian descent, Letiecq, 43, grew up outside Syracuse, N.Y., and majored in international relations at George Washington University. A year studying in France -- and assiduously adapting to French language and customs, he said -- cemented his perception that illegal immigrants are unwilling to adapt to U.S. culture.
In fact, Letiecq would not say that the anti-illegal immigrant campaign began in his basement so much as on his lawn. From there, he points to his neighbor's house, emanating loud salsa music, where he believes two "illegal aliens" are living. He doesn't have proof of this, of course, but pronounces his assumption as fact anyway.
Letiecq then points to a house two doors down, saying three families are living there with "six to eight" kids. He worries about crime, he said, and about his daughters, Lillian, 5, and Marian, 2, and whether public school resources are being diverted to English as a Second Language programs.
"This isn't the kind of neighborhood you'd think would be ground zero for this hot political issue," he said. "But there's no safe place anymore."
When Letiecq isn't campaigning against illegal immigration, he savages local officials, media outlets (The Washington Post is a favorite target) and candidates who disagree with his views, unafraid to strike below the belt. A Democratic candidate for the Virginia General Assembly, Jeff Dion, withdrew his candidacy in May after Letiecq attacked Dion's "homosexual lifestyle" and revealed that Dion had a personal ad on a *** dating Web site.
"I'm anti-sin," said Letiecq, who considers homosexuality "a bad choice" and said that "people who make bad choices shouldn't be our representatives."
But Democrats, illegal immigrants and homosexuals aren't Letiecq's only targets. He has also waged a withering offensive against Faisal Gill, a Republican naval officer and former Homeland Security official of Pakistani descent who is the first Muslim nominee to the Virginia General Assembly.
"He's like a schoolyard bully," said Gill, a partner in the law firm representing a former Republican House of Delegates candidate, Steve H. Chapman, who is suing Letiecq for defamation. "He clearly plays to the prejudices people have."
Letiecq has repeatedly derided Gill as a "terrorist" because Gill once worked for a U.S. Muslim group whose former leader was convicted of having illegal ties to the Libyan government. Gill was cleared of any wrongdoing by Homeland Security investigators. He calls Letiecq's Web site "yellow journalism."
"Yellow journalism?" Letiecq repeated, grinning, when asked to respond to the characterization. "That's true. I don't try to make myself out to be a newspaper."
Instead, Letiecq said, he is like a 19th-century pamphleteer, advancing his views and urging others to action. "I don't like clean, sanitized don't-upset-anybody kinds of discussions," he said. "We shouldn't pull our punches."
Tribbett said this locally oriented approach represents "the future of blogging." Because local officials lack an outlet for their views, Tribbett explained, they are intimidated by a blogger with a large and loyal following able to flood their offices with calls or "put boots on the ground."
"It's amusing to see local officials pushed around by a blogger," Tribbett said.
Amid Immigration Debate, Council Ponders Peddler Issue
By Christy Goodman Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 25, 2007; Page B05
A debate unfolding before the Manassas City Council about limits on street peddlers has become a subplot in a larger regional controversy over proposals to restrict illegal immigration.
This summer, Manassas council members and police began to receive complaints about certain vendors who push freezer carts full of popsicles or other frozen novelties through the city. Many of the vendors happened to be Hispanic, and their supporters said the complaints showed an anti-Hispanic bias.
Still, the council asked the city staff to investigate possible legislative or enforcement actions. Prince William and Loudoun county supervisors in recent weeks have approved measures targeting illegal immigration.
The Manassas staff discovered some contradictions in the city's peddling laws.
For a $500 fee, a vendor may obtain a peddler's permit in Manassas. But another section of the law makes it illegal for peddlers to sell their wares on city streets and sidewalks. In a further twist, the peddlers who have permits and health department approval to prepare and sell food from trucks in parking lots are not actually peddlers but retail merchants, said City Attorney Robert W. Bendall.
What's more, the city staff is unsure how revoking peddler's permits would affect the twice-weekly farmers market or the annual fireworks, pumpkin and Christmas tree sales.
"This is much more complicated than we thought when we started out," said council member Jonathan L. Way (R).
On Monday, the council voted to send the issue to its Land Use Committee in September. Council member Andrew L. Harrover (R) said the committee should study "the quality and kinds of commerce we want to encourage in the city."
The council heard competing views on the issue.
Miguel A. Rivera, who has held peddling permits in Manassas and Prince William to sell ice cream since 2004, proposed that peddlers or solicitors who pay the $500 fee get an identification card and a decal from the city to carry with them while they work.
"I believe if we amend the current city ordinance [to] include an ID program for peddlers and incorporate enforcement, that we can be successful in accommodating all peddlers and at the same time protect [the] city's equities," said Rivera, who started his business to keep his children busy and teach them financial responsibility.
But resident David Core said: "Peddling, as we have seen in the city, does not conjure up . . . positive images, but rather peddling reminds one of urban ghettos of the early 20th century and Third World barrios of people trying to scrape together a living."
Another resident, Chris Pannell, said of the vendors: "We don't know about these people. Do they have a criminal background? Are they sexual offenders? Are they carrying diseases? You know, we need to make sure our streets are safe for our children."
Some involved in the debate have asked whether the city should allow vending trucks but not pushcarts. But Bendall, the city attorney, has repeatedly cautioned the council not to discriminate against certain peddlers by applying a set of rules to some and not others. The council cannot "slice the bread too thin," he said.
The council is hearing strong sentiment from some quarters to curb illegal immigration, and that may affect the peddler debate. Steve Thomas of the group Help Save Manassas, which favors tighter immigration enforcement, urged the council to "sharpen up that bread knife."
RationalE - why do you interrupt this discussion with this post? These are articles that people on this board might appreciate reading. It's a recogonized thread for information, so why are you interrupting with this post? I find it to be a little bit irritating.
RationalE - why do you interrupt this discussion with this post? These are articles that people on this board might appreciate reading. It's a recogonized thread for information, so why are you interrupting with this post? I find it to be a little bit irritating.
Per your request I have already modified one of the threads started by myself. I tried to accomodate your concerns.
Now I am curious: why would copies of artwork posted on this forum irritate you?
PHOENIX -- Latino leaders and faith-based organizations want Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to disconnect the hotline he created for people to report information about undocumented immigrants, saying it raises the chance of racial profiling.
But Arpaio said Wednesday that he won't disconnect the hotline and stressed that deputies would investigate people only if authorities had probable cause.
The hotline began last Friday and has received about 300 messages, which include tips about family and friends, employment, day laborers, drop houses and crank calls.
Arpaio said officials are analyzing the tips and officials have not acted on any of the calls.
"There's nothing unconstitutional about putting up a hotline," Arpaio said, pointing out that U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have similar hotlines.
The hotline is part of an expanded immigration enforcement plan Arpaio unveiled last week that also includes sheriff's deputies cross-trained to enforce immigration law.
Some Latino advocacy groups will launch a hotline of their own to take tips from people who believe they've been unfairly reported to Arpaio's hotline, said activist Mary Rose Wilcox, a Maricopa County supervisor.
Meanwhile, some faith-based organizations are circulating a letter among church leaders and members that decries Arpaio's hotline. ___
By ANDREW TAYLOR The Associated Press Wednesday, July 25, 2007; 8:43 PM
WASHINGTON -- A standoff in the Senate on Wednesday seemed to doom $3 billion in widely backed funds aimed at gaining control over the porous U.S.-Mexico border.
It started with an end-run by Republicans to pass some of the most popular elements of President Bush's failed immigration bill, including a plan to increase security along the southern border.
Democrats liked the money but objected to such GOP proposals as allowing law enforcement officers to question people about their immigration status and cracking down on those who overstay their visas.
The move put political pressure on Senate Democrats. They killed Sen. Lindsey Graham's plan on a 52-44 procedural vote, but Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., immediately countered with a pared-down proposal containing only the border security funds. Then Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a Bush ally, killed that effort.
Dying with the proposals could be hopes for seizing "operational control" over the U.S.-Mexico border with additional Border Patrol agents, vehicle barriers, border fencing and observation towers.
The battle began when Graham, R-S.C., and other Republicans tried to resurrect the border security plan and combine it with the GOP policy provisions from last month's immigration debate.
Graham sought to add the GOP immigration plan _ over White House opposition _ to a pending bill to fund the budget for the Homeland Security Department.
The underlying bill had already drawn a veto threat for breaking Bush's budget. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel noted that Wednesday's plan would not have been financed by fines on illegal immigrants as were comparable provisions from the broader bill that died last month; it therefore would have added $3 billion to the deficit.
Stanzel declined to comment further, but Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., had earlier told reporters that the White House opposed the additional funds.
Reid's compromise plan seemed to be viewed favorably by many senators. Cornyn said he wanted some of the money used for going after immigrants who had entered the United States legally but had overstayed their visas.
Graham and GOP allies such as Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona had argued during last month's hotly contested immigration debate that a comprehensive approach to immigration reform was the only way to attract bipartisan support to such a polarizing issue.
In the wake of the failure to pass the comprehensive bill _ decried as "amnesty" by conservative talk radio and opposing lawmakers _ Graham and the others changed their minds and offered the border security plan, combined with the tough GOP policy provisions.
Graham and Kyl said the public won't accept more controversial elements, especially the plan to give million of illegal immigrants a way to earn U.S. citizenship, until the border with Mexico is made more secure.
"Border security is the gate that you must pass through to get to overall comprehensive reform," said Graham, who is up for re-election next year and facing political heat at home for backing Bush's unpopular immigration plan.
Democrats such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts had supported designating $4.4 billion for border security as a way of drawing wider backing for the compromise bill. On Wednesday, though, Kennedy objected to Graham's move to unravel the broader immigration bill.
"We have tried enforcement-only approaches for 10 years now," said Kennedy. "And what have been the results? Twelve million people are in the United States illegally."
International Intrigue Is The Least Of It In Drug Case
By Paul Duggan and Ernesto Londoño Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, July 26, 2007
So, who is Zhenli Ye Gon?
The 44-year-old ex-fugitive, arrested Monday in Wheaton, had $207 million in cash in his Mexico City home when police raided the mansion in March -- mostly $100 bills, enough to fill a pickup. Where did it come from?
Zhenli Ye Gon, a self-described "ultra-successful business entrepreneur," seeks asylum, saying he was framed in Mexico. (By Richard Drew -- Associated Press)
Was he using his wholesale pharmaceuticals company in Mexico as a front to supply illegal drug cartels with tons of chemicals used to make the street drug methamphetamine? That's what Mexican authorities allege. Or was he (as he contends) a patsy for corrupt politicians in that country, the fall guy in the coverup of a massive slush fund of illicit Mexican campaign cash?
"I'll tell you, it's the most complicated case I've ever had," said one of Ye Gon's attorneys, Martin F. McMahon, who has been practicing law in Washington since the Nixon administration.
There's the possibility of an extradition proceeding in a U.S. court if Mexican officials want Ye Gon back. McMahon said his client would fight such a move because the charges against him in Mexico were trumped up and he wouldn't get a fair trial there. In any event, because Ye Gon also faces drug charges in the United States, it is unclear whether the Justice Department would be willing to ship him home.
Meanwhile, there's the issue of political asylum. Ye Gon, a native of Shanghai who has citizenship in China and Mexico, filed an asylum petition Tuesday with U.S. immigration authorities, alleging that he was framed by high-ranking Mexican officials who now want him dead. That's another reason he would like to stay north of the border.
"With fraudulently fabricated evidence, the Mexican government under His Excellency Felipe Calderon, the President of Mexico, planted all sort of fancy felonious charges as of 'narcotic drug trafficking', 'international drug kingpin' against me," says an asylum affidavit signed by Ye Gon. "I am not a drug dealer, neither am I a drug lord." In the six-page sworn statement, he says he is "a law abiding citizen, without criminal records" and "an ultra-successful business entrepreneur."
Mexican officials have scoffed at Ye Gon's allegations, calling them "pure fiction," in Calderon's words. After the March raid on his Mediterranean-style mansion, Ye Gon was charged with production of methamphetamine, illegal possession of firearms and other crimes.
The U.S. government called the $207 million "the largest single drug cash seizure the world has ever seen."
McMahon said $150 million of the confiscated cash belonged not to his client but to Mexico's ruling political party, part of a "slush fund" used in the 2006 presidential campaign. He said Calderon allies forced Ye Gon to safeguard the money, threatening to harm him if he didn't comply.
After an independent panel in Mexico began investigating illegal campaign fundraising, McMahon said, corrupt politicians moved to cover up the slush fund, concocting the methamphetamine charges against Ye Gon and falsely claiming that the piles of cash were drug-trafficking proceeds.
As for the remaining $57 million in confiscated cash, McMahon said that the money belonged to Ye Gon.
"He was a successful businessman, owned a large pharmaceuticals company," the lawyer said. "He made a ton of money. He was concerned that after every presidential election, the peso is seriously devalued. So if you put dollars in a Mexican bank, they'll give you back pesos, and so you'd lose maybe 20 percent."
So, in effect, he said, Ye Gon kept $57 million under the mattress.
Ning Ye, another of Ye Gon's attorneys, said his client arrived in the United States on a tourist visa in November. He left Mexico because "he was scared when he saw some big things," Ye said.
Described as a man with lavish tastes, with a fleet of luxury cars and mistresses in several countries, Ye Gon was a fugitive after the raid, until U.S. authorities arrested him Monday night in a restaurant at a Wheaton mall.
Hours after the arrest, officials in Mexico said they would ask the United States to extradite him promptly.
However, when it became clear to Mexican authorities that Ye Gon also had been charged with violating U.S. drug laws, Mexico's attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, said Ye Gon probably would be prosecuted in the United States first.
"It's logic and standard that when a country detains a person, they are first judged in that territory with respect to the crimes committed there," Medina Mora told a radio station in Mexico.
A spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington referred calls about Ye Gon to the Mexican attorney general's office. U.S. officials declined to comment.
As for the asylum petition, McMahon said, "we have a number of issues to go through, and these asylum proceedings can be lengthy." How lengthy? "Oh, forever. There's such a backlog."
He also said Ye Gon might sue Mexican officials in a U.S. court for ruining his once-thriving pharmaceuticals business. His client has a cause of action "under the Alien Torts Claims Act," McMahon said.
And how long might it take to resolve a case like that?
Undocumented Immigrants Contribute To This Country
Letters To the Editor The Whashington Post Thursday, July 26, 2007
Lately I have seen several letters to the editor that are critical of undocumented immigrants. I don't know whether newspapers are not receiving letters on the other side of the issue or are receiving them and not publishing them.
At least one recent letter criticized the Montgomery County executive and the chief of police for meeting with a state legislator and the leader of the nonprofit organization CASA de Maryland, who spoke behalf of undocumented immigrants [Montgomery Extra, July 12].
Undocumented, as well as documented, immigrants are human beings and deserve basic human rights. It seems that some people would like to deprive them of the pursuit of happiness, probably liberty and perhaps even life.
Most documented and undocumented immigrants come to the United States for economic reasons, trying to escape high-poverty countries with low wages. Others come to be reunited with their families. People who criticize them so harshly and would send them all home should try to find work or open businesses in, for example, rural El Salvador. It is nearly impossible.
Yes, many of the immigrants send money home to their families when they can. Much of this money is used to buy products that are made in the United States, and much of the rest helps build up local economies, which increases local buying power and political stability and reduces immigration.
The ardent foes of undocumented immigrants may not realize that they help keep our Social Security system afloat by paying in millions of dollars and then not receiving benefits. They help control inflation by lowering the costs of construction, agriculture and other economic activities. Nearly all of them work hard to get ahead.
Virtually all undocumented immigrants would rather be in the United States legally, but the number of visas issued is far too low to meet the demand or the needs of American employers. The only recourse is for people to come however they can.
Undocumented immigrants are a reality. They make large contributions to the economic, cultural and social life of this country. Those who advocate for them deserve as much respect as defenders of any other segment of society.
"As We Try To Shape Our Identity, We're Trying Not To Lose What's Important To Us."
RISING VOICES OF AMERICA On the Hill, Latino Interns Have Much to Say About Who They Are and What We All Should Be
By David Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 26, 2007; Page C01
This land is your land, this land is their land, and they hail from California to the New York island -- 34 of the best and brightest Latino college students, sojourning in Washington to do the congressional summer intern thing.
They arrived just in time to witness the spectacular flameout of the Senate's immigration reform bill in June, then to read about attempts to deny services to illegal immigrants in Prince William and Loudoun counties, then to immerse themselves in a project to provide services to one and all in Columbia Heights.
[PHOTOS] Latin Interns The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute hosts a congressional internship for 34 Latino college students. The students have diverse backgrounds but share common concerns over race and identity.
Washington makes them mad. And it inspires them.
It also has made them think deeply about who they are, and where they fit into this turbulent feat of political imagination and plain winging-it called America.
Such existential ruminations spark other considerations: Whom do you date? How good (or bad) is your Spanish? How comfortable are you with your skin tone? (Too dark? Too light?) Are you American enough? Is the reputation of la Raza riding on your every move -- or is that perpetual feeling of being watched just an illusion?
One of the first things they did upon arriving was question authority, as represented by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, host of the internship program, which is providing transportation, lodging and a $2,000 stipend for eight weeks. Why, the interns demanded to know, do the members of the caucus insist on calling it the Hispanic caucus? Don't they realize Hispanic is an oppressive, colonial term that emphasizes the Spanish (European, white) part of their identity? To them, Hispanic belongs in the same lame purgatory of embarrassing cultural artifacts as the Macarena and Speedy Gonzales.
The correct term, the interns informed the adults, is Latino, which, to the students, better embraces the three rivers of blood that cascaded together to form a People. White blood, African blood, Indian blood: Hispanic, Latino. Mexican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Venezuelan, Colombian, Peruvian. . . . South American, North American . . . American?
Esther Aguilera, president of the institute, responded to her young charges by saying, well, yes, good point, but a few decades ago when the organization was forming, the U.S. census had gone with Hispanic, making it the official term. And thus the potent undertow of federal bureaucratic logic became another fact of Washington for the interns to experience.
Now, a few weeks after that baptismal rebellion over nomenclature, as the languid liberation of summer twilight settles over a plaza on the George Washington University campus, a group of the interns is sitting under a sculptural clock, sipping iced coffee and talking about identity. They're not who they were just a few years ago, but neither are they who they will become.
"I will never say I'm Hispanic," says Israel GarcÃa, 22, a senior at the University of Colorado at Boulder. On his mother's side, his roots in a rural Colorado valley date back six generations, grafted with Apache stock. His father was an undocumented migrant lettuce-cutter from Baja California, Mexico, now a legal resident applying for citizenship.
GarcÃa calls himself a Latino, an American citizen, but it's not that simple.
"I don't underestimate the power of us being allowed to name ourselves," he continues. "And to be able to say 'this' is who we are."
The immigration debate has forced Latinos to ponder who they are, or risk having that answer imposed by others.
"The media tends to portray the mexicano standing in front of Home Depot, as if that is what the Latino population is made of," says Ricardo Zavala, 27, a senior at Texas State University, whose family came to Texas from Mexico five generations ago.
PHOTOS Latin Interns The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute hosts a congressional internship for 34 Latino college students. The students have diverse backgrounds but share common concerns over race and identity.
"We're finding our voice," says Cristina Seda, 20, half Puerto Rican and half Jamaican, from the Bronx, a junior at Trinity College in Connecticut. "We're realizing, okay, this is one way people have perceived us, and they've generalized us in a lot of ways in order to make a voter bloc and create a group of consumers, and to sell to us and market to us -- and to market us to the greater society: 'This is salsa, buy this, Americans, look at this culture, it's really exotic!' And we're seeing there are a lot of us, and people are recognizing us, and now we're trying to shape it for ourselves, instead of having our identity shaped from the outside."
There's a contradiction in how the interns want to be understood. On the one hand, they're tired of the diversity of the Latino community being ignored. The interns' families together claim roots in eight Latin American countries. When students from Caribbean cultures cook in the little campus kitchens, students from the American Southwest don't recognize the names of the dishes.
And yet, unlike their parents and grandparents -- who found solace and strength in Chicano power, Puerto Rican power, Dominican power -- this generation feels free to move beyond those ethnic cul-de-sacs. Historians say this is the first time a pan-Latino identity is emerging, a banding together forced by the immigration debate.
"I used to get offended when people would say, 'You must be Mexican,' " says Carmen Mendoza, a junior at the University of Wisconsin, whose parents fled the civil war in Guatemala. "Now I don't get mad because you know what? . . . At the end of the day I look Mexican, even though I'm not Mexican, and my people are having the exact same struggle as the Mexicans are having."
"Our generation is the first generation to grow up with accessibility to each other," GarcÃa says. "We have such instant means of communication, like the Internet, like cellphones . . . that our parents and grandparents didn't have. The only means they had when they came to this country was to survive with one another, was to be proud of la patria."
The summer sky is deepening, darkening. Identity also comes in colors, but colors are deceptive.
"I'm sure this has happened to all of us," GarcÃa begins. As he elaborates, the group sitting beneath the sculptural timepiece chuckles in recognition.
"People will say, 'Where are you from?' I'll say Colorado. No, but where are you from? I was born and raised in Colorado. But where are you from? Well, my family is from Mexico. And that's the answer they're looking for. It's like, you're obviously not like us. You're obviously not an American. Colorado is not a good enough answer for you."
GarcÃa speaks English without an accent. His hair is short, stiff and black. His skin is bronze.
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Listening and laughing with the others is Yuri Castaño. He could give what GarcÃa calls "the answer they're looking for." He's from Mexico City.
But Castaño is hardly ever asked. His skin is white, his hair brown and tousled.
"I have all the privileges of any white-skinned person in this country," says Castaño, 19, who immigrated with his mother about 10 years ago. He's a junior at the University of Pennsylvania. "Of course, it's beneficial to me in that sense, but in another sense, within the Latino community there's a little bit of a struggle to be recognized as Latino."
At Penn, he says, there are students who are known as Latin Americans who are richer and whiter. And there are Latinos who are poorer and browner.
"I could never identify with the Latin Americans, even though I was born and lived for 10 years in Mexico City, because I'm poor. But on the other hand, there's some tension with me and Latinos, because in terms of racial identity, they see me as white and not brown. . . . My identity has been evolving, to some extent. My sister is much darker, she looks much more indigenous than I do. I have felt shame about being light-skinned. The same way people have felt shame about being dark-skinned."
"I always wanted to look like my [lighter-skinned] sister, and my sister wanted to look like me," says Mendoza, who has grown past that longing and now proudly calls herself "la negrita indita" -- the dark Indian -- because of her Mayan heritage. Color is a head game, she says, and "You're never going to be satisfied."
Zavala, the fifth-generation Texan, is as light-skinned as Castaño. When he was growing up, Latino children would sometimes teasingly call him white. Now Zavala is dating an African American woman. He has realized that among the charms he appreciates in a woman is darker skin. "When I have children, I want them to have a darker tint because I don't want them ridiculed for being lighter," he says.
But identity is more than skin deep. Mendoza dated a white guy for six years. They had strong religious convictions in common. But he was from a more well-to-do family than hers, and she felt some cultural pressures.
"When I was around his family I would make sure I didn't wear my hoop earrings that day," she says. "I would make sure I didn't wear my hair big and curly like it really is, I would make sure that I straightened it. I would make sure I was on my best, best behavior because I wanted to prove I wasn't one of 'those' Latinos."
It didn't work out, not simply because he was white and she was brown, but because of all the strands of identity tied to those skin colors.
"I've dated Latinos, my boyfriend now is Native American," Mendoza says. "It's so much easier to date somebody who is Latino or a minority because you can just identify with them on a different level. There are certain things I could not express or get him to understand. No matter how much he loved me, no matter how great we got along, he was never going to understand, we didn't have that common bond."
Language Matters
A smattering of Spanish echoes in the brick building on F Street NW where the interns live in spartan suites. Many are fluently bilingual, but most conversations are in English, and group meetings are conducted in English.
Are you the language you speak?
Born in San Antonio, Krizia Martinez, 20, was spoken to in Spanish by her Puerto Rican parents. She started learning English in a bilingual class. At home she would play teacher with her brother, two years younger. "I would tell him, 'No, don't say it in Spanish, say it in English,' " she recalls. Now she is a bilingual senior at the University of Texas at San Antonio. But her brother can't speak Spanish, and he good-naturedly blames her. Martinez feels a little sheepish about her role.
"A good assimilator," she says ironically. "It's hard for him. A lot of people assume if you're of Latino background, you speak Spanish. . . . He's still very proud of being Puerto Rican. . . . As we try to shape our identity, we're trying not to lose what's important to us."
Zavala's great-great-grandfather was a vaquero, one of the early Texas cowboys. His father is a file manager for a law firm, his mother a mortgage loan processor. "My parents grew up in a time period where in the school system, if you spoke Spanish in class you got hit by your teacher," he says. "So when they had me and my younger brother, they felt that it would be hindrance to teach us Spanish. I'm really trying my best to learn it. And I definitely want to teach my children Spanish."
This tall, white, fifth-generation English-only Texan could melt completely into the big American pot. But that's not who he thinks he is. He can't fully explain why.
"I always felt that's who I am and I'm going to stay who I am," Zavala says. "A lot of mexicanos who are first-generation, they sometimes look at me and they go, 'How come you don't talk Spanish, or how come you don't eat certain foods every day like we do? How come your mother doesn't make homemade tortillas every morning?' My mom doesn't because she's fourth-generation and she doesn't know how to make tortillas. We grew up eating pizza pockets and corn dogs and spaghetti and Ramen noodles."
Job Experiences
Wearing smart dark suits, bunkered in cubicle warrens, they answer the telephones, catalogue mail from constituents, research legislation, attend hearings. In this epoch of the immigration wars, they've been on the receiving end of a lot of passion and venom blasted into Washington from the voters. The charged environment on the Hill has made the issue fresh and raw for the students, all of whom are legal residents or citizens, as the program requires.
GarcÃa, a campus activist who helped organize a large immigrant rights march in Denver last year, is picking up tactical pointers from his perch in the office of Rep. John Salazar (D-Col.). Seeing the flow of communication coming in from advocates and voters, he concludes the most persuasive voices appear to be the ones anchored on a bedrock of usable fact. "I will never contact my representatives the same way again," he says. "Public policy is shaped by information."
Mendoza, assigned to the office of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), goes to a Senate-side cafeteria and notices many of the workers are Latinos. They immediately spot the Latina in the suit, rare enough on Capitol Hill.
"It's funny the sense of appreciation I get from them, and I give them," Mendoza says. "They speak to me in Spanish, they smile at me a little bit extra. It just feels good to see them, and they see me."
Mendoza's mother used to tell her, "No seas una Latina fea." Don't be a bad example. Don't disgrace the community. And if there have been times that directive feels like a burden, it also helps explain why many middle-class Latinos feel connected to working-class Latinos, why many with documents joined marches to support those without.
"We're Latinos and we share a common struggle," says GarcÃa, who, like several of the others, grew up poor and feels privileged to be in college, when Latinos have the nation's highest high school dropout rates.
Some nights, the interns gather in the basement of their building to plan their community service project. It's going to be a health and education fair Saturday at the Mary's Center in Columbia Heights.
It's aimed at high school students and their parents. The education component will "demystify the college process," GarcÃa says, "helping people understand college is not a place in the clouds."
Identity Questions
What is an American?
Sometimes they feel the vertigo of existing between identities. Mendoza, despite being born in the United States, suspects that because of her Mayan copper skin color, she will never be perceived as American enough. Or is that just a perception in her own head? When she visits Guatemala, her cousins have no doubt: She is "the American."
Other times she thinks: "I'm Latina, I'm Guatemalan, you cannot take that away from me. I also feel that I'm more American than others, too. What is the purpose of America? The way I see it, I'm fitting that mold of what our founding fathers wanted, which was for someone to come, have a new beginning and fight oppression."
"I refuse to accept that idea that we will never be 'American enough,' " says Seda, the Bronx-born daughter of a Puerto Rican father and a Jamaican mother. "I think it's our job to redefine, and define, what America is."
The conversation beneath the clock is ticking down, and it's going to be a warm night.
"The thing that we're refusing to do is become just like the white population of this country, because we're not and we never will be," GarcÃa says. "The American Dream is the simple idea that you can come and work and get something back and make your life better than what it was before. When we don't feel access to that dream anymore, we lose our stake in it, and we're not American anymore. But when we go back to our countries of origin, when we see, well maybe I've worked hard and look what I've gotten, and it's a lot more than what I had here, that's when again we're, like, maybe the dream is still alive. Maybe I am American."
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