Does Cesar E. Chavez Hate Immigrants?

Aditya Bindal has thankfully moved me from the camp that believes in fortifying America against illegal immigrants. I now believe that immigration reform includes more immigrants, not fewer, and that as long as they don't get a welfare state -- and that's a big if -- that provides cradle-to-grave care, they have no beef with me.

As far as I'm concerned, America has no color but red, white, and blue. So long as you play by the rules, I say welcome aboard to everyone from the fruit-pickers to the billionaire CEOs. We ought to be the country of Henry Salvatori, of Tom Paine, and of Sergey Brin, to name just a few wonderful naturalized Americans.

So it's from this point of welcoming, not hating law-abiding immigrants, that I respond to Mr. Kelsey.

Matt Kelsey, a freshman and occasional provocateur on this blog, has attacked me in the comment section for criticizing Cesar Chavez Day, and although I promised my father that I would not write about Chavez Day, I've been called out and so it's only fair to respond. (Sorry Dad.)

I wonder if Kelsey is keen on signing off on everything Cesar Chavez was a part of. I've got a bunch of questions about Chavez that Senator Bill Morrow asked in San Diego Business Journal.

Did you know that Cesár Chavez was not a supporter of illegal immigration? Did you also know that history shows that Cesár Chavez, whose name has become synonymous with La Raza and other radical elements of the reconquista movement, was in fact effectively a Minuteman?

. . .

When farm workers would strike as a method for achieving their goals, employers would simply recruit “strikebreakers” from south of the border. Illegal immigrants, by flooding the market with cheap labor, would lower the prevailing wage and thereby drain Cesár Chavez of his ability to advocate on behalf of the organized farm labor movement.

Evidence of this abounds in the historical record, such as in his testimony before Congress in 1979 when he blamed the federal government for failing to secure the border. Chavez testified that “for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking.”

In fact, ten years earlier, Cesár Chavez protested illegal immigration at the Mexican border, reportedly accompanied by Senator Walter Mondale and Ralph Abernathy, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. It has also been reported that Chavez’s brother, Manuel, along with members of the United Farm Workers, patrolled the Arizona-Mexico border in a manner similar to that of our Minutemen of today.

The tactics of fear and division aren't an effective way to run a country, Mr. Kelsey. It seems unlikely that Kelsey would support the Minute Men.

After all, Kelsey is an Obama supporter. As we know, Obama supports Change and Hope. What could be more hopeful than allowing people the right to work? What could change a life more than being able to work in the U.S. where wages are multiples of what they are in Mexico?

(I'll have more on Chavez when it's officially his day so be sure to check back.)