Manuel Pastor: A taste of democracy from Live Oak
I got a taste of citizenship last week in two wildly contrasting ways.
The first came on Thursday, Sept. 7, in a crowded multi-purpose room at the Del Mar School in
Live Oak. Three hundred and fifty people came together under the banner of an interfaith
organization known as COPA Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action” to ask that
the Family Resource Center that serves them receive a new and larger home, that the Santa Cruz
Adult School offer more English as a second language classes, and that Cabrillo College form a
new partnership to raise the educational profile in the Live Oak area.
Saddled between Watsonville and Santa Cruz, Live Oak is sometimes ignored, partly because it is
unincorporated — meaning that it has no separate government and is just one part of a larger
territory represented by a single county supervisor. If it was a city, however, it would be the third
most populous place in the county, with more than twice the population of either Capitola or Scotts
Valley . And it is a microcosm of the county as a whole: setting aside the high-income ares butting
right against the ocean, it has a demographic mix of whites and Latinos that's just about the county
average, including in close proximity both Santa Cruz's older working class and its newest
immigrants.
It's a set of populations that can sometimes clash, but not last Thursday night. The group filling the
auditorium was probably around 60 percent Latino, 40 percent Anglo and others, and included not
just Live Oak residents but allies from churches and synagogues stretching from the city of Santa
Cruz to Pacific Grove in Monterey County . Children were in the audience, sometimes distracting
with their play. But the meeting was an important education for them as well: it was a bit of
Americana at its best.
To responsive cheers, the superintendent of the Live Oak district, David Paine, asked parents to
turn off the television and help their kids with homework. Prompted by a question from a COPA
leader, Supervisor Jan Beautz promised to help find the money for an expanded family resource
center. Replying to another community leader, Cabrillo College President Brian King promised to
develop a strategic plan for providing educational opportunities n the area. And after residents
discussed how important English was for talking to teachers and lifting their wages, nearly a
quarter of the audience rose to sign up for English classes when Adult School Principal Mary
Powers promised to double learning opportunities.
It was the sort of civic engagement and discussion we hope all our children learn and the
eagerness to learn English and work productively with existing institutions belied all the negative
stereotypes some have promulgated about recent immigrants. I walked into the chill night air
proud to be part of a community that could produce such a thing and resonating with a new
understanding of what citizenship and grass-roots democracy really mean.
What a shock to wake up the next day and find that federal immigration authorities had staged a
raid that snagged residents from around the county, including Live Oak. As reports trickled in, it
became apparent that among those targeted were many who had tried to follow legal processes to
attain residency, but had received poor advice along the way. These were people who tried to do it
the right way — tackling immigration status with the same steady spirit community members
showed in their conversations with Beautz, King and Powers.
I knew one of those applied for papers in good faith and is now gone. I had not realized the
precarious nature of his status and discretion prevents me from saying much. But he had been a
leader in the community, bridging the gaps between Latinos and whites even as he insisted on the
values of hard work and dedication so that his own children could succeed. He contributed in so
many other ways as well — and he can contribute no longer.
My own father came to the U.S. in the 1930s with papers that were, let's say, imperfect. When WWII
started, he was given the choice between being deported or joining the U.S. Army. He gave a
penny to my cousin, Carlitos, who flipped it; my dad and the penny went to Europe and both
eventually came back, with citizenship the prize for his decision and the G.I. Bill the support that
allowed him to rise from a janitor to an electrician, and from a renter to a homeowner.
A generation later, his son is a professor at the University of California , Santa Cruz . It's long way
from where he started and yet the uneasy nature of my own citizenship ” there but for the grace of
God or I suppose, Carlitos go I" makes me appreciate what a chill ill-timed actions can cast in the
climate of engagement COPA and others have been trying to encourage.
Is this what democracy also looks like? I wonder about a society in which a cacophonous debate
about border security and the impact of migrants leads some to think that deporting parent leaders
will somehow make us safer from terror. I wonder about a world in which those of us who are
citizens and there can act to change the rules, sometimes show less interest and courage than
those who have only recently arrived. And I wonder about a political system in which the power of
voice is gauged by dollars and decibels, and not by reason.
Yet I also carry that immigrant optimism.
I know that even when there are setbacks and obstacles, things can and will change if we keep
coming together across the usual divides of race, class, geography and language.
And the taste of democracy we witnessed in that auditorium in Live Oak should be an inspiration to
us all.
Manuel Pastor is professor of Latin American and Latino studies and director of the Center for
Justice, Tolerance and Community at UC Santa Cruz .
You can find this story online at:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/September/17/edit/stories/06edit.htm
I got a taste of citizenship last week in two wildly contrasting ways.
The first came on Thursday, Sept. 7, in a crowded multi-purpose room at the Del Mar School in
Live Oak. Three hundred and fifty people came together under the banner of an interfaith
organization known as COPA Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action” to ask that
the Family Resource Center that serves them receive a new and larger home, that the Santa Cruz
Adult School offer more English as a second language classes, and that Cabrillo College form a
new partnership to raise the educational profile in the Live Oak area.
Saddled between Watsonville and Santa Cruz, Live Oak is sometimes ignored, partly because it is
unincorporated — meaning that it has no separate government and is just one part of a larger
territory represented by a single county supervisor. If it was a city, however, it would be the third
most populous place in the county, with more than twice the population of either Capitola or Scotts
Valley . And it is a microcosm of the county as a whole: setting aside the high-income ares butting
right against the ocean, it has a demographic mix of whites and Latinos that's just about the county
average, including in close proximity both Santa Cruz's older working class and its newest
immigrants.
It's a set of populations that can sometimes clash, but not last Thursday night. The group filling the
auditorium was probably around 60 percent Latino, 40 percent Anglo and others, and included not
just Live Oak residents but allies from churches and synagogues stretching from the city of Santa
Cruz to Pacific Grove in Monterey County . Children were in the audience, sometimes distracting
with their play. But the meeting was an important education for them as well: it was a bit of
Americana at its best.
To responsive cheers, the superintendent of the Live Oak district, David Paine, asked parents to
turn off the television and help their kids with homework. Prompted by a question from a COPA
leader, Supervisor Jan Beautz promised to help find the money for an expanded family resource
center. Replying to another community leader, Cabrillo College President Brian King promised to
develop a strategic plan for providing educational opportunities n the area. And after residents
discussed how important English was for talking to teachers and lifting their wages, nearly a
quarter of the audience rose to sign up for English classes when Adult School Principal Mary
Powers promised to double learning opportunities.
It was the sort of civic engagement and discussion we hope all our children learn and the
eagerness to learn English and work productively with existing institutions belied all the negative
stereotypes some have promulgated about recent immigrants. I walked into the chill night air
proud to be part of a community that could produce such a thing and resonating with a new
understanding of what citizenship and grass-roots democracy really mean.
What a shock to wake up the next day and find that federal immigration authorities had staged a
raid that snagged residents from around the county, including Live Oak. As reports trickled in, it
became apparent that among those targeted were many who had tried to follow legal processes to
attain residency, but had received poor advice along the way. These were people who tried to do it
the right way — tackling immigration status with the same steady spirit community members
showed in their conversations with Beautz, King and Powers.
I knew one of those applied for papers in good faith and is now gone. I had not realized the
precarious nature of his status and discretion prevents me from saying much. But he had been a
leader in the community, bridging the gaps between Latinos and whites even as he insisted on the
values of hard work and dedication so that his own children could succeed. He contributed in so
many other ways as well — and he can contribute no longer.
My own father came to the U.S. in the 1930s with papers that were, let's say, imperfect. When WWII
started, he was given the choice between being deported or joining the U.S. Army. He gave a
penny to my cousin, Carlitos, who flipped it; my dad and the penny went to Europe and both
eventually came back, with citizenship the prize for his decision and the G.I. Bill the support that
allowed him to rise from a janitor to an electrician, and from a renter to a homeowner.
A generation later, his son is a professor at the University of California , Santa Cruz . It's long way
from where he started and yet the uneasy nature of my own citizenship ” there but for the grace of
God or I suppose, Carlitos go I" makes me appreciate what a chill ill-timed actions can cast in the
climate of engagement COPA and others have been trying to encourage.
Is this what democracy also looks like? I wonder about a society in which a cacophonous debate
about border security and the impact of migrants leads some to think that deporting parent leaders
will somehow make us safer from terror. I wonder about a world in which those of us who are
citizens and there can act to change the rules, sometimes show less interest and courage than
those who have only recently arrived. And I wonder about a political system in which the power of
voice is gauged by dollars and decibels, and not by reason.
Yet I also carry that immigrant optimism.
I know that even when there are setbacks and obstacles, things can and will change if we keep
coming together across the usual divides of race, class, geography and language.
And the taste of democracy we witnessed in that auditorium in Live Oak should be an inspiration to
us all.
Manuel Pastor is professor of Latin American and Latino studies and director of the Center for
Justice, Tolerance and Community at UC Santa Cruz .
You can find this story online at:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/September/17/edit/stories/06edit.htm
FBCO in the News
September 17, 2006
September 17, 2006