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Show Venceremos page seven Fall 1994 / YY il AN) AR 7 NBAUAS MELO L E MN / sentence of death for la raza T Prop 187 is Wilson's | Story by Jason Settle On Tuesday, Nov. 8, 1994, California voters passed the controversial ballot initiative Proposition 187. The measure wa approved by 59 percent of California voters. ce Proposition 187 amends the state's constitution, making it illegal to provide most state services [except emergency med- — ical care) to persons suspected of being undocumented, and requires all state employees to report anyone suspected of being undocumented to the state attorney general who will then turn them over to the INS (Immigration and Naturalization See “Wilson” on pg. nine Self-deportation hoax On Sept. 16, Mexican Independence Day, a curi- ous press release began circulating around California. “The National Pochismo Institute, a Southern California political think tank joined the Pete Wilson re-election campaign in announcing the creation of Hispanics For Wilson,” went the missive, anouncing that the chairman of Hispanics For Wilson “is landscaper and personal groomer Jonathan Tapadonez. “Illegal immigrants are living the good life by hogging all the low-paying jobs that Americans have the God-given right to refuse,” says Tapadonez, 'that's why we're down on Brown.'” In sympathy with California's anti-immigrant Proposition 187, the missive also called for the “creation of “Self Deportation Centers” which will encourage all Hispanics...to return to their countries of origin.” Faxed from a Powerbook - modem and posted on the Internet, the release was angrily received by many sectors of the Chicano community, and it also prompted a phone call from Channel 48 in Salinas, a Telemundo station, about a possible on-air inter- Ed ¡Morales view with an HFW representative. Two days later, Hispanics For Wilson was asked to send represen- tatives to a taping of Sevcec, a nationwide Telemundo talk show that Hispanicizes Donahue. All of this much to the amusement of the source of the press release, East Los Angeles's most infernal merry Chicano pranksters, Lalo Lopez and Esteban Zul. The publishers of the Chicano political satire zine Pocho [a pejorative given to “assimilated” latter-generation Mexican Americans), Lopez and Zul find themselves in a perpetual state of ambivalent rage. On the one hand, they're angry about California's long history of discrimination against Mexicans, and on the other, they're pretty fed up with the preachy piety of Chicano political activism. So their mission is to lighten things up a little while still exposing the emperor's nakedness. E The Hispanics For Wilson idea started innocently enough. Lopez and Zul were gloating over getting a fake “State of the Pocho” summit listed in the Hispanic magazine calendar of events. The summit offered a workshop on “Transcendental Low-Riding.” “We listed the requisite celebrities like [Edward James] Olmos as participants,” said Lopez from Pocho headquarters. “They actually printed it because they're humorless Hispanics.” Pocho received about 25 phone calls about the summit, and those who left addresses were sent a jokey quiz on pochismo. “Seven people filled those out, about three of those took it seriously, but nobody sent in the $1 processing fee,” deadpanned Zul. Then Lopez noticed a newspaper item announcing a right-wing group called “Latinos for Wilson.” “I was sick of hearing about how so many Latinos are for 187,” said Lopez. “We thought, let's spoof it by creating this rabid selfdeportationist movement of people so fervently for Wilson that they were willing to repatriate to Mexico.” In response E to Channel 48's queries, Lopez—a See self deportation on pg. nine |
