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Show Mexican Migrant Workers Savagely Attacked by Racits in San Diego, California 8 VENCEREMOS SUMMER La Voz de Aztlan July 14, 2000 San Diego, California (July 14, 2000) Hate crimes against U.S. citizens of Mexican descent and against Mexican migrant workers in San Diego County and throughout the US/Mexico border region are becoming more common as hate groups like. Glenn :Spencers “American Patrol”, Barbara Coe's “California Coalition for Immigration Reform” and vigilante Roger “Arizona Ranchers - Barnett's Alliance” imerease their hate rhetoric against Mexicans on the radio, the Internet and various other propaganda mediums. The constant message they are broadcasting is for the purpose of, they say, “waking up Ámerica” to the “invasion of Mexican migrants” into the United States and the “conspiracy to take over the US southwest on behalf of the Mexican government.” As was feared by Mexican-American civil and human rights organizations, the racist white supremacist “lunatic fringe” in San Diego, California has now violently acted out.on the hate propaganda being disseminated by the leadership of the anti-Mexican groups, increasing the number of vicious attacks of Mexican migrant workers along the 2000 US/Mexico border region. In the afternoon and evening of Wednesday July 5, 2000 in the Carmel Valley of the City of San Diego, five Mexican migrant workers came under a vicious attack by 8 or more neo-Nazi skinheads. The. migrants were savagely beaten and terrorized for hours and three had to be hospitalized at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla. They were beaten with iron pipes, stabbed with a pitch fork and were repeatedly shot with high power pellet guns. One of the migrants almost lost his right eye when one of the thugs shot point blank into his face. The attackers were described as “Anglo skinheads” by the victims and ranged in age from late teens to early twenty's. One thug had a swastika tattoo on his neck. It appears that the skinhead gang knew the area well because they knew where the well hidden migrant worker's camp was located in the heavy brush in what is called McGonigle Canyon. The migrant camp is located about 300 yards south of Evergreen Nursery where three of the Mexican migrants worked for many years. The nursery is located on the 7200 block of Black Mountain Road in north San Diego. Three of the victims that worked at Evergreen Nursery are elderly. Andres Ramos Diaz is 66 years old and was one of the first migrants attacked while going to the camp after work around 4:00 P.M. He stated that a white van full of skinheads approached him, got off, and started shooting at him while he ran. He ran into the heavy brush and they continued terrorizing him for hours throwing rocks and yelling racial epithets. He was shot repeatedly on the back and had to undergo surgery to remove the imbedded pellets. Mr. Ramos Diaz stated, “they hunted me down like a rabbit and threw rocks at me as if I was an animal.” The skinhead gang next went to the migrant camp were 70 year old Evergreen Nursery worker Ánastasio Irigoya was beaten without mercy over the head and stabbed viciously with a pitch fork. Mr. Irigoya spent three days at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla and was released to his sons from La Paz, Baja California. His present condition at this time is unknown. The third Evergreen Nursery rey Valla Y Ra o el Mar O . , Átang SF Raltroag -. e Worker was shot fifteen times with La so EL) LULA | 101 UD Tí 3 pellet. guns. He is 60. year. old < Alfredo Ayala. Mr. Ayala almost 3 lost his right eye when the thugs S shot him point blank into his face. a Both Mr. Ayala and Mr. Diaz have 2 returned to work in the nursery. On July 12, when La Voz de Aztlan v conducted the interviews, noticeE able trauma was still apparent on S both victims. Q A fourth victim who worked in E the adjacent tomato fields¡ was beaten and robbed by the neo-Nazi thugs but his named and description of injuries are not known to La Voz de Aztlan. Mr. Andres Ramos Diaz stated to La Voz de Aztlan that altogether there were 5 victims. It is not known if Mr. Diaz is referring to a body that was z, found on July 2 about 500 yards west of where the k, attacks took place on July 5. The body has been tentatively identified as a young Mexican migrant worker from Oaxaca, Mexico by the San Diego Medical Examiner. The body appears to be a lynching victim and was dragged for 200 yards on his face and thrown into a ravine according to San Diego police authorities. The area where the attacks occurred is an exclusively “white community” and the only Mexicans in the area are migrant workers employed in the nurseries and tomato fields as well as construction workers in the rapidly developing community in north San Diego between Highway 5 in Del Mar and Highway 15 in Mar Vista. The many new homes being constructed range from $500,000 to multi-million dollar mansions. The owner of Evergreen Nursery stated that there is a skinhead problem in the local high schools. Torrey Pines High School is located west of the crime scene and Mt. Carmel High School is located on the east. On the site where the dragging victim was found, the San Diego Catholic Archdiocese is planning to construct another Catholic high school. The human rights atrocities have DEATÍ ANO THE SÁCRED NESS 0 Exit to Carmel Country Rd 0 ERODO Meinity Corp, GOT Esa] hurt myself. in this country purportedly He also stated that all peoI sense another disconnect. support capital punishment. ple are related — that everyone who respect Their one qualm seems to be How can po 1s part of the same human famthe sanctity of all life support ensuring that only the guilty ily. Thus, we should respect the governmental taking of be. executed. Perhaps this each others” beliefs, spirituality nameless or faceless, but for life? B redefining the meanassuages their guilt. One of the traditions. The most this column, suffice to say, 1t. and ing of life? By branding those Ten Commandments clearly important thing he taught me doesn't matter who he is. For on death row monsters, not states, “Thou shall not kill.” was to respect all life, living me, the subject of life and human, not a part of us, not' No, they reply. It says, “Thou and nonliving. Respect was not death is not distant nor acadedeserving to breathe? It seems about reciting passages or ritú- shall not murder.” Á sacred mic. Like lots of people who've to be the identical philosophy loophole? That may also help grown up in urban Ámerica, 1 al, but about living it. Church - that allows criminals to was not a building. It was a too have come close to violent kill. The reality is, 1 susmountain, a death and know To my knowledge, no major The most pect, that societal beliefs river. many friends who important thing he And the Great moral or spiritual leader supports are changing. The recent ate no longer taught me was to mantra of “executing only Spirit, creation, with us... che life — 1t was all the death penalty. Not the pope, the guilty” and poca result of violent - respect all life living the alternative of “life around us, but deaths. This may and nonliving. most of all, in not Pat Robertson, not anyone. SO imprisonment without the explain why I feel ossibility of parole” is perI live in a differ- Respect was not about us I ask, what godless theology is haps AS E cry to put a reciting passages or Where had I ent world from stop to all executions. heard that people on telev1ritual, but about guiding and inspiring our “Enough blood has been before? My own sion who pontifiliving 1t. shed,” is what I hear. home? When cate upon the God-fearing politicians? The. wotd. telipion . [ve you sift through the dogma, important issues of the day — been told, means “to reatat the core of Christianity and a the death penalty. tach” — to reattach the spirit. most major religions is the explain holy crusades, conIt may also explain my views I hear Longwalker's echo here. quests, inquisitions and “just on the sanctity of life. > belief that all life 1s sacred. Perhaps the violent and vengeThis isn't a philosophy, but a wars.” A generation ago, 1. meta ful society we live in has dehuTo my knowledge, no major way of life, every moment of spiritual elder, Ernie Longmanized us and disconnected moral or spiritual leader supevery day. walker Peters, from the Lakota all of us from our spiritual traports the death penalty. Not Yet something's incongruent nation. When Í first met him, ditions. Perhaps this new cry 1s the pope, not Pat Robertson, here. We live in a Judeo-Chrishe had just completed “The an effort to reattach our spirits not anyone. So I ask, what godtian culture where politicians Longest Walk” — a walk from — an effort to reconcile our less theology is guiding and coast to coast to highlight the speak of the need to put God with our spiritual our God-fearing A back into our daily lives and to inspiring violation of American Indian eliefs. : politicians? : become morally centered. Yet, treaties by the U.S. governMy mind shifts to death Many years ago, I was taught ment. Among many things, he: inexplicably, from these same mouths — who clamor the a Mayan concept of life, also row, and my spirit reassures me told me that Mexicans/Chithat all life is sacred ... that loudest for prayer in schools — found in Islamic, Buddhist and canos are part of the same famcome the voices for mote, and Christian teachings: “In lak which has been taken and that ily as all other indigenous peowhich may one day also be ech.” If means "You are my speedier, state-sponsored exeles of the continent. The difcutions. What kind of prayers other self.” It's the belief that taken. brenda he said, is that many do they have in mind? l often we're all part of each other: one have been disconnected from COPYRIGHT 2000 wonder. humanity, one creation. If 1 their traditions and spiritualiUNIVERSAL PRESS hate and hurt you, 1 hate and The vast majority of people ty. SYNDICATE by Roberto Rodriguez An old friend of mine is currently on death row. He's not 2000 image courtesy of La Voz de Aztlan. www.aztlan.net greatly alarmed Mexican Consulate authorities as well as US based human rights organizations. There is now a $15,000 reward being offered for information leading to the arrest of the criminal thugs. The San Diego Police has made statements that a connection between the dragging death and the migrant attack by the skinheads may not exist. They say it is a possibility. The two incidents were about 500 yards and three days apart in this semi-isolated region. There have been other vicious racially motivated attacks on Mexican immigrants in the region. Á notable one happened in 1993 in Alpine where 5 racists savagely beat 3 Mexicans with baseball bats and another in 1988 at a McDonald's Restaurant in San Ysidro where deranged racist James Huberty massacred 22 Mexican women and children with an Uzi assault rifle. read La Voz de Aztlan : at: o www.aztlan.net/ y |
