From the Streets to the Polls [to the streets....]

06sept4 cpa allimmigrantsunite, originally uploaded by ericmar.

The Nation, Wiretap and Alternet feature an excellent piece today on immigrant rights organizing and mobilizing, especially among younger activists by Paloma Esquivel.

Young, U.S.-born Latinos who took to the streets in massive numbers to push for immigrant rights are hoping to become a potent political force in this year's midterm elections and beyond.

Pundits may decry the political disengagement and cynicism of the Jon Stewart generation, but students, young workers and young families have played a major role in mobilizing immigrant communities to become politically engaged. Across the country, they led street mobilizations, school walkouts and teach-ins. As one 16- -- year-old who walked out of school in Santa Ana, California, told the Los Angeles Times, "We don't want to just read about democracy in our textbooks. We want to experience it firsthand."

Now young organizers are taking their influence from the streets to the polls.

Full Article

For the San Francisco Bay Area Mobilize the Immigrant Vote electoral campaign for 2006 contact -
Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition http://www.immigrantrights.org or the
Chinese Progressive Association http://www.cpasf.org