More than 15,000 librarians and other conference attendees
made their way to Anaheim , California
Perhaps very few conference goers realized that Anaheim , home to Disneyland ,
is under fire amid police shootings, racial conflict, and subsequent protests
that have since turned violent. Gabriel
Gutierrez, Director of the Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Americas
(CESPA) at California State University Northridge and author of the forthcoming
book Latinos and Latinas: Risks and
Opportunities (Greenwood ,
2014) tells us more.
Review of media
reports regarding the recent police killings in Fullerton and Anaheim,
California reveals a disturbing contrast between the tactical responses by
public officials and police agencies and the demonstrations that followed the
July 2011 Fullerton Police beating and killing of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas and
the Anaheim Police shooting and killing of 25-year-old Manuel Diaz and
21-year-old Joel Acevedo the weekend of July 20-22, 2012.
No immediate public
response to Thomas’ killing was reported on the night of the incident. Shortly
after an unarmed Diaz was shot and killed by Anaheim police, working class Latino
residents gathered to question the killing. Cell phone video shows police
responded by releasing an attack dog that knocked over a stroller and bit a
woman. Further video shows men and women shielding their children from the
rubber bullets police fired upon them while they were seated in a grass area.
Several news outlets reported that Anaheim Police offered to buy video from
four different residents.
Demonstrations
against police violence followed release of cell phone video of the two
incidents by local news stations and on social media sites. In Fullerton , police kept a low profile while
monitoring a predominately white upper middle class crowd. The public outcry
resulted in the arrests of two police officers and recall of three City Council
members. Thomas’ father, a former Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy filed a civil
lawsuit while his mother settled with the City of Fullerton for $1 million.
In Anaheim ,
demonstrations drew people from throughout southern California . Police responded with a show of
military force, were heavily armed, on horse back, and in riot gear. The
violence and vandalism that ensued raised concerns that police, in the
tradition of Operation COINTELPRO, may have planted provocateurs who advocated
violence in order to discredit the validity of the protest aims. Anaheim
Councilwoman Gail Eastman, who opposed measures being considered that night,
wrote on what she thought was a private message board, “it was a big time win
for all who opposed seeing that placed on the November ballot. Tonight we
celebrate a win with no shots fired!" The analogy by an elected city representative
that shooting and killing young Latinos constitutes a “win” is unconscionable
in the least and reinforces the growing public notion of Anaheim as a city bent on racialized violent
authoritarianism.
Responding to the
violent nature of police and elected officials in Anaheim , Presente.org gathered 17,000 digital
signatures in a matter of days which it presented to State Attorney General
Kamala Harris urging her to investigate the shootings. The U.S. State
Department and FBI have agreed to conduct an independent investigation. Others are calling for political changes in
representation by changing from at large elections, which have historically
disenfranchised communities of color and poor people to district elections,
which ensure representation for residents of all sectors of the city.
The first step in
healing must come in acknowledging the human dignity of a Latino population
that has been criminalized, scapegoated and maligned in the mainstream media
and by public officials and police agencies. A second step must be the
recognition that participatory democracy in the form of direct resident
participation provides for a transparent discussion of the issues. What happens
in Anaheim as a result of this process will
always be gauged by the arrests and charges against police officers, and the
ousting of cynical elected representatives in Fullerton . Nothing less would be
acceptable.
Gabriel Gutierrez,
Director of the Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Americas (CESPA) at
California State University Northridge and author of the forthcoming book Latinos and Latinas: Risks and Opportunities
(Greenwood ,
2014)
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For more information, see these recent releases from Greenwood , Praeger, and
Libraries Unlimited:
Latino Issues: A Reference Handbook Rogelio Sáenz and Aurelia Lorena Murga (Greenwood , June 2011)
Blessing La Politica:The Latino Religious Experience and Political Engagement in the United States
by Carlos Vargas-Ramos and Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo (Praeger, April 2012)
Pathways to Progress:Issues and Advances in Latino Librarianship by John L. Ayala and Salvador Güereña
(Libraries Unlimited, November 2011)
Also, please check out ABC-Clio's American Mosaic Latino
American Experience database. To sign up
for a free trial, click here.
Hopefully a higher degree of transparency and participation of the community will help to lessen conflict in the future.
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