Holding businesses hostage

Latino-civil-rights activist Nativo Lopez swept into Costa Mesa on Feb. 2, threatening to hold the city’s merchants hostage to a boycott should they refuse to disavow Costa Mesa’s pending immigration enforcement plan. Multiple television news outlets swarmed to videotape and broadcast Lopez’s warning, including Noticias 62, which stirred up controversy last year when it declared Los Angeles to be a part of Mexico on an L.A. billboard.

That same day remnant goons of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Party -- reported to be the captors of Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll -- videotaped another heartbreaking plea from the young journalist, who begged for U.S. action to win her release. A private Kuwaiti television station aired the footage seven days later.

So I wonder: How is Lopez’s videotaped threat to hold the city’s commerce hostage to a boycott symbolically different from the use of videotape by Carroll’s captors to extract concessions from the U.S. for her release?

There’s one stark difference. Carroll’s immediate circumstance is life-threatening and unimaginably terrifying. In the case of Costa Mesa merchants, they stand to potentially lose part of their livelihood should Lopez prove to have any clout in this town, which is highly debatable. Lopez, you may remember, was chased from the Santa Ana school board in a 2003 recall election that saw 69.3% of the predominantly Spanish-speaking community vote for his ouster.

Still, though the threat of a Lopez-led boycott isn’t life-threatening, there’s no question that it’s striking a bit of terror in some corners of Costa Mesa’s merchant community. Recognizing that there’s zilch upside in staking out a position on either side of the immigration-enforcement plan debate, Costa Mesa businesses have deferred on the subject.

Lopez isn’t having any of that.

There’s no neutrality when there’s injustice, Lopez warns. He’s demanding that businesses take a stand against the immigration enforcement plan by posting signs in their storefronts. If you don’t post the sign, the coalition of labor, community and immigrant-rights organizations will boycott you.

This is really hostage taking. Lopez might just as well have had Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce President Ed Fawcett blindfolded and sitting on the pavement in front of him with a rolled-up, “No Carona-Mansoor Police Migra Plan” poster pointed at his head.

Beyond the militant demonstrations of the Tonantzin Collective -- led by Costa Mesa resident and immigrant activist Coyotl Tezcatlipoca -- it remains a mystery to me why the Latino community in Costa Mesa is relying on out-of-town characters like Lopez to peddle their argument.

As I’ve written here before, the concerns of the Latino community over the immigration-enforcement plan are legitimate and should be heard. But relying on folks like Tezcatlipoca and Lopez -- who seem far more interested in disruption than dialogue -- makes it next to impossible to have a conversation about what the immigration enforcement plan is and isn’t.

By warning that the immigration enforcement plan is more than it really is -- it’s instructive, by the way, to read the actual language of the motion put forth by Councilman Gary Monahan to learn just how limited the program will be -- the Tonantzin Collective and Lopez are simply stoking the fears of the Latino community they claim to represent.

My hope was that Mirna Burciaga -- a prospective City Council candidate and respected businesswoman and civic leader throughout the Costa Mesa community -- would step forward and lead the dialogue between the city and the Latino community to help dispel myths, soothe fears and create a broader understanding in the Latino community of the very limited scope of the immigration plan.

Unfortunately and inexplicably, Burciaga stood with Lopez at his Feb. 2 news conference announcing the boycott. I hope she’ll reconsider and help lead a constructive dialogue.

* BYRON DE ARAKAL is a writer and public affairs consultant who lives in Costa Mesa. Readers may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (714) 966-4664 or contact him at byronwriter@comcast.net.

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