Partial Transcript -- Lou Dobbs Tonight -- CNN
Show aired on April 10, 2006
Segment featuring rabid Mexican Reconquista Larry 'Nativo' Lopez
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DOBBS: Thank you, Wolf. My next guest says he wants to thank Congressman James Sensenbrenner for unifying his organization. Nativo Lopez, National President of the Mexican-American Political Association, one of the organizers of today's protest, joining us tonight from Santa Anna, California.
Nativo, let me ask you, why do you oppose the Sensenbrenner legislation?
NATIVO LOPEZ, PRES. MEX-AM POL. ASSOC.: It's a racist legislation and it criminalize the people, and employers, workers, pastors of churches, the most, nastiness, racist legislation ever to see Congress and the history of our country.
DOBBS: And will you accept anything less than amnesty?
LOPEZ: Absolutely not. We're looking for full immediate, unconditional legalization for all persons currently in the United States. They've already paid their way, Dobbs. They paid their way more than enough, than anybody can expect of them, we don't need earned legalization, we need legalization right now of all our folks here.
Our country would be more secure with having everybody in our database, their photo, fingerprints, information, we would certainly know who the 12 million are, they would be here. And May 1st, you are going to feel the effects of nobody going to work, nobody going to school, shopping or selling, because we're calling it The Great American Boycott: A Day Without Immigrants. Marching in the street for full, immediate, unconditional legalization of all working people that are here currently without documents.
DOBBS: Nativo, you're talking about feeling the impact, you're talking about a boycott of all illegal aliens in this country?
LOPEZ: Well first off, I refute your terminology. You don't say kike, patty, WOP, OK, you don't say nigger.
DOBBS: Partner, I don't even listen to that kind of language. You pollute the air.
LOPEZ: You're using language that's offensive to me and offensive to my people.
DOBBS: You are wrong.
LOPEZ: You pollute the air every day, Dobbs. You are absolutely wrong.
DOBBS: You have the distinction of using language that is never...
LOPEZ: That language is offensive, it's derogatory, it's denigrating, and don't use that terminology to me again, referring to my people.
[Note: 'His people?' We understand that Larry was born in the United States.]
DOBBS: ... Let me tell you what. If you're going to boycott the country on the 12th, what do you expect the impact to be?
LOPEZ: The 1st.
DOBBS: The 1st.
LOPEZ: Basically to send a message to Congress, send a message to America, send a message to you, to appreciate the labor of immigrants in the United States, appreciate us, the same way when you lose a loved one, and you -- and you try to...
DOBBS: Nativo, let me ask you something.
LOPEZ: ... recoup that love of that person with flowers, with candy, because you now appreciate you've lost her. And that's essentially the effect of a political message to Congress on May 1st. We won't go to work, we won't go to school, we won't be buying products, we'll be marching in the street for legalization.
DOBBS: What would you do, do you suppose, Nativo, you and anyone who would join in such a boycott -- what do you do without America? You're suggesting what we would do without illegal aliens, what would you do without America?
LOPEZ: America needs us, just as it needs every other working people in the United States. It's a basic law, a basic premise. You went to Harvard, you know about the laws of supply and demand of capitalism.
This is a essentially a question of supply and demand. There's a tremendous demand for this labor. There's an ample supply. We are facing population deficit, and state after state throughout our country. We're not reproducing sufficient workers so our economy will not grow. Therefore, we need to depend on immigrant labor.
DOBBS: Let me ask you this, then why should all of our -- the predominant amount of that illegal labor come to us from Mexico and Central America, rather than the billions of impoverished people around the world? Why shouldn't the United States be deciding who is coming into our country?
LOPEZ: Well you know that better than anybody, because you've been wailing against NAFTA and CAFTA and the outsourcing of jobs for so many years. Three million Mexican farmers were ruined by $12 billion a year subsidy for agriculture, to go into Mexico under NAFTA and basically gobble up all that land, throw these farmers off their land.
You think that the farmers are just going to stick around with a poke in the hole? They're going to come where there's a demand for their labor and they're here, and they'll continue to make great contributions to our country.
DOBBS: Nativo Lopez, an organizer -- Nativo, let me ask you just one thing as we sum it up. How do you say chutzpah in Spanish?
LOPEZ: I don't know. It takes a lot of brains, that's for sure.
DOBBS: You've got that right.
LOPEZ: We've got it, because we're out in the streets.
DOBBS: Have fun, we appreciate your time.
LOPEZ: Thank you.
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