It’s been an exciting and productive couple of weeks since we received title and summary from the AG’s office, and could begin gathering signatures.
(1) We’ve now opened our main campaign headquarters, at 212 E. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90014. It’s a storefront in the heavily Latino immigrant downtown LA garment district, located just a couple of blocks from the site of the 9th St. anti-bilingual elementary school boycott, which inspired our campaign. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be making a heavy volunteer organizing push into the surrounding immigrant neighborhoods, we’re hoping to be able to get a good number of the local residents to put up signs and bumper-stickers in English and Spanish supporting our drive to get rid of “bilingual education.” If we’re successful, this will provide strong visual support to the various opinion polls which have consistently shown most immigrant parents to be opposed to the policies of “bilingual education.” Also, this may help to put pressure on some of the local Latino elected officials to take the “right” position on our initiative.
(2) We held our first press event in Los Angeles on June 8th, and got excellent media coverage in both the English and Spanish language press and electronic media. I’m attaching below a copy of a very nice article in the LA Times (I’d sent it out previously, but some of you said you couldn’t read the HTML format file—the ones below are all in text).
(3) We had our second press event in San Francisco on June 17th, and also got good coverage. In SF, our orientation was more toward the large Asian immigrant population, and we held our event outside the Jean Parker elementary school in Chinatown, which was the site of the landmark Lau v. Nichols Supreme Court case which laid the basis for bilingual education programs. We’ve started to get some major print coverage in the Bay Area press, which is attached below.
(4) We’ve updated our web site at www.OneNation.org to contain two new sections: “Articles” which provides a selection of major print stories on our campaign and “Courts” which provides an analysis of the legal and constitutional issues raised by our initiative. Some of you have been concerned about whether our initiative to get rid of “bilingual education” could be blocked or overturned by the Courts, and all your efforts on its behalf would be wasted. Rest assured, our measure is as legally-rocksolid as any law could possibly be. Just check the “Courts” section for the relevant legal precedents. We’re also posting our press releases in the “News” section for your examination.
(5) We’ve now sent out many thousands of initiative petitions to volunteer supporters up and down the state, but we need to send out more to be able to gather the 650,000 signatures which we need to be sure of qualifying and giving the people of California a true chance to get rid of “bilingual education” once and for all. Spread the word! If you need petitions, just contact us in any of the following ways:
(a) Call our new headquarters at 1-213-627-0005;
(b) Fax us at 1-213-627-0050;
(c) Write us at 212 E. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90014;
(d) Visit our web site at www.OneNation.org;
(e) E-mail us at [email protected];
Remember, the politicians up in Sacramento have done nothing to stop “bilingual education” for the last TEN YEARS. Our initiative may be the only chance to end the mess. WE NEED YOUR HELP. A couple of months of hard work right now will prevent a lot of misery for years to come.
- Campaign Targets Bilingual Education
Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, July 9, 1997 - Anti-Bilingual Education Initiative Begins Signature Drive in Heart of Immigrant Downtown LA
English for the Children, Tuesday, July 8, 1997 - A Bilingual-Education Initiative as a Prop. 187 in Disguise?, by Ruben Navarette, Jr.
Los Angeles Times, Sunday, July 6, 1997 - News, KABC/Los Angeles, Tuesday, July 8, 1997
