Unity against Laguna Beach minutemen

LAGUNA BEACH, CA, 19 November 2006--Fifty or so counterprotestors joined twenty day laborers at the Laguna Beach Day Labor Center yesterday, and handily shouted down the thirty minutemen protesting the day laborers.

Day laborers organized area young people, Mexica Movement, and ISO members on the west side of Laguna Canyon Road to affirm their right to seek work. Many of the young people were new to the day labor center struggle and enthusiastically vowed to return whenever the minutemen threatened the workers there.

For the fifth or sixth time, minutemen wasted gasoline traveling to protest the center, generally supported by everyone in Laguna Beach from the city council, to wealthy residents, to Orange County anarchists. Passing drivers signalling support of the day laborers easily outnumbered support for the minutemen, at about five to one.

In a lackluster, widely spaced line, the minutemen were evidently down to their diehard membership. At one point, Minuteman Project leader Jim Gilchrist crossed over to the counterprotestor's side at the southern intersection, either to try a one-man invasion through the rugged hills behind the center or to use the natural restroom.

The successes of the migrants' rights movement and recent violent outbursts by minuteman supporters have dampened more cautious anti-immigrant sentiment and splintered the already fractured anti-immigrant groups, leaving a frustrated and violent core. Last weekend, minutemen supporters pulled stun guns and pepper spray in incidents in the City of Commerce and Canoga Park. At least one shopper was knocked to the ground by a minuteman.

Saturday's demonstration was violence-free, thanks in large part to the even-handedness of Laguna Beach police, in stark contrast to police in Maywood and elsewhere. A handful of officers managed to keep the peace with pylons down the middle of the road separating the groups.