The most impressive thing about the Green Party’s national nominating convention, held at Symphony Center July 10-13, might’ve been how multiracial it was. In the crowd, black nationalists and young activists of all colors mingled with white hippies. Fiery former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who’s African-American, was named the Greens’ presidential candidate, and Rosa Clemente, a Latina hip-hop activist and journalist from New York, was slated for vice president.
The Greens have been active in Pilsen for the last eight years. A handful of them cofounded the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization (PERRO), which spurred city and state agencies to order the H. Kramer smelting plant to clean up its operations and has spearheaded several nonbinding ballot initiatives demanding that the Fisk coal-burning power plant in Pilsen reduce its emissions. But despite long hours of knocking on doors, the party’s been slow to gain widespread support in the neighborhood, a longtime power base for the Daley-allied Hispanic Democratic Organization.
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But local Greens say they have long seen a nexus between immigrants’ rights issues and the environmental, racial, and economic justice policies of their party. At the nominating convention the Greens adopted a new immigration-related platform that includes permanent border passes for Mexican and Canadian citizens, an end to immigration-related racial profiling and English-only laws, and immigration laws that “promote fairness, nondiscrimination and family reunification.”
In the late 60s he served as minister of information for the Young Lords, an organization formed by local Puerto Rican street gang members to address community issues. Based in Lincoln Park, then a rough Puerto Rican neighborhood, it was similar in genesis and philosophy to the better-known Black Panthers, with gang member and activist Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez its highest-profile figure.
In 1982 he was named assistant general supervisor for the Park District under Daley loyalist Ed Kelly, a position Lopez says he gained through his advocacy for more soccer fields. In this role he helped secure the Pilsen Park District building that now houses the National Museum of Mexican Art. In 1986, after the amnesty immigration law was passed by the Reagan administration, Lopez left the Park District to help undocumented immigrants get their papers and served as president of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce. Since the mid-90s he’s been director of CALOR, a nonprofit organization serving Latinos with HIV/AIDS.
“People see [Gutierrez] as a champion of immigrants, but the proposals he’s put forth are far from that,” said Lopez. “I don’t see immigration as a problem of national security where you need to militarize the border. I see it as a labor issue. As long as you criminalize immigrants and ignore their economic contribution, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.”
