(AP photo)
Carlos Santana slams immigration laws at Civil Rights Game
ATLANTA — The stage on the infield grass for the pregames ceremonies at baseball’s Civil Rights Game included actor Morgan Freeman and Hall of Famer Ernie Banks, but also the Grammy-award winning artist Carlos Santana, a fan of the Oakland Athletics.Santana caused a stir in Turner Field on an appropriate day to be talking about social issues.
Santana was on stage to receive Major League Baseball’s Beacon of Change award. He took the microphone and said Arizona and the city of Atlanta should be “ashamed” for passing immigration bills, that have been criticized widely as racially motivated.
Santana spoke with the media in the press box during the Phillies-Braves game and said there should be a boycott in Georgia by Latin workers.“I would invite all Latin people to do nothing for about two weeks so you can see who really, really is running the economy,” Santana said. “Who cleans the sheets? Who cleans the toilets? Who babysits?
“I am here to give voice to the invisible.”
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Santana blasts Georgia immigration bill before Braves game
Legendary rock guitarist Carlos Santana, in town to be honored for a “Beacon of Change” award at Sunday’s MLB Civil Rights Game at Turner Field, called the state’s new immigration law “anti-American.” Santana took his turn at the podium on the field in a pre-game ceremony before the Braves-Phillies game to criticize the immigration bill just signed into law by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal Friday.
“I represent the human race,” the Mexican-born Carlos Santana said. “The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
The Georgia immigration law, HB 87, cracks down on illegal immigration by increasing enforcement powers and requiring many employers to check the immigration status of new hires. Supporters of the new state law have long contended it’s needed because the federal government has failed to adequately enforce the nation’s immigration laws. One estimate ranks Georgia seventh nationally among states with an estimated 425,000 illegal immigrants.
Santana – born in 1947 in Jalisco, Mexico knows what it is like to be an immigrant, because he is one.
His father was a mariachi violinist, and Carlos learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight. His younger brother, Jorge Santana, would also become a professional guitarist. Young Carlos was heavily influenced by Ritchie Valens at a time when there were very few Latinos in American rock and pop music. The family moved from Autlán de Navarro to Tijuana, the city on Mexico’s border with California, and then San Francisco. Carlos stayed in Tijuana but joined his family in San Francisco later and graduated from James Lick Middle School and Mission High School there. He graduated from Mission High in 1965
The year he graduated from High School he became a naturalized citizen.
In his remarks he pointed to the fact that this is a nation of immigrants, and that immigration is a civil rights issue.
“Most people at this point they are either afraid to really say what needs to be said, this is the United States the land of the free,” Santana said. “If people want the immigration law to keep passing in every state then everybody should get out and just leave the American Indians here. This is about civil rights.”
Major League Baseball instituted the Civil Rights Game, in 2007. At the game they honor “three pioneers of civil rights with the Beacon Awards (Beacon of Life Award, Beacon of Change Award and Beacon of Hope Award).”
Glad to see hermano Carlos speaking out.
Vaya Santana!
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