The directors of
CAHRO, the intergroup Clearinghouse, and the American Friends Service Committee's Border Violence Project along with the Chair of the Marin County Human Rights Commission briefed northern California Foundations on the nature and
incidence of hate violence in California and on the steps being taken to address it.Roberto Marinez, from the Border Violence Project, described a number of incidents of "private vigilante" groups and law enforcement officials
harassing Latinos (both immigrants and citizens). He recounted how "vigilantes" stationed at the San Diego airport followed anyone who looked Latino to the ticket counter to demand the agent request proof of citizenship
before issuing the ticket. Roberto organized a group to counter-demonstrate at eh airport and things became so hectic that a restraining order preventing either group from entering the airport was issued. But Roberto's
main message was that anti-immigrant sentiment is being fanned by the rhetoric used in this year's political campaigns. He said irate anti-immigrant groups and public agencies are responding to the rhetoric with a vengeance
and their acts are driving wedges between the Latino and European-American communities. Roberto feels the friction is fueled by growing numbers of incidents of Latinos being singled out for discriminatory treatment, because
they are assumed to be immigrants.
Dennis Sato from the Marin County Human Rights Commission related a hate crime that occurred a few months ago in Novato, a city north of San Francisco. Apparently, a man saw a Chinese man
who was entering a Lucky Store, ran up to him, and began stabbing him without any words being exchanged. The incident occurred just before lunchtime. the reason given by the perpetrator was that when he woke up in the
morning he decided to "get him a Chinaman". Dennis spoke about the coming together of the community around the issue and the work being done with the Intergroup Clearinghouse and the Marin Community foundatio to create a
countywide hate violence response network.
Jill Tregor, Director of Intergroup Clearinghouse, provided the foundation representatives with an overview of the work of the hate violence network she manages in San Francisco.
The network trains community groups to take reports from, and provide assistance to victims of hate violence; creates criminal justice protocols, and works in tandem with the law enforcement community; and operates a program in
collaboration with a peer counseling and conflict resolution program on selected intermediate and high school composes in San Francisco to develop ways for the campus to monitor its own intergroup relations and design strategies to
address problem areas. Finally, she related how the network analyzes reports of hate violence and collaborates with the member of the network on confronting the issues underlying the incidence of hate violence in problem
areas.
Fred Persily, CAHRO's Director, described the Association's effort to build networks of human relations organizations around the issue of hate violence throughout California as the first step in its long range strategy for
building the capacity of the networks to take on the challenge of bringing people together to overcome the divisiveness and alienation manifested in the segregation of communities, in the self-segregation of students on the campus
and in the racial and ethnic turf-building within the workplace. He urged foundations to support the work of existing hate violence networks and the ones that are now being established around California.
Northern California
foundations were invited to attend the special briefing on hate violence in California by Northern California Grant-makers (an association of foundations). The briefing, called at the suggestion of CAHRO, was sponsored by the
James Irvine, San Francisco Community, Marin Community, and Columbia Foundations.
Another briefing is being scheduled by the Southern California Association of Philanthropy for foundations in the southern half of the state in
October. The James Irvine Foundation and the California Wellness Foundation are two of the sponsors.
