Congresswoman Grace Napolitano.

On August, 14, 2006, the UCLA Labor Center and the We Are America Coalition organized an immigration reform hearing at UCLA titled: “Balancing the Story: Ways Immigrants Contribute to America.” By demonstrating the real contributions that immigrants make to the United States, the hearing offered a counter story to the recent House hearings focusing only on of the cost of immigration.

Congresswoman Grace Napolitano, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, heard testimonies from a diverse group of experts and individuals, and UCLA Assistant Vice Chancellor Keith Parker welcomed leaders from the academic, labor, civil rights, and faith-based sectors as well as immigrants presenting personal testimonies.

María Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, offered a critical labor perspective on immigration. UC Davis’s Bill Hing, professor of Asian American Studies and Law, and Kelly Lytle Hernandez, UCLA professor of history, provided in-depth analysis of U.S. immigration and the vital role immigrants have played. Jamal Watkins, director of the western region of the NAACP, explained how the current struggle for immigrant rights is one for civil rights. Father Mike Gutierrez of CLUE-LA and the Inter-religious Task Force closed with a moral and humane call for comprehensive immigration reform.

Personal testimonies came from Andrew Jung, a U.S.-born citizen whose parents were deported, Adriano and Ignacia Carino, World War II veterans from the Philippines who have been waiting fifteen years to reunite with their son, Elsy Zavala, an immigrant university student, Will Echevarria, a Los Angeles public schoolteacher, and Rosalva Kuhn, an immigrant mother whose son died recently in Iraq and received citizenship posthumously.