No patriot

By JOSE de la ISLA
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

The last time I saw the self-proclaimed U.S. patriot Robert Vasquez was a year ago this past February in Washington, D.C. Now, raising a ruckus at Boise State University, he is back on my radar screen.

Vasquez, then a commissioner from Canyon County, Idaho, was participating at the height of the anti-immigrant mania of 2006 in a rally on the nation's Capitol steps. Jim Gilchrist, who headed the Minuteman Project, had captured the media's imagination with the ridiculous notion that a few weekenders with binoculars could stem the migration tide by posting themselves as lookouts on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Minuteman image became iconic. It almost replaced the one of a Border Patrolman, wearing sunglasses, leaning on his green paddy wagon. Vasquez and Raymond Herrera, a Vietnam-era veteran from Victorville, Calif., whom Gilchrist anointed as a Project vice-president, were the anti-immigrant brown faces at the rally.

West Coast shock-jock Hal Turner and other extreme-measure advocates, as well as a few private citizens leading a counter-protest, were there. The crowd included about as many reporters recording the event as Minuteman supporters.

But what really upset organizer Gilchrist and his sympathizers were the goose-stepping Nazis who came up the walkway. Capitol police promptly escorted them across the street. You could hear their shouts of "Sieg heil" and "white power."

That day, Jim Gilchrist boldly told Congress, "If we cannot move you with our rhetoric, we will move you out with our vote."

That fall, the people's ballots turned out of office many extreme-measure congressional members. Gilchrist himself ran for Congress from California's Orange County and lost decisively. In March, Gilchrist's own Minuteman Project board removed him.

Vasquez, too, ran an unsuccessful primary race in May for Idaho's First congressional district seat. He has plans to challenge fellow-Republican U.S. Sen. Larry Craig in 2008.

After noting Vasquez was absent from his commissioner job 48 days and missed 80 functions, the blog Mountaingoat Report asked recently, "This sounds like someone we want representing Idaho in the U.S. Senate?"

Vasquez, a former newspaper columnist, is reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center to be trying to solidify his target base with a statement like this: "As you sit in your Subaru Outback with the 'Save Tibet' bumper sticker, sipping your decaf, soy-milk latte, dining on your veggie burger and whining about the poor al Qaeda being bombed, think about this: Freedom is not free. But don't worry. Your friends and neighbors are paying the price."

That's why I fell off my chair when the Boise State University Republicans invited Vasquez as a speaker March 22. The group, sponsored by the College Republican National Committee, encouraged students participating in Boise State's "Celebrate Cesar Chavez Week" to hear Vasquez speak.

The fliers showed specimens of a Social Security card, a resident alien card, a Texas Medicaid ID and an Idaho driver's license. A resident alien card is a legitimate document held by authorized immigrants.

"Climb through the hole in the fence and enter your false ID documents into the food stamp drawing," the flier beckoned. It offered a dinner for two at the local Chapala Mexican Restaurant. Its co-owner, Faviola Marmn, who has supported Boise State with Cinco de Mayo activities and student scholarships, pressured to have the restaurant's name removed. From the photos on the IDs, the flier's targets clearly were dark Hispanics. The university's president issued a statement denouncing the chicanery, as did religious, human rights and student groups.

In his 45-minute campus speech, Roberto Vasquez denigrated his own Mexican family heritage by ridiculing the eagle-and-serpent symbol on Mexico's flag as "a chicken and worm or whatever it is." About two-thirds of the 150 students who attended laughed and booed at his most derisive remarks.

Those who saw the flyer as racist "find racism in everything that they disagree with," Vasquez maintains. French President Charles de Gaulle once defined patriotism as when love of your own people comes first and nationalism as when your hate of people other than your own comes first.

Roberto Vasquez is no U.S. patriot. He's more like those shouting from across the street.

Jose de la Isla, author of "The Rise of Hispanic Political Power," writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail joseisla3(at)yahoo.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com