Largest Demonstrations in History of US Organized in a Flash
What took Moctesuma Esparza and his fellow students 3 years to organize in the late 1960’s has taken students in Los Angeles and major cities across the US only a couple weeks to organize in 2006. Using text messages, email, MySpace, and cell phones, hispanic students across the country have organized school walk-outs and massive demonstrations against Congressman James Sensenbrenner’s draconian immigration reform bill (HR 4437).
On Monday this week (3/27/06), about 40,000 students walked out of LA schools in protest of the bill following rallies on Saturday, including one in LA that drew nearly 1 million people. Student walkouts involving thousands took place in many cities, including Las Vegas, Phoenix, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and other cities in California.
The use of text messaging, email, MySpace, and cell phones demonstrates the power of digital technology to create powerful advocacy communities that transcend geographic and temporal barriers to organizing mass protests. In a matter of a couple weeks, these students used digital technology to talk to each other and mobilize what may be the largest mass demonstration in the history of this country, involving millions in cities in several states.
As I have often argued, the use of the Internet to build strategic communities is the ultimate expression of its political power. More than just informing citizens about political developments and more than mobilizing them to action, these demonstrations show that the Internet and other digital communications technologies can be used to facilitate bottom up movements and protests that emerge from a shared sense of stakes in the issue at hand. Hispanics across the country learned that this bill would hurt them and their families. They responded by using the technology to reach out to each other to call for everyone to rise up and make their voices heard.
This is not the same as an advocacy group using the technology to mobilize citizens to action, this is a community effort where information and calls to action flow in all directions: from the bottom up and from one end of the country to the other. This is the ultimate expression of the power of digital technology to transform the electorate and policy debates. I would not be surprised if this movement creates a dramatic shift in both Hispanic opposition to Republicans and a surge in Hispanic voter turnout in 2006.