Hip Hop Activism - California Propositions 187 and 21

California Propositions 187 and 21

A significant factor in the national organizing of hip-hop activist in recent years can be attributed to legislation passed in response to waves of migration and immigration from Central and South America. This legislation included Proposition 187, which ended affirmative action and bilingual education in California, and Proposition 21, which demanded tougher sentencing and longer incarceration for juvenile offenders. Opponents like Paul Johnston claim that Proposition 187 has only served to increase political, cultural and class factions while marginalizing specific minority populations. In his essay The Emergence of Transnational Citizenship Among Mexican Immigrants in California Johnston notes the cultural tensions created by the new legislation. He explains,

"These measures failed to halt the flow of undocumented workers to the United States, from Mexico as well as the traumatized Central American communities to the south. Instead, they quickly consolidated a deep divide in the social structure of the state, based on differences in citizenship status. The growth of this population, its increasingly criminalized and vulnerable status, and its impoverished, furtive, marginalized way of life under the new anti-immigrant policy regime has created circumstances that might fairly be described as a new apartheid in California."

Despite criticism the measures were passed and are supported by many Californians and their politicians. The discontent the legislation spurred, however, continues to be a focus of hip hop activists throughout the United States.