Hispanic Activists Cite an Uptick in Threats of Violence - washingtonpost.com: Andrea Bazan said she has thick skin and is not easily frightened by death threats. But when the Hispanic activist arrived home one day to find her voice mail packed with profanity, and when she noticed a man watching her house in Durham, N.C., from a white commercial van with no license plates, her heart started to pound.
On a recent Monday night, she said, an unidentified man pounded on the front door of her house, frightening her. About a month earlier, on Labor Day, her house was broken into, and the smoke detectors were removed. 'I am a mother. . . . I was scared,' said Bazan, president of the Triangle Community Foundation in Durham and a board member for the National Council of La Raza. 'I've been open with them about the fact that sometimes I have a bodyguard.'
For some Hispanic activists such as Bazan, this is life on the front lines of the debate over illegal immigration. Leaders of the largest Hispanic civil rights groups -- the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and La Raza -- have received anonymous threats of violence and death. Bazan's home address and the names of her daughters were posted on a Web site."
