He's an Anaheim police officer who presides over the city's high school district and crusades against illegal immigrants--though he is an immigrant himself.
Harald G. Martin, 44, has repeatedly offended many Latinos over his five years in office by tapping, critics say, into fear of change in Orange County's ethnic makeup.
He goes so far as to call himself an ally of the Chiapas-based leftist rebels, who are fighting the Mexican government to keep their land. Martin blames Mexican leaders for "forcing the poorest of the poor out of their country and displacing them into the streets of gold in California and Arizona."
Martin also intends to fight Mexico, but his war is about money: He has proposed billing Mexico--and all foreign countries--for the education of illegal immigrant students served by the Anaheim Union High School District. Though trustees have changed his resolution to seek reimbursement from the federal government instead, Martin's proposal remains the focus of controversy. More than 30 activists have threatened him with lawsuits, and many more have branded him a racist.
None of it fazes Martin, who has championed the abolishment of bilingual education, expulsion of students believed to be gang members and the stationing of an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent at the Anaheim jail to deport illegal immigrants who are arrested.
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Born in Austria, Martin moved to Anaheim with his family when he was 2. At home, the Martins spoke German, listened to German music and shared German meals. But Martin thinks of himself as entirely American and believes all immigrants should assimilate completely into American society.
"To have an America of different groups, of different enclaves, is divisive and it is dangerous," Martin said. "If you do that, you end up like Bosnia. There is no overarching sense of culture and language. I will fault anyone who takes the benefits of this country and does not become an American. I am not a German-American. I am an American of German heritage. There is a big problem in the world today with all this hyphenation."
But it is Martin, critics say, who is being divisive. Fred Smoller, chairman of the political science department at Chapman University and a member of the county's Human Relations Commission, said Martin's proposal is reminiscent of other anti-immigrant measures promoted by conservative leaders in Orange County.
