Citizenship Class Surges With Students : Immigrants: The INS green card renewal rule may be the stimulus. An evening class at a Wilmington church is packed with 100 people, many of whom have lived in this country a long time.

Abelardo de la Pena has taught citizenship classes for 18 years, and he has come to expect a familiar attendance pattern.

About 60 people will sign up for his six-week course. Three weeks later, about 25 are still plugging along. By the last class, 10 are still with him.

So it is a wonder that three weeks into the first of two citizenship classes he will teach this year, 100 people still pack each class at Holy Family Church in Wilmington--and more want to join.

“This is the largest class I’ve ever had,” de la Pena said Thursday. “Maybe before, 60 people was the biggest, but even then people would drop out. Now no one drops out.”

De la Pena said the surge of interest in citizenship may have come because the Immigration and Naturalization Service is now requiring people with green cards issued before 1978 to renew them by Aug. 1 at a cost of $70.

These people have long been eligible for citizenship, but for various reasons have been content to live and work in the United States with their legal residency permits. De la Pena speculated that the new INS regulations, designed to crack down on counterfeit green cards, have inspired many to take the final step toward citizenship.

“But I can’t quite put my finger on it. People want to be an official part of their community. There is a greater sense that their vote will count, I think,” de la Pena said.

For 30 years, Antonio Mendoza has lived and worked in the United States. Now 75, the Long Beach resident wants to become a citizen. He is not sure why, but voting is more important to him now than it ever has been.

“You see, when I’m a citizen, life will be better. Oh yes, it will. Voting makes life better,” he said, his white cowboy hat bent over a booklet about the U.S. Constitution.

Mendoza is a good student. When de la Pena asks who is the father of the Constitution, it is he who first mumbles, “James Madison.”

The first half hour of de la Pena’s class is pure pep talk to battle what he calls a cultural inclination to put oneself down.

“Have faith in yourselves. You can learn. Don’t tell yourself you can’t do it. That’s what defeats us, holds us back,” de la Pena said. “Say, this is my country and I’m going to have all the rights and privileges that are mine.”

De la Pena, former director of the nonprofit Mahar House community center in Wilmington, dispenses with movies, tapes and featured speakers to focus solely on the questions students will be asked by immigration officials.

Reading from a booklet they have bought for $5, students repeat first the questions about the U.S. Constitution and then the answers. The class is in Spanish, but de la Pena repeats questions and answers in English.

“What does the 13th Amendment do?” he asks. “It freed the slaves,” the class responds.

“That’s right. They had them out in the fields picking vegetables and cotton, and they didn’t pay them anything,” de la Pena said.

“Even the Presidents Washington and Jefferson, they had slaves. But listen. To be a slave doesn’t mean to be black. A slave can be any color. A Mexican can be a slave. A Chinese person can be a slave. It’s when one person exploits another and takes away their freedom.

“In the factories where people are bent over machines, sewing clothes day and night and they get $2 an hour and if they complain they get kicked out? Well, that’s slavery,” de la Pena said. The students accept his definition without question.

The students are mainly from Long Beach, San Pedro, Harbor City and Wilmington, and the class is almost equally divided between men and women. Teen-agers hold their younger siblings while their parents repeat questions and answers. And some who read well help out others who do not.

Maria Carillo of San Pedro has been a California resident for 10 years, but she said the class has taught her more about her rights than she ever knew.

“You hear about some of them on television or maybe by reading the paper, but never as directly as this,” Carillo said. “Like the First Amendment is for freedom of speech, religion and the press.

“This is my home and this is my country,” she said. “And now I see that I have to vote. I haven’t been pleased at all with the candidates we’ve had in the past years, and if I’d voted I definitely would’ve chosen others,” she said.

After the course ends, students submit applications to the Immigration and Naturalization Service individually. They can receive help in applying from either Holy Family Church or the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO).

NALEO officials say they too have seen an increase in people interested in becoming citizens. The green card renewal regulations may be the cause, they say, but it seems as if something more is at work.

“I’ve seen a wave of people who’ve been here 20, 30, 40 years, who are now saying ‘Let’s change our community,’ ” said Christopher Montoya, citizenship coordinator for NALEO.

“People feel more a part of the country, more a part of the U.S. system,” he said. “I personally believe that people didn’t feel that their voice counted. But I can’t pinpoint it. Honestly, I sit up at night and try to figure how the change started. Why people want to be involved.”

Being involved is the only legitimate reason to want citizenship, de la Pena tells his students. He urges them to seize their rights and leave behind old habits.

“We Mexicans, we don’t like to get involved. But we must. What we end up doing is saying ‘A mi, no me importa,’ ” -- that has nothing to do with me, de la Pena said.

“But every amendment applies to your life. That’s why the Constitution has not changed hardly in 200 years. We live in a society with many social prejudices and racial prejudices. Without the Constitution, we would be at war with each other. But there are no revolutions in America. It’s the Constitution keeps us bound together.”