Posted on 04/10/2006 10:05:05 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
(Nationwide movement gets local for rally and march...)
They talked about flags.
They talked about the importance of not striking out if confronted by hecklers, about how they should not carry false IDs.
But some 60 Latinos meeting to hammer out logistics for today's march and rally for immigration rights carefully considered what message they should send by the flags they carried.
The marchers mobilizing this morning at Brittingham Park for a march to the Capitol were to join marchers projected at up to one million today in Washington D.C., New York, Phoenix and other cities in demonstrations of Latino power as Congress wrestles with legislation to address the tide of immigrants entering and living in the country illegally.
A proposal by U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, to criminalize undocumented workers ignited the demonstrations of protest across the country in recent weeks and set off a backlash movement to give amnesty to immigrants in the United States illegally. On Friday, a Senate compromise that would have given legal guest worker status to long-time immigrants while they worked toward citizenship faltered before the congressional Easter recess.
The U.S. flag should be front and center, Madison march organizers said Saturday when they met at the Madison Diocese's Multicultural Center on the city's south side. It was a slice of Madison life conducted in Spanish, where interpreters decode Spanish to English for visitors.
Organizers spoke of whether their homelands should be represented by their native flags. Some called for banners saying "Solidarity" or "Peace."
"We're not here living in luxury," said Alex Gillis, a key organizer. "We are economic exiles and many of us would like to go back if we could. The American flag says we're staying here and working and living and so we belong."
Another man called out in Spanish that in addition to American flags, marchers should carry the flags of their homelands: Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia.
"Every obstacle encourages the people to be more active," said Gillis, who added that he has taken vacation days from his job as an audio-visual director at the UW-Madison's Fluno Center. "We need to demand our rights."
Gillis said that after initial resistance from police, the Madison and Capitol departments have been cooperative, as has the office of Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, which assisted in arranging parking at the Alliant Center and shuttle bus service to the staging area at Brittingham Park.
Cieslewicz was among those scheduled to speak at the Capitol rally today, as well as Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, Bishop Robert Morlino, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager and labor representatives.
Salvador Carranza, president of Latinos United for Change and Advancement, on Saturday called the organization of the rally by the April 10 Coalition, a loose federation of people representing local groups supporting Latino rights, a grass-roots effort in the purest sense of the word.
The march has been pulled together in the past 10 days, with hundreds of volunteers taking on the tasks of making flyers, organizing others in their workplaces, meeting with officials, and pulling together meetings to make signs to be carried by marchers.
On Saturday, in the most international of gestures, they passed the hat to help cover the $1,200 cost of insurance for the event.
But it is not only Latinos who have been involved, Carranza said. "We've received a lot of support from the general public. Everybody that supports human dignity and rights. That's what it is all about."
"This is one more chapter in the history of the country. In the 1800s it was the Irish, then the Russians, the Italians and the Germans," Carranza said. "This is our time."
Carranza said Latinos have demonstrated already their contribution to the United States. "We pay taxes, we are here to work hard and ask for nothing but opportunity...the greatest country in the world would give that opportunity or become a country in decline," he said.
Janeth Cuji said she has been talking with her co-workers at a Madison Bakery about marching.
"U.S. people do not see the problem," Cuji said of Latino workers earning low wages to send back to support their families who, under a new state law, will be denied a driver's license if they do not have immigration documents. Her two children live in Ecuador, Cuji said, and she is in Madison alone.
Willy Barreno, who works as a cook, said the demonstrations are an important piece of the struggle for immigrant rights. He added that as the call to action has spread, "most people are happy, they feel empowered and that their voice can be heard."
"People are afraid to be involved," said Romilia Schlueter, a former director of Centro Guadalupano, an agency of the Madison Diocese serving Latino immigrants.
Schlueter recalled how she had worked to convince a Latino woman, already a citizen like herself, that she, too, should march for immigrant rights.
"They have to understand that it is not just those who don't have papers, but for us, too, to march in support," she said. "We need to bring to consciousness to these people's issue that needs attention."
Facing the potential repercussions, and deciding to march despite fears of losing jobs or being arrested, "that's a moment of 'wow,'" she said.
"It's happened over and over in history," Schlueter said.
In Madison, the "Day Without Latinos" aims to showing how many roles in daily life are filled by immigrants.
But workers have been encouraged to miss work only if bosses could be persuaded to permit it.
Most area employers were accommodating, said Patrick Hickey, director of the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin.
Early rumblings about threats to workers who took time off to attend today's rally turned out to be mostly misunderstandings or over-reactions, Hickey said.
"In most places we've gotten it worked out with split shifts or by swapping shifts. In the most difficult cases, they're at least letting a representative of the group go," he said.
The rally was a hot topic in the workplace Hickey said. He speculated that many employers may have realized how important the event is to their Latino workers and that preventing them from going would breed antagonism.
The South Central Federation of Labor is a co-sponsor of the demonstrations.
Labor, which looks to immigrants in service jobs as a prime source of new membership, is opposing any legislation that does not provide a path to citizenship.
"Injury to one is injury to all," the federation's Jim Cavanaugh said in an interview. "To the extent immigrant workers are exploited, all workers are at risk," he said.
Paul Hansen, a co-owner at Pasqual's restaurant said it was important that his workers have the chance to express themselves and he worked to juggle schedules to make it possible. Of the lunchtime shortage of workers, he said: "We'll make it through."
"It's a very complicated issue I wish were dealt with more forthrightly," Hansen said. "There are so many mixed messages in this country about being Latino, whether you are here legitimately or illegitimately. In a global economy, for them not to get to stay in their own countries with their families and work is not right."
Peter Munoz, director of Centro Hispano, recalls the rush of emotion he felt last month when he traveled with other Madison Latino leaders to the march in Milwaukee.
Munoz said he had gone in part to make certain their was a respectable showing, but that as he and his companions left a car stuck in traffic to walk to the march area, a wave of humanity gradually took shape.
"The closer we got, the more excited we got," Munoz said. "There were thousands upon thousands upon thousands. It was so exhilarating."
Munoz said many Latinos, working two or three jobs, have had "their nose to the ground" and didn't realize what danger was brewing.
"They've got to stop working for a moment and take a stand," he said.
Edgewood College students Sarah Pressman and Melree Donahue said many of their classmates seem unconcerned with the dilemma of undocumented immigrants in low-end jobs.
"A lot of them come from wealthy backgrounds - why should they care?" Donahue asked as the pair waited for the start of an organizing meeting for students on Thursday at Centro Hispano.
But Donahue, whose half-brother has a Mexican father, said to her taking a stand on immigration was a matter of recognizing the humanity of the people that those laws affect.
"What are they - mules? This affects us all as human beings," she said.
Pressman said the efforts to deport immigrants without papers were clearly racist. They come to the United States, she said, for compelling economic and political reasons. "It's not a decision made lightly," Pressman said.
She added that it was United States economic policy that made it impossible for these workers to survive on what they can earn in their homelands.
"We need a mass mobilization to show people are against the legislation and in support of humane immigration reform," Pressman said.
The Madison School District reversed itself late last week and said students could be excused to attend the rally if they provided written permission from parents beforehand.
Organizing has been going on in the schools all last week.
"It's an incredible educational opportunity," Jamie Wichman, a bilingual resource specialist at Memorial High School, said at Thursday's organizing meeting..
"We are normal people who come here to have a normal life - not criminals," said one Memorial student who would not give her name. She said her mother came to Madison from Colombia, and then sent for her, "so I could have a better future than she had when she was young."
On Saturday, as organizers heard advice on what to do if arrested, Mario Garcia Sierra said many people in Madison don't even notice the burgeoning Latino population around them.
"We are the invisible community. But when you go to a restaurant, we are the people who clean the table, wash the dishes and cook the food."
"as has the office of Mayor Dave Cieslewicz"
Anything to capture that all important illegal vote.
Oh... Wait a minute... They can't vote. At least not legally.
They can march all they want but nothing will change and the mindset of the American people will not change. They are wasting their breath. They made a big mistake carrying mexican flags and saying that they want Arizona, Texas and California back, having their protests organized by the Spanish Media, and A.N.S.W.E.R, the American people don't want that. They should have marched and said how much they want to be here in this country and how much they loved it if they wanted to garner sympathy from the American public. But my hooking up with Leftist groups like A.N.S.W.ER and the likes makes them as ugly and disgusting as the anti-war leftists. This means nothing to most people here its just a media photo-op now!
Article made my eyes glaze over.
barf.....gag.....hurl......
How about we have a "You are not ALLOWED to work Day." How bout them apples.
A proposal by U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, to criminalize undocumented workers ignited the demonstrations of protest across the country in recent weeks and set off a backlash movement to give amnesty to immigrants in the United States illegally.
___________
Sensenbrenner attempted to have that provision removed and the Dems in the House wouldn't allow it. They wanted the issue and they got it.
Keep up the marches, boycotts and strikes. Disrupt more commerce, tie up more traffic and disrupt more schools. Show more Mexican flags and disrespect a few more American flags. Dress all alike so that you look like a foreign army.
The U.S. People will see the problem soon enough.
Question to myself:
Was it the provision about workers, or the people who help them?
Either way, the Dims wanted something to demonstrate about.
You mean Nickolodeon won't be showing "Dora the Explorer" today?
If they can organized this many people for one rally, and now instruct them to leave their native country's flags home, they can also then organize those among them who are here ILLEGALLY to register and take the appropriate steps to become LEGAL.
In my personal experience, a day without latinos would have meant no mexican tenants in our duplex who didn't go a day without trying to cheat us out of money owed us by them. Thank God I was able to track them once we evicted them, had them served with a small claims action (which we won) and had the wages garnished by the farmer the man worked for. They lied about everything to us, from former rent history, to employment status, new address, marital status, etc. Gee, maybe they were here illegally. It got so bad we sold off the duplex rather than put up with clowns like this. I realize that these two couples aren't representative of all mexicans, just the ones we had personal contact with, but when I talk with other landlords, I wonder.
"U.S. people do not see the problem,"
I believe the illegals AND the whores in Washington are about to find out that Americans can see the problem quite well, thank you!
"Democrats Pandering to Illegals" Ping!
Mayor Dave, Peg "The Keg" Lautenschlager, Kathleen Falk & Bishop Morlino, specifically. ;)
I would love to have a town without latinos, the illegal ones. Wonder if they can arrange that?
"'This is one more chapter in the history of the country. In the 1800s it was the Irish, then the Russians, the Italians and the Germans,' Carranza said. 'This is our time.'"
Now, WHEN exactly did the Irish, Russian, Italian and German Illegal Immigrants stage protests like this? *Scratches Head*
I see them in my rural community and the same houses have different "immigrants' in them all 'winter' long....
Not a whole lot of apple pickin' goes on around here in January...but they just keep moving in...and passing through.
I see them in WalMart with one of their Tios or Jeffe de Jeffes shepherding them through and paying their bills at the checkout...
I see 8 or 9 at a time at my tiny local PO sending postal money orders back to Mexico or OTM...they send in one guy to buy all the money orders (presumably the one that speaks the best English)
Depicting exactly what the mexicans 'built'.
How about a "day without liberals"? I'm sure we could accomplish a lot in those 24 hours.
Please come here next, we could use a day without illegals, too. Or a year. Or forever.
Try a service e-renter.com. Since it's became easily possible to screen tenets, have been screening everyone. Close to *half* of the plausible looking applicants - people we would likely have rented to before - turn out to have felony arrests, credit reports so radioactive they burst into flames before you can finish reading them, recent bankruptcies, recent evictions, a history of filing lawsuits, or the like – and these are polite, well-spoken people who drive up in a nice looking vehicle and take off their shoes before looking around the apartment..
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