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Immigration movement broadens from isolated campaigns
| Tuesday, Apr 11 2006 7:15 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, Apr 11 2006 7:15 PM
They invoke the names of Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez, but the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have marched nationwide are not following one charismatic leader.
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Instead, they're loosely guided by Hispanic advocacy groups, churches and labor unions - organizations that have helped transform what began as isolated campaigns in major cities into a broad movement with a coordinated strategy.
"It's a shared leadership among people who we don't even always know," said Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican-American Political Association, a central organizer of rallies in Southern California.
The young movement is still morphing, allowing both for a broad reach and quick reactions to a dynamic political situation. The marches by hundreds of thousands of people in dozens of cities Monday illustrated its scope and sophistication - the events were timed to the first day of a two-week congressional recess so lawmakers would be home to feel the impact.
It's a long way from two months ago, when a lively meeting east of Los Angeles resulted in a simple plan: Derail congressional efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants and push for a law to give those already here a chance at citizenship.
Since then, Roman Catholic churches have accelerated their campaign of preaching to immigrants and pressuring politicians, unions have blanketed hotels and restaurants with fliers and Hispanic community leaders have enlisted Spanish-language deejays to convey protest instructions: wear white, remain peaceful. When marchers were criticized for carrying Mexican flags, organizers spread word to carry U.S. flags instead.
If any one person deserves credit for the movement, organizers say, it's a man who surely didn't seek the distinction.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., sponsored legislation which the House passed in December that would make being in the country illegally a felony instead of a misdemeanor and criminalize people who help illegal immigrants.
The bill provoked a groundswell of anger among illegal immigrants and their advocates. But while many groups held small protests in January, except for the Catholic Church's "Justice for Immigrants" campaign most efforts had no overarching vision.
That led a handful of civil rights groups in Southern California to convene a hastily arranged one-day national summit in Riverside on Feb. 11.
Hundreds of e-mails between groups foreshadowed a potentially contentious meeting in which disparate groups might insist on their own agendas.
About 500 people from unions, civil rights groups and religious organizations came from around the country, according to organizers, jamming a large room at the Riverside Convention Center.
"For about the first 30 minutes it was chaotic with everybody raising their hands and speaking," said Armando Navarro, coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights, an umbrella organization for Hispanic activist groups in Southern California. "Then we got on track."
Organizers said they set aside fundamental divisions over whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay or given guest worker status and agreed on a series of mass mobilizations through April 1, in anticipation of the Senate taking up its own immigration reform legislation. The protest themes would be twofold: Opposition to the Sensenbrenner legislation and a call to give the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants the right to live in the U.S.
"I got the feeling like this was the beginning of a national movement," said Angela Sanbrano, executive director of Carecen, a Hispanic civil rights group in Los Angeles. "Everybody was talking about what they were going to do when they got back."
Discussions about what to wear or what flag to wave would come later - often with the coaching of Spanish-language deejays, whose potential impact was highlighted by a Chicago delegation of activists.
Ema Lozano, president of Chicago's Center Without Borders, said she told organizers in Riverside that popular Spanish-language disc jockey Rafael Pulido deserved much of the credit for a rally last July against immigration laws that separate families.
The first day Riverside attendees targeted March 10. While organizers in major cities such as Los Angeles weren't able to launch a protest, about 100,000 marched in Chicago.
In addition to radio, much of the communication was through e-mail, Web sites and cell phones.
"This was a high-tech march," said Antonia Zavala, an education coordinator with Casa Aztlan, a Hispanic activist group in Chicago.
Chicago served as an example - two weeks later, about 500,000 protested in Los Angeles.
By then, the Catholic Church and the Service Employees International Union were flexing their organizing muscle.
Hundreds of SEIU members have helped control crowds at California rallies. Ahead of Monday's march in Phoenix, the union's Washington, D.C., headquarters received a call from organizers who were having trouble getting a permit because of insurance issues.
"So we called around. We found a policy. We wrote a check," said Ben Boyd, a union spokesman.
The planning is far from over.
Organizers promise major voter registration drives and are promoting May 1 as a day on which immigrants are asked stay home from work and school, and refrain from buying U.S. products.
"It's great," said Magdalena Schwartz of Immigrants Without Borders in Phoenix, "because we see now we are not alone."
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Associated Press writers Anna Johnson in Chicago, Rachel Zoll and Erin Texeira in New York, Dan Goodin in San Jose, Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix, Peggy Andersen in Seattle and Ron Fournier in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.