Rift Could Diminish Boycott's Strength

"Ideological cohesion to the T isn't something that is absolutely necessary right now," he said.

In California, ANSWER has closely allied itself with the immigrant movement, providing a sound system for marches, creating banners and distributing fliers to promote the boycott. Members of Washington's Hispanic leadership have not been as welcoming.

Carlos Castro, a leader in two local business groups and owner of the Todos Supermarkets in Northern Virginia, said he was wary of some advocates' attempts to link immigrants' rights with leftist causes.

"They want to create instability in the community," he said. "It is kind of scary, because I lived through the metamorphosis of the Civil War [in El Salvador], and I know leadership and I know instigators. I want to make sure that we get the leaders of the Hispanic community out front. I'm not accusing anyone, but that's certainly how it looks."

Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of the California-based Latino Movement USA and a representative of ANSWER, called opponents of the boycott "rather paternalistic."

American social movements have historically been rife with divisions, said Michael Kazin, a Georgetown history professor. The splits can be damaging if they distract followers, he said -- but they also can signal strength.

"I can't think of any important movement in American history that has not had important divisions about strategy and about the ultimate ends," Kazin said. "The larger the movement is, the more divisions there are. People think, 'This is really important, so there's even more reason to steer it in the right direction.' "

The budding Latino movement's discord over today's event appears to boil down to a rift between groups whose main focus is to work within the system to gain legalization for immigrants and those that want to build a more radical grass-roots workers' movement, Kazin said.

"There's a typical division, you might say, between people who see the need to put pressure on people on the inside and are very happy to have Teddy Kennedy speak at the rally, or even [John] McCain, and folks at the May 1st rally who would not feel comfortable with Congress people," he said, referring to the senators from Massachusetts and Arizona who have sponsored legislation that includes a guest-worker program and a route to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Only one of the 47 organizations that sponsored Washington's first big immigration rally last month -- Mexicans Without Borders -- has publicly endorsed the boycott. Formed 14 years ago, the group promotes legalization of immigrants and promotion of democracy in Mexico and is against globalization, war and "neocolonialism," according to its Web site.

In the Washington area, it has organized day laborers in Woodbridge, protested overcrowding laws in Manassas and rallied Northern Virginia students to march for immigration rights.

Other Washington area supporters are loose networks or local branches of larger organizations. Among the backers are the Voting Rights for All DC Coalition, a group that lobbies for voting rights for legal immigrants in the District; the Committee of Solidarity Monsignor Romero, which was formed to help Salvadoran communities cope with the aftermath of a 2001 earthquake and now serves immigrants in Columbia Heights; and the 25-member Latino Media Collective, which formed one month ago to "present community news from a grass-roots perspective," said one member, Marco Del Fuego, who also protests regularly against the Minuteman campaign in Herndon.

The groups said that their support of the boycott is founded on the immigrant community's desires -- not on their own agendas.

Staff writer Bill Turque contributed to this report.