Area Immigrant Groups Argue Over Movement's Path
By Krissah Williams and Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 1, 2006
Some local activists predicted that thousands of Washington area immigrants would participate in a national economic boycott today, but immigrant groups who have spoken out against the boycott said they fear that the immigration reform movement is being commandeered to promote political causes beyond immigration.
The public tug of war, which continued in the Washington area yesterday on Spanish-language radio, could result in more limited participation in the region than is expected in Dallas and Los Angeles, where the organizers of last month's massive protests have been more unified in support of today's boycott, which asks immigrants to refrain from buying goods and to stay home from work and school.
Police in Los Angeles said they expect a rally that could draw as many as a half-million people. Some major national firms that rely heavily on immigrant labor said they would close for the day. Perdue Farms said about half of its chicken processing plants would close, and Tyson Foods Inc. said nine of its 15 beef and pork plants will not operate.
Local business owners said they did not know what to expect. Some said they would close, and several construction firms said they would allow their employees to take the day off.
Ricardo Juarez, coordinator of Mexicans Without Borders in Northern Virginia, and a local leader of the boycott, predicted that "real economic impact" would be felt in the Washington area.
But Jaime Contreras, president of the National Capital Immigration Coalition, said he continues to encourage people to conduct business as usual so that they don't risk their jobs. And the Rev. Jose E. Hoyos, director of the Arlington Catholic Diocese's Spanish Apostolate, said he believes people will heed his message to go to work.
"A lot of people have said to me that their lives are going to be normal," Hoyos said.
The disagreement over the boycott played out last week in a series of news conferences. Many leaders of the April 10 immigration rally on the Mall cautioned against participation in the boycott, and some activists from the Washington region and elsewhere encouraged immigrants to stay away from work, schools and stores.
"What we don't want is for people to go around and confuse the community around the country. And that is exactly what has happened," Contreras said. "Sadly, there are those who claim that they own the movement. The folks that came here . . . would say that they were the people who held the gran marcha , the [March 25 rally] in L.A., when in reality that was not the truth."
The discord, Contreras said, is not over whether boycotting is a valid tactic. But with Congress just back from a recess after a contentious debate on the subject -- and with a recent CNN poll showing that 77 percent of Americans favor allowing some illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship -- he said most local activists feel it is best to wait to see how Congress reacts.
Some local Latino leaders said they worry about being associated with a Los Angeles-based group, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), that has been active in promotion of the boycott. They said they fear that the group's broad-based opposition to Bush administration policies could hinder attempts to win allies for immigration reform on Capitol Hill.
ANSWER protested numerous administration policies, including sanctions on Cuba, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. The organization began supporting immigrants' causes last year in opposition to the Minuteman Project's plan to patrol the southern U.S. border, said Carlos Alvarez, a Los Angeles-based ANSWER spokesman.
"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.
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