At Immigrant Rally, Divided They Stand
Call for Work Boycott Breeds Disagreement

By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 2, 2006

The problem is, a guy has to make a living. And if you happen to be a Salvadoran with a green card; with a mortgage, a wife and three kids in Lanham; and two janitorial jobs in D.C. that keep you busy 14 hours a day, you might not have the leverage with the boss to boycott work in a demonstration of how important immigrants are to the U.S. economy.

And so there yesterday in sun-dappled Meridian Hill Park was Milton Bonilla, 38, leaning against a tree in his white work uniform listening to the speakers rage against certain lawmakers and celebrate the People United. He was a typical un-boycotter. He had worked hard for the word "Supervisor" stitched on his breast, and he could not afford to give it up.

He was headed to work for the night shift at 5:30 p.m. But he still felt urgently drawn to the demonstration, which was called "a day without immigrants."

"It's important to show support for the people without documents," Bonilla said. "We're here because we want better treatment in this country. We came to work. We are not criminals."

For some the notion summoned visions of Bethesda matrons cutting their own grass and taking care of their own kids; K Street lawyers and lobbyists pushing mops and taking out the trash at their offices; bureaucrats having to serve themselves Navy bean soup, meatloaf, blackened sole and soggy broccoli in the cafeteria line -- that would teach them a lesson, was the idea.

But the work boycott sent an odd, ambiguous message, others thought. When immigrants list the personal attributes they are proudest of, "hardworking" is at or near the top of every list. And now they were going to show their value to society by not working?

Most members of the main immigrant organizing coalition in the Washington area were against the boycott. So were some of the local movement's most important motivators -- radio disc jockeys. They said now was not the time to get too radical, while there is still a chance that the Senate will produce an immigration bill that would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Still, other local organizers urged the boycott, saying now was the time to flex some muscle.

Both factions picked Meridian Hill for an afternoon rally, and more than 1,000 boycotters and un-boycotters assembled in the leafy splendor of perfect park weather.

You could spot differences in the two crowds. The un-boycotters were more likely to have on work uniforms or work boots with fresh dust. They came and left at odd times, going to punch in, or just punching out, in the middle of chants that sounded better in Spanish ("Bush, listen, we are committed to the struggle!") or a song in English ("Amazing Grace").

The boycotters were more likely to be young, holding disposable jobs they might easily replace in a fast-food nation. Also more likely to be wearing the red and black of revolution.

Eber Garcia, 25, said his boss in a roofing company told him if he didn't show up for work yesterday, he would think about firing him. Garcia said he could live with that.

"Say you work in a restaurant and I work in construction," he said. "I lose my job and you lose your job [for joining the boycott]. I can go to your restaurant and you can go to my construction. They need us. We are not afraid."

Garcia is as hard a worker as any, and he says he knows stuff about roofing that his boss depends on. He says he earns about $1,000 in a good week and sends $800 of it back to his mother and two sisters in Mexico. Yesterday cost him about $140 in lost wages.

"If I have to do this I'm going to do this to catch their attention," Garcia said.

To boycott or not to boycott? So much riding on the answer in individual lives, such high stakes for a movement groping for its voice and next steps.

But there in the park, with the guitars and the flags and the children in strollers, at a time and a place when the tactical rift could have betrayed weakness and the spectacle of protesters protesting the protest, the leaders showed some savvy. They pretended there were no differences of opinion. They shared one stage, one sound system near the statue of Joan of Arc, and they didn't talk about whether to boycott or not to boycott. It was too late for that anyway. They kept saying over and over how united they were.

"All organizations present are united for legalization" of those without papers, shouted a typical speaker. "We demand real comprehensive reform legislation that recognizes the contributions of" -- here it comes -- "hardworking immigrants."

Did Cesar Chavez have to fake a united front during the five-year grape boycott he launched with the United Farm Workers in 1965? In any case, it was an effective tactic. In the end, growers agreed to let the union bargain for the workers, and they got higher wages, health care and retirement benefits.

The dissonant thing about Chavez as an inspiration for the current movement, however, is that he didn't care much for undocumented workers. He considered them "strikebreakers." He came to Washington in 1979 to accuse immigration authorities of letting such workers avoid the law in order to defeat the union.

Chavez himself may have been inspired by the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott in 1955-56, sparked after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat. The boycott brought the bus companies to the brink of bankruptcy and proved the mettle of the civil rights movement. But it took the Supreme Court to finally desegregate the buses.

Still, the bus boycott made a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. a national figure, and set a tide in motion -- a taste of what possibilities were in the air in the park yesterday.

Yesterday's rally also drew energy from fiction. People in the crowd were passing out fliers about the 2004 mockumentary "A Day Without a Mexican" -- as if we could have forgotten. The premise of the movie is that suddenly all the Latinos disappear from California -- all the nannies, groundskeepers, street sweepers, car mechanics. The state can't function and goes crazy.

Which is also what happens in a fictional Southern town in the 1965 play "Day of Absence" by Douglas Turner Ward. All the black people suddenly disappear. The playwright later said he had been in Montgomery during the bus boycott, and he had been inspired by what happens when invisible people make themselves visible by, paradoxically, disappearing. Not riding the bus, not going to work.

Some of the boycotters were like Juan Arreaga, 30, who came from Mexico 10 years ago, lives in Manassas and owns a remodeling business. He gave all 40 of his workers the day off. Nobody was going to get fired for this "boycott." It wasn't a radical, personally risky act. Nor was it for Carlos Rosales, a self-employed financial analyst in Hyattsville, who boycotted himself.

Joanna Salguero and Jacqueline Ortiz are cashiers at a fast-food restaurant in Centreville. They boycotted. But they got permission from their boss.

If your boss says it's okay, or if you are the boss, is that a boycott? Do you have to risk getting fired for the act to acquire moral gravitas?

No, said the organizers. The point was just to show how many productive Latinos there are. Permission or no, there they were, there in the park, standing up to be counted.

Carlos M. Bermudez, chef with a food-service company in the District, boycotted -- but he went to work Sunday to cook all of yesterday's food ahead of time. In other words, he found a way to work and boycott.

The un-boycotters, for their part, looked for ways to show workplace solidarity. Germain Gutierrez, 27, from Beltsville by way of El Salvador, got to the park a little late. He had reported to the D.C. body shop where he works. But his boss let him leave after he put in four hours.

Think of all the cars coming in after a weekend of wrecks. Think of all the minivans of the Bethesda matrons, and the BMWs of the K Street lawyers.