Amid plans from the Obama administration to address a potential path toward legalization for illegal immigrants this year, Chicago Latino organizers are taking new approaches to demand reform. In recent years mega-marches were a preferred method to attract attention to immigration policy issues. But immigrant rights advocates are now striking a balance between coming together to protest and working independently on other strategies, such as community forums and collaborating with elected officials.
“Marching is important but it’s not the only thing,” said Amalia Pallares, a professor of political science and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-editor of a forthcoming book about Chicago immigration marches. “We have to figure out other ways to press to achieve our goal.”
This year’s Chicago May Day march on May 1 is a good case in point.
Dating back to the 1800s, May Day was used as a platform to address labor rights. But as U.S. immigration policy changed throughout the 1990s, immigrant-rights activists used the day to protest, too. At its height, May Day attracted more than 300,000 demonstrators in 2006. This year drew just 2,000 participants. Myriad factors were blamed for the less-than-expected attendance, ranging from bad weather to concerns over a still-rampant swine flu outbreak to a bad economy that made it difficult for marchers to take off work.
But experts say the lower attendance had less to do with these factors than the administration change and current political climate. They credit Obama’s willingness to work with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other advocates for immigration reform as well as the recent decrease in workplace raids for the overall decline in people taking to the streets.
Emma Lozano, founder of Centro Sin Fronteras, a Chicago-based immigrant rights group, points to two key differences between now and 2006. A bill that would have made it a felony to live in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant was still up for debate in the Senate and talks of federal immigration reform were at a standstill, she said.
“People had no choice but to come and defend themselves [in 2006],” Lozano said. “Once Congress did not pass immigration reform, it was like they sent out the wolves.”
Pallares says even the organizers who mobilized the 2006 event couldn’t have predicted the large response.
“Nobody expected the numbers they got,” she said. “There’s no way people came out just because of their [the organizers’] work. This was an issue bigger than anyone could surmise.”
It would be almost impossible to attract as large of a crowd today and most organizers know that, Pallares said. Groups continue to march together for traditions such as May Day, she said, but they are also focusing energy on “what they’re good at [while] devoting resources to where they can make the biggest difference.”
This means organizers may not always agree on how best to effect change. But Pallares says fragmentation is natural and occurs across all social movements, not just in Chicago or the immigration reform movement. While the goal may be the same, she says, groups have very different visions of how to achieve it. For Lozano and Centro Sin Fronteras, it means working with elected officials such as U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois) to demand an end to deportations, raids and the separation of immigrant families.
According to Lozano, the 2006 marches were a driving force behind Obama’s election. People were angry, she says, so they went to the polls. But now that Obama is in office, she feels it’s up to groups like hers to do more than just march. She wants to remind the president of his campaign promises.
“People don’t feel that this is the time to fill the streets,” Lozano said, “We don’t have a timetable for reform. We need to get more aggressive if Obama doesn’t do something soon.”
Centro Sin Fronteras and the 60 other groups that comprise the Chicago coalition known as Ya Basta -- Spanish for “Enough Already” -- say they will stick by these specific demands until they are met. The next step is getting work permits and drivers licenses for long-time undocumented laborers. A path to legalization comes next, but even then, Lozano says she would not advocate a blanket amnesty policy.
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But other Latino organizers find themselves with different visions and strategies for reform.
The March 10 Committee, an immigrant-rights group that formed after the March 10, 2006 march attracted 100,000 participants, headlined the May Day march this year with a banner that touted, “Without legalization, there can be no equal labor rights.” The group advocates an amnesty policy similar to that enacted under former President Reagan, which gave legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants. Members prefer to work side-by-side with students and workers unions over elected officials.
“How in the world do you draw the line [for legalization]?” asked March 10 member Orlando Sepúlveda. “We want legal status not to be an issue.”
The committee’s mainstay has been helping to organize the May Day march, and this year it upped involvement by joining Lozano in requesting march permits, as well as providing the march stage and sound system.
Despite differences in ideology and approach from groups like Centro Sin Fronteras, March 10 members say coming together on May Day is important. They point out their own requests of “Legalization for all,” still respects more specific demands, such as those by Lozano’s group.
“It’s a really, really broad movement,” Sepúlveda said. “Circumstances have moved people apart, but also moved them together. Here in Chicago we did something mature for an amorphous [issue]. We said, ‘Let’s march together.’”
Sepúlveda points to organizer differences in recent Los Angeles May Day events that resulted in two separate marches -- a measure never taken in Chicago no matter how deep the divide.
But with May Day 2009 behind it, March 10 is left to ponder its next steps. Members say there is much to be done in anticipation of next year’s march -- raise more funds, spread the word farther and better -- but they also agree: Something else besides the march needs to be done.
“I think we should hold an asamblea,” said March 10 member Jorge Mújica, referring to a town-hall type community meeting.
The idea is simple, but logical. March 10 is not yet part of the national discussion about immigration reform -- like Centro Sin Fronteras -- so why not start its own? As the president and Hispanic caucus debate in Washington, D.C. what comprehensive immigration reform would entail, community members in Pilsen and Little Village could do the same.
March 10 members know a local forum won’t have the same impact as working directly with elected officials, but for the grassroots organization, playing to its strengths is the plan of attack.
“Is that going to have an impact on what goes on in Washington? No,” acknowledged Bridget Broderick, a March 10 member. “But I don’t see March 10 opening the door and lobbying. We need to let people vote [on what’s important to them], have a say and give testimony.”