The Immigrant Worker Justice March and The Struggle for Human Dignity

The Immigrant Worker Justice Walk,
a 50 mile- 4 day mobilization for immigrant rights
marched through Chicagoland, to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office in Batavia,
on a Labor day weekend which would serve to emphasize
the difficulties the immigrant and Latino communities face.

An apartment fire in Chicago would take the lives of 6 Latino children in a household
which was relying on candles due to lack of electricity.
Meanwhile three nationwide immigrant raids
would arrest close to 200 immigrant workers.

The march saw a core of 100 marchers, joined at times by as many as 2000 supporters,
subject their bodies and time to what March 10th Coalition organizer Jorge Mujica compares
'the three or four days an immigrant crossing
the border, through desert fire, might face only
to come out the other side for hard labor- at minimum wage and in fear.'

'I march because human dignity dictates that i be here, because oppression anywhere threatens freedom everywhere,' said
nurse Marisol Mireles as chants demanding legalization for all
and an end to all deportations thunder the suburban sprawl around her.

The march mostly Mexican and Chicano, also comprised other Latinos like Cubans, Argentines, Salvadorans, Chicanos and Chileans and was complemented by a Korean gong player,
African American SEIU members, white Teamsters, Jewish and Middle Eastern Activists, Filipino singers, Aztec Dancers and members of diverse houses of worship.

'Why am i here?, why wouldn't i be here in this effort for protection of basic human rights, they thank me-
but I should be thanking them,' said an unidentified white Oak Park woman.

'It is this that i believe in' said Park Jae Hyung smiling, of the South Korean activist group The May 18th Memorial Foundation, pointing out Mexican housewives and aging white hippies
doing a 'Si Se Puede' dance to the rhythms of traditional Korean percussionists, 'freedom' adding-
'this is how America might be- beyond the government policy, beyond the media images.'

The opposition to this 'new' America the march allowed space were
a small but highly publicized force in parts of the suburbs, marchers mostly ignoring
small bands of 2 or 3- often outnumbered by their media.

Obed Lopez, 68, veteran of the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO) of Chicago, linked
the march as much an extension of Chicano Movement of the 60s and 70s as it is part of
the northern theater of the struggles for equality and democracy being waged all over Latin America- 'Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, riots in Mexico, Left Governments in
the Southern Cone, it is one epic struggle for human dignity- which man has a need for
and will do anything to achieve or regain, that is why I am here though I am not an immigrant- in the struggle.'

The future remains uncertain for the 11-12 million strong immigrant community in the US,
and Hastert would not show up for the culminating rally in front of his office.

Cesar Chavez said 'we can bring the day when children will learn from their earliest days that being fully man and fully woman means to give one's life to the liberation of the brother who suffers. It is up to each one of us. It won't happen unless we decide to use our lives to show the way."

It is clear that success of the movement is not dependent on the mobilization of the immigrant
so much as it is of the nonimmigrant if this new-old sincere face of America is destined to break free from its fetters in the evolution of human liberation. Continual alliances must be established with groups and individuals in an offensive against
xenophobia, jingoism, racism and bigotry, if events such as the Chicago tragedy and
immigrant raids are to cease.


Cristóbal Cavazos