wfn.org | Latino March in Washington

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3239 notes).

Note 3238 by UMNS on Oct. 17, 1996 at 15:32 Eastern (7570 characters).

SEARCH:   Hispanic, Latino, march, immigrant, rights
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Joretta Purdue                     524(10-32-71BP){3238}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722           Oct. 17, 1996

Two Hispanic congregations
join march for civil rights

     WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- People from two United Methodist
congregations -- one only months old -- and others from their
Chicago neighborhood came here Oct. 12 at great personal sacrifice
to take part in "la Marcha," a national march for Latino and
immigrant rights.
     After riding 700 miles in buses overnight, they joined a
crowd estimated at 25,000 to walk several miles, past the White
House and onto the Ellipse, where they heard a number of speakers.
     The participants agreed they had come because they wanted to
stand up for Latino rights and to participate in an historic
occasion.
     Emma Lozano said that her father came despite his "bad legs"
because the event was so important. Lozano heads the
administrative council of the Adalberto Villase¤or Memorial United
Methodist Church in Chicago.
     "It's the year of the election," explained Lozano. And the
laws against immigrants are increasing, she said. "We needed to
come and show our numbers."
     About 100 people were in the Chicago delegation. Fifty or 60
of them from Adalberto Villase¤or Memorial and Bethany United
Methodist Churches, and the others from the communities they
serve.
     Raising the $95 required of each person for transportation
plus enough to provide some food was difficult for the majority of
these people who earn only minimum wage, Lozano explained.
     The Rev. Franklin Guerrero, pastor of Bethany United
Methodist Church, said he was excited by "having all the Latino
people from different Latin American and Caribbean countries
coming together to stand up for principles that we believe are
necessary for our life to be decent and to be quality life."
     He was particularly pleased, he said, to see so many young
people march.
     Among them was Arturo Villase¤or, the teen-age brother of the
18-year-old for whom the new congregation, fostered by Bethany
United Methodist Church, is named. 
     Adalberto worked for justice, traveling to Cuba, Mexico and
other places. He was also trying to intercede in street life in
the West Town community of Chicago, his friends said, but he was
gunned down May 5 this year. On May 17 the new congregation began
holding regular services.
     This was Guerrero's first march on Washington, and he
expressed the expectation that there will be bigger Latino marches
in the future.
     "I think that it's the time for the Latino people to come
together, to work in unity, though we still will have our
different food that we eat and different dances that we like and
music and [differences in] political opinion." 
     The need for a sense of unity is especially important in
these years when the Latino community is under attack by Congress
and some politicians in a way not matched in recent memory, he
said. 
     The march was an orderly, colorful demonstration with banners
and homemade signs. Slogans on some of the signs and banners
included the following:
     "We are a nation of immigrants;" 
     "Stop waging war against immigrants;"
     "Strict pesticide laws;"
     "Be fair, be true, give immigrants their due;"
     "Immigrants are taxpayer$;"
     "Racism is an ugly platform;"
     "Una Voz, One Voice;"
     "Stop INS, not immigrants;"
     "No more attacks on immigrants;"
     "STOP Border Patrol abuse;"
     "Citizenship now, equal opportunity;"
     "E.T. is an alien; I'm not;" and
     "Hey, Fannie Mae, stop refusing to lend to moderate-income
Latinos."
     One large banner titled "Hispanic Heroes" listed Hispanic
American winners of Congressional Medals of Honor.
     Signs indicated the presence of groups from Texas,
California, Arizona, New Mexico, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota,
New York, Maryland, Rhode Island and others. 
     Several colleges were represented including students from the
University of Massachusetts. Also present was the banner of the
Hispanic Police Association of Washington, D.C.; the American
Friends Service Committee, the National Education Association and
an organization called Justice for Janitors.
     The march had seven stated goals beginning with human and
constitutional rights for all. Others were equal opportunities and
affirmative rights, free public education K-12 to university,
expansion of health services, citizen police review boards, $7 per
hour minimum wage and extended amnesty for citizenship.
     Alejandro Molina, an organizer with an ecumenical Puerto
Rican cultural center in Chicago said march organizers also added
an eighth demand, that of amnesty for Puerto Rican political
prisoners.
     "Instead of going underground, as was done in the past, and
waiting for a better time, it's time to get up and organize
ourselves," Guerrero said. 
     He observed that the march brought hope and inspiration to
Latinos, and he said he would like to see more United Methodist
churches "take a stand for the people" and treat them in the
manner God asked for sojourners.
     Cathy Shanley, a member of the newer church, was a marcher
but is not herself Latino. A volunteer at Centro sin Fronteras, or
Center without Borders, Shanley expressed agreement with the
causes that brought the marchers to Washington.
     "Latino people can not be the scapegoat" in this "anti-
immigrant hysteria," she said.
     "The big corporations do not know borders," Shanley
contended. "If a company feels like being a millionaire is not
good enough -- they have to be a billionaire -- they send their
factory out of the United States so we lose jobs on this side of
the border. They send them to Mexico where they pay people,
literally, 40 cents an hour, and there are no health or safety
regulations. They're turning Mexico into a toxic waste dump."
     "So," she asked, "if the big corporations don't know any
borders, why should the people from Mexico who are starving
because of U.S. corporation policies be the scapegoat?"
     The United States has a serious economic problem, she said,
and that problem is not the Mexican people crossing the border.
     Immigrants from south of the border are not "stealing our
jobs," Shanley declared. "The people who are stealing our jobs are
the richest people of this country."
     She also perceives a racial bias in the talk about illegal
immigration, as well as in who is picked up and deported. "In all
the raids in the Chicago area, there was one Polish person
deported," Shanley reported. 
     She said that the INS was picking up and deporting Latino
women while their children were at school. "Can you imagine if you
had kids going to school in the morning and you're going to work,
and they come home and you never do, and nobody knows where you
are or what's happened to you?"
     Demonstrations stopped that practice, but only temporarily,
Shanley said.
     Bob Cotter, a new member of Adalberto Villase¤or Memorial
United Methodist Church, also participated in the march. He said
he particularly appreciated the march's not being directly related
to any political party and that it had such broad representation
of cultures, states and organizations.
                              #  #  #

EDITORS NOTE: Photos taken at the march will follow.

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