Thread: 25,000 march in San Jose and 3,000 in Oakland

This looks by far the largest.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... /IMMIG.TMP

Minorities, labor walk on common ground
Immigration reform issues bring groups together on Labor Day
- Erin Allday, Jim Herron Zamora and Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writers
Monday, September 4, 2006



Thousands of minority workers and labor activists took to the streets of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose on Monday to rally for immigration law reform in the first major demonstrations on the issue since May, and the first to take advantage of a new alliance between labor groups and Latino immigrants.

By far the largest rally was in San Jose, as about 25,000 people, at times taking up 10 blocks of Santa Clara Avenue, marched about 3 1/2 miles Monday evening from Story Road to City Hall.

Several thousand people marched nearly 4 miles in Oakland, from the Fruitvale district of East Oakland to the federal building downtown. The crowd, estimated at 6,000 by organizers and half that size by police, waved U.S. flags and carried signs calling for better treatment of illegal-immigrant workers.

In San Francisco, members of hotel and janitor unions rallied alongside fieldworkers and other day laborers. The crowd filled three blocks on Market Street as it marched from Justin Herman Plaza to City Hall.

"We've already crossed one border. We need to cross another border, a border to legalization," Maria Marroquin, director of the Day Worker Center in Mountain View, said at the San Francisco march. "We know we are scapegoated for all of the problems in society. But if people understood our struggle they would be with us, because this is a human struggle."

Immigration reform is stalled in Congress. Conservatives argue for increased militarization at the borders, and two Republicans have proposed a plan that would require illegal immigrants to leave the country and reapply for admission and legal work status.

Immigration proponents are asking for amnesty for illegal workers in the United States and a chance for the country's more than 11 million illegal immigrants to become citizens.

The Labor Day rallies were small compared to the national demonstrations that took place four months ago, when millions of immigrants rights supporters marched in cities around the country.

Still, organizers said Labor Day seemed like a natural choice to demonstrate a new alliance between unions and illegal workers -- groups that have at times been at odds during the national immigration reform debate, protesters noted. Some of the Oakland marchers carried signs that said, "We are labor."

"This is a debate within our organization," said Brian Cruz, a member of Local 790 of the Service Employees International Union, whose 1.8 million members in the United States and elsewhere include cafeteria workers, custodians and clerical employees. "But people in my local, we've been taking a stance supporting immigrants. We see it as our cause, too."

San Francisco demonstrators said they had hoped for larger crowds on the holiday Monday, but were pleased that many workers had been able to bring their families on their days off.

At Justin Herman Plaza, truck driver J. Luis Martinez said he had brought his girlfriend and their two children to the rally because changes in immigration law could affect their family's future. Martinez came to the United States more than 20 years ago and is a legal resident, but his girlfriend is not and only one of his children is legal.

"We want to support this country. We love this country," Martinez said. "We came from Mexico because our country did not back us up. We came here to have an opportunity to better ourselves. We are not criminals. We are just good workers."

Hundreds of demonstrators showed up representing minority groups, including 200 people from the Filipino Community Center who waved multicolored banners as they walked along Market Street.

"We have 2 million to 3 million documented immigrants and another 1 million undocumented," said Terrence Valen, organizational director at the community center. "We're out here because we have to remind people that the immigration rights movement isn't going away. We can come up with a better solution."

At the San Jose rally, there were thousands of marchers carrying American and Mexican flags. Some of the demonstrators made a connection between immigration reform and war in the Middle East, with signs reading, "No war on immigrants, on Iraq or on Iran."

Many said they resented that the fight against terrorism was being used as a reason to close the border and crack down on illegal workers.

"We are not criminals or terrorists. It's a mistake to close the border," said Rene Lopez, a house painter. "We are here to work. If the American people want to close their eyes, then they don't want to see who is in their fields, in their factories and who is cleaning their houses."

Juana Ramirez, who came to the United States from Mexico as a child in 1989, said, "The mood in this country is not good. They just want to get rid of us. They want to send us back to our country, but this my country. I don't reject Mexico, but I've been here all my life."

In Oakland, demonstrators marched through several heavily immigrant neighborhoods along International Boulevard. Although the marchers were mostly Latino, they drew some support from many Southeast Asian immigrants who have settled east of Lake Merritt.

Sister Ann Ronin, a Dominican nun who teaches English classes to immigrants in East Oakland, said she was marching to protest "shortsighted immigration policies."

"I listen to some people talk about immigration as if immigrants were not people," Ronin said. "Look around you. These are people: hard-working, good-hearted people who just want a better life for themselves and their kids."

E-mail the writers at eallday@sfchronicle.com, jzamora@sfchronicle.com and srubenstein@sfchronicle.com.

leave it to California to have the biggest numbers.. but still smaller than May's.

Yep, you can depend on this state to rally the illegals.

Sure are a lot of feel-sorry-for quotes here but the demonstrations in the spring showed how many truly feel plus what happened in Maywood, CA recently. They know now not to fly that Mexican flag like before except in our santuary cities where they feel they've won. This is a war whether people what to face it or not.