'Great American Boycott 2' may miss San Diego County

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer

NORTH COUNTY -- Los Angeles-based immigrant activists said this week that they expect walkout-and-boycott protests to be better coordinated Tuesday than they were a year ago, in what is being called "the Great American Boycott 2."

But San Diego County activists said there may not be much of a protest here, unless it is spontaneous and last-minute.

"We haven't talked about it formally," Bill de la Fuente, founder of a North County-based Latino merchants association said Tuesday. "Last May 1, we did support it and a number of businesses closed down, but this time, the issue has not been a top priority."

Many around the country were shocked a year ago when more than 1 million Latinos -- seemingly spontaneously -- took to the streets in a May 1 protest and boycott aimed at prodding Congress to reject calls to toughen immigration laws, including a bill that would have declared all illegal aliens to be felons subject to deportation.

Protests, which started with student demonstrations in March and April before culminating in the May 1 national walkout, instead called on Congress to pass reform-legislation that would grant millions of immigrants amnesty.

The epicenter was Los Angeles, where half a million people marched in the streets, including an estimated 72,000 students who skipped school to take part.

But it was also felt in North San Diego County, where thousands of protesters took part in demonstrations; numerous Latino-owned businesses closed; and school officials reported that there were as many as 10,000 more absentees than normal.

Congress never did pass any significant immigration law reform in 2006, and debate continues this year.

On Tuesday, Javier Rodriguez of the Los Angeles-based March 25 Coalition said that May Day 2007 could see even bigger protests. The coalition is a collection of more than 100 political and immigrant rights organizations.

"The Great American Boycott 2 is a continuation of last year's mass struggle," he said. "We are staging demonstrations in approximately 75 cities in the country in approximately 16 states. We have the major cities in the country."

But some have questioned how big a turnout the new protests will actually prompt.

A number of major Latino figures have said they won't support the boycott. One of those is 77-year-old Dolores Huerta, a leading Latino rights activist who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez.

Here in San Diego County, local activists said that there has been little discussion of the May Day and possible protests.

Consuelo Martinez, founder of the grass-roots immigrant rights group, the Escondido Human Rights Committee, said, "I have heard of mobilization taking place in L.A., but nothing here in San Diego."

Martinez said she knows that some local Latinos plan to take the day off from work and school in protest, but that local leaders didn't jump forward to help lead any significant protest.

"No one took the initiative this year," she said. "No one took leadership."

Martinez said that she hadn't even seen much local chatter about potential May Day protests on the Internet -- which helped spread the word about protests among students last year.

De la Fuente, meanwhile, said that he felt that some business owners suffered a backlash after last year's protests. And, he said, he personally felt that the protests "galvanized" debate on immigration issues, creating less dialogue and more infighting.

"Anyone on the fence eventually fell to one side or the other side," he said. "I believe there's been a backlash and will continue to be one."

De la Fuente said Latino leaders needed to embrace other avenues to make their voices heard.

"Let's put it this way," he said. "I would like to see some different strategies. Marches are good. They do keep (immigration) a hot topic. But at the same time, we have to be working in other areas to give it more dimension."

-- Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.

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