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Posted on 04/08/2006 12:06:12 PM PDT by aft_lizard
DODGE CITY - On Monday, John Martin, a meatpacker here, plans to skip work to attend a rally aimed at bolstering the call for immigration reform.
"We want the work we do to be valued," he explained. "It's hard work in the plant."
Fellow meatpacker David Gunion seconds that, wondering what would become of the plant without the workers, many of them immigrants. "Without us, the plant dies," he said.
Fliers, e-mails and text messages are circulating like wildfire around southwest Kansas, calling on the zone's sizable Latino population to rally, skip work, skip school and boycott stores Monday to show solidarity with the immigrant cause.
No one knows how many will heed the calls, many of them anonymous. But Gunion, whose plant was targeted by one of the fliers, suspects a large chunk of his cohorts will take off, and some school officials are bracing for the possibility of mass absences.
"There have been kids who've said, 'We're not going to be here,' " said Terry Lee, a social studies instructor at Dodge City Middle School and also the city's mayor.
Vernon Welch, superintendent of Liberal USD 480, said he will arrive early on Monday to prepare in the event of massive no-shows, not only among students, but also among lunchroom workers and other support staff. Leaflets and talk of skipping school also have prevailed there this week.
"We've got a plan in place," Welch said.
With debate in the U.S. Senate continuing on how best to reform the nation's immigration system, immigrants' rights groups and Hispanic advocacy groups are planning rallies for Monday all across the United States. A rally is set for 9:30 a.m. in Garden City - organizers expect 2,000 or more - and another is scheduled for 10 a.m. in Dodge City.
Beyond that, a leaflet making the rounds in Dodge City on the letterhead of a group called the Hispanic Union of Telluride, Colo., calls for workers to skip work on Monday and for students to stay home. It also calls for a one-day boycott of all stores and services to protest "unjust, unconstitutional and inhumane anti-immigrant initiatives" and to pressure for "fair, humane and ordered" change.
Similarly, an unsigned leaflet circulating in Liberal denounces a controversial U.S. House of Representatives proposal, HR 4437, and calls, indirectly, on workers to steer clear of work on Monday. HR 4437, decried by many churches and Hispanic advocacy groups, calls for construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico and would make it a felony to aid illegal immigrants.
"If no Hispanic in the United States goes to work this day, we will demonstrate that (the country) really needs our sweat," says the leaflet. "Or go and work and continue being humiliated, discriminated against, jailed, deported or murdered by racist people."
Members of Liberal's Cinco de Mayo Committee, which organizes an annual celebration around Mexico's May 5 holiday, had been planning an event for Monday as a show of solidarity with calls for immigrant reform. But they canceled the plans in light of the letter as well as what they see as lack of clarity from federal officials on the direction of immigration reform.
"There was really nothing there we could be solid about," said Cinco de Mayo Committee Chairman Jack Cooley, referring to U.S. Senate efforts at immigration reform. "Then all these rumors started going and everything else."
Welch said mass e-mails also are being used to spread the word, and Concha Aragon, head of a southwest Kansas advocacy group called Hispanics United, said some students are receiving anonymous text messages about skipping class.
Amid the flurry, some are calling on the zone's Hispanics to keep their appointments with work and school and warning that doing otherwise can hurt the immigrant and Latino cause.
Onesimo Aranda, head of the Regional Latino Affairs Council in Dodge City, an advocacy group, said contacting elected leaders is the way to demonstrate.
"We don't want to promote anything that's going to hurt the (Hispanic) community," he said. "We're trying to build them up."
Sister Janice Thome, a member of the Dominican Sisters Ministry of Presence and one of the organizers of the Garden City rally, said going to class instead of skipping will demonstrate Latino students' dedication to education. That, in turn, will help in efforts to open up universities to undocumented students, she says.
For its part, National Beef, in a letter distributed to workers this week, questioned the wisdom of skipping work as a form of protest, touting contact with elected leaders instead. The letter alluded to Latino efforts to demonstrate their importance to the U.S. economy and Hispanic opposition to HR 4437.
"We at National Beef already know that we need our Hispanic work force," the letter stated. "We disagree that not working is the best way to express your disapproval of this bill."
I am okay, you have your convictions and I support your right as an American to stand behind them. I had to laugh a time or two, you did have some fun with that! I especially like "they roasted one of theirs on the pyre and then told her to put some ice on it".
You do NOT owe me an apology. You took what what you were given and ran with it, can't blame you, I would have done the same. I didn't want to cause any discomfort to him because I do agree in principal with axes position.
When they start pushing their home country, they might as well shoot off flares and air raid sirens. Many citizens are suddenly alarmed and wonder what is going on and don't like what they see. Not at all. The countless fallacies in their foreigner arguments don't help them either. Every sentence is BS.
You just don't give up do you? :) Trying to force your opinion on others could be considered a form of oppression. I share the opinion of almost every one on these threads, that one country overtaking ours without a shot fired is cowardice. We must protect America from foreign invaders. It is just one country that is invading. I believe in limited immigration from all countries around the world, not one country deliberately ignoring our borders and overtaking America. I liken it to standing in line at a movie theatre, you're standing there, you're gonna pay when get to the front, then all of a sudden, a bunch of people from nowhere butt in front of the rest, not only going directly in front of them but not even paying to get in. That is very unfair and unAmerican. I do not want people who would do that in my country (or in my line at the movie theatre). You would be ok with that, standing in line waiting while a bunch of people went in front of you and didn't pay?
I remember, way back when, when I was in high school in the LA Unified School District...they started bussing from San Fernando, to my old Jr. High (caucasian mostly), in the west end of the Valley.
The kids from SF thought that when the football players wore their jerseys on Friday, it was some type of "gang."
So, the SF kids, all took their outer (pendelton) shirts off, and wore their white T-shirts to show "solidarity," and were prepared to fight.
A purely plain white t-shirt is also a garment of Latino gang-bangers, and in the old days that -- along with perfectly pressed khakis and a Pendleton shirt -- was the uniform.
A symbol of peace?? B.S.!
If it's that bad here, why are they here? And, as usual, a blurring of the line between legal and illegal. No, not a blurring but an erasuring. I am really biting my tongue not to call the guy who made this comment Debra Barone's favorite epithet for Raymond.
susie
Well, the state also ought to have someone there officially to *help* them with their count to be sure the number of kids in attendance is accurate.
susie
Hmmm this has nothing to do with race and everything to do with illegal aliens. You can promote more legal immigration from any country you would like and try to pass LAWS (there's that troublesome little word) that allow a large immigration. That's your right as an American. However, getting angry at people because they think our laws should be followed until such a time as they are changed does not seem like a good plan.
susie
No question, the deciding factor in killing the bill were Americans, disgusted at vote-hungry US politicians, all puckered up, ready to assume the Hyphenate-Fellate position for political gain.
Bandying about a bill that treats these drugged-out lawbreakers better than law-abiding US citizens was about as dumb as you can get.
And we can't discount the arrogance of the illegals protesting in the streets. The mental midgets actually believe waving the Mexican flag in our faces helps their case.
Lowlife drug lords, dealers and pushers, lurking behind the scenes, actually told these dupes that Americans are a bunch of suckers, that we would sit still for this atrocity----amnesty bill.
A pity these dumb amnesty pushers didn't factor in that Americans can spot a hidden agenda a mile away.
In New York, its Du-Rags and baggy pants right at the a-s crack. Football jerseys are also often used as gang wear.
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