Latin power

Serene Assir looks at how the Spanish-language press is covering pro-immigrant rights demonstrations in the US

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Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in a number of cities across the United States. Powered and coordinated mainly by the Latin-dominated 10 March Movement, but also by hundreds of students and activists of numerous origins, the protests constitute the largest in the US's recent memory. Rallies from Chicago to Los Angeles to New York to Boston called for migrant rights, in protest of government plans to criminalise all illegal migrants in a bill that many perceive has been in the making for years. The sheer controversy of the bill stems from the fact that, in its original version, it would effectively empower the authorities to file charges against anyone in the US without legal documentation, as well as to build a security "fence" across a third of the US border with Mexico. But already the protests have started to have an effect, and contained hopes of reforming the bill grew increasingly rapidly as the weeks and community action unfolded.

The anger and organised activism of protesters found voice in a number of Spanish- language news outlets, including New York-based paper El Diario La Prensa. Covering the New York protest on 2 April, David Ramirez describes the massive protest as "an impressive spectacle". He also notes how it was not only Latin migrants, but also others who came out to show "full solidarity with the cause". Among them were "a small group of Irish, all dressed in green" and another of "Chinese percussionists."

Meanwhile, writing for Argentinean daily La Nacion , Alberto Armendariz highlighted the role played by Indian and Pakistani migrants alongside protesters of Latin American origin. Covering the New York protest, the reporter cites protests organisers as putting the turnout at between 350,000 and 500,000. He also quotes protesters' slogans, which included "We're not leaving; if we do, we'll return" and "Bush, listen, the people are fighting." The report notes how police providing security, many of whom were of Latin origin, showed their support for the rally by "giving a thumbs- up" to demonstrators.

Armendariz also describes the mood at New York's rally as "almost festive", with people dressed in traditional Aztec and Guatemalan costumes, and T-shirts bearing photographs of Latin American freedom heroes Simon Bolivar, Emiliano Zapata and Ernesto Che Guevara. Others carried banners that read, "We still have the same dream," according to the report.

Faced with massive street pressure, some politicians found it impossible to maintain loyalty with their parties over the bill. New York's Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg was reported by La Nacion as having broken with his party's line on the issue, declaring: "We can't deport 12 million people. We must stop this fiction and give them permanent status."

Meanwhile a report in Chicago paper La Raza zooms in on the debates and on potential action that migrant groups are planning to effect over the coming days, should the crisis deepen. With growing, but by no means definitive signs from US President George W Bush that the protests may have had some effect on decision makers, community groups are planning to call for a massive boycott of some 200 companies from which supporters of the anti-migrant bill directly profit. Jess Garcia of the United Latinos group told the reporter that "politicians need to learn that attacking migrants has its political price. It's not free any more, because now we have an intelligent community."

The intelligence and high levels of organisation and nation-wide coordination shown by the protesters has indeed been significant to the history of street protests worldwide. The controversy of the bill was well matched by action, to such an extent that some media outlets made comparisons between these rallies and the civil rights movement, which gained full force in the 1960s. Writing for Mexican paper La Jornada, David Brooks quotes rapper Jorge Ruiz as telling a congregation of 500,000 protesters in Dallas, "The blacks and the whites had their revolutions. Now it's our turn." Among the features of the activism the US has witnessed over recent weeks has been the profound coordination that involved religious groups, schools, universities, workers groups' and syndicates and artists, as was the case when African Americans fought to improve their status.

Another notable feature of the protests, according to Brooks, was the fact that, in protests "over the past two or three weeks, not a single act of violence was reported." On the contrary, the spirit of collaboration was high as Latinos, Arabs, Italians and Irish marched arm-in-arm, he writes. In addition, the writer notes the spirit of protest as being heavily based on the cruel irony of the fact that the proposed bill seeks to criminalise those who contribute so heavily to the US's domestic economy. "We are the motor of this country, but nobody sees us," he cites Ruiz as saying. "We built your schools, we cooked your food."