Organization key to rally

Fliers, cyberspace, Spanish-language media spread word

Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 3, 2006 at midnight

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The eye-popping turnout of 75,000 people for the Denver immigrant rights march and rally was no fluke.

Denver has a rich history of Hispanic activism, helping today's leaders to harness new immigrant- rights passions into a demonstration of historic proportions.

Communication also was key. Organizers distributed thousands of fliers across the region. Spanish-language media made sure everyone knew about the event. Word spread through text messages and e-mails.

And the cause was personal. Hispanics - undocumented and third- generation citizens alike - felt threatened by legislation in Congress that would make illegal immigrants, and those who help them, felons.

All of those reasons and more combined to give Denver one of the largest turnouts in the country - exceeded only by Los Angeles and Chicago. Denver's attendance dwarfed the number in cities with higher Hispanic populations, such as Phoenix, New York City and Houston.

"The stars . . . all aligned," said Dusti Gurule, executive director of the Latina Initiative, a local non- profit group that promotes civic engagement for Hispanic women and their families.

Activists hope to maintain momentum by increasing voter registration among Hispanics and ramping up educational campaigns against what they call mean-spirited legislation in Colorado and Washington.

Monday's turnout was all the more impressive considering that some of the big players in the immigrant rights movement opted out.

Fearing a public backlash, the Archdiocese of Denver urged people to go to work and school, and the coalition that organized the huge March 25 protest did not endorse the event.

Ricardo Martinez, a leader of local Hispanic activist group Padres Unidos and a key organizer of the rally, said he saw people's commitment in the weeks leading up to the event despite a new crackdown by immigration authorities and disagreement over tactics.

He said 40 to 50 people worked on details of the rally, such as providing sound systems and port-a-potties.

Volunteers distributed 15,000 fliers - continuing to make copies until their copy machine broke - and distributed them throughout neighborhoods, and at church services and bakeries and stores.

But, Martinez added, "the main reason for the huge turnout is that people want a change. If people didn't believe that they would not have shown up."

Half of the 5,000 members of SEIU Local 105, a union of janitors and health-care workers, attended the march with their families, according to SEIU spokeswoman Michelle Dally.

"This is about everything that's essential to them, their families, their way of life, their values . . . that's why you get 75,000 people instead of 200," she said.

LeRoy Lemos, director of special events for NEWSED community development corporation, which coordinates Denver's annual Cinco de Mayo festival, said the get-tough legislation in Congress went too far.

"The potential of the criminalization of entire segments of the population - that is what is moving folks forward," he said.

In his view, the rally also represents a continuation of the Chicano movement. Groups such as Crusade for Justice, created by the late leader Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, and the GI Forum established Denver in the late 1960s and 1970s as a mecca for Chicano - or Mexican- American - activism.

Gonzales was among the big names of the movement, along with the legendary labor leader Cesar Chavez. Members of the Gonzales family carry on the activist tradition with fervor.

His grandson, Jacobo Gonzales, is a student at North High School and helped lead the student walkout April 19. Corky's children, Nita Gonzales and Joaquin Gonzales, were lead organizers of Monday's rally.

"I stand here in his spirit because he stood and marched for the rights of all people and I have that responsibility and my children have that responsibility," Nita Gonzales said during the demonstration.

Gonzales said she was filled with emotion when she saw the crowd roar in response to her speech.

"I said, this is for you, dad. This is what you wanted to see."

What's next

• May 11: Service Employees International Union Local 105 will organize a rally in Denver from the viewpoint of children in the immigration debate. The rally will be at noon on the west steps of the state Capitol.

• Rally highlight: Organizers will show letters written by youths from across Colorado, including one written by 9-year-old Claire Hessek. The daughter of a Guatemalan immigrant who works as a janitor and is legally in the U.S., Claire wrote a letter "To my country" in February after classmates teased her and told she would be deported. "If Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive, he would be very disappointed at any person who thinks that they will not have imagrants (sic) in this country," she wrote.

kimm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2361

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