Chicago Indymedia's coverage of the historic immigrant march in Chicago started with the observation that "it looks like someone went and kicked the sleeping giant."
On Friday, March 10, 2006 Chicago’s downtown was paralyzed by an immigrant march estimated at more than 100,000 people. They carried hand-lettered signs saying: “We are America,” “My Mexican immigrant son died in Iraq,” “I’m a dishwasher—not a criminal,” and “Don’t deport my parents.” The peaceful crowd stretched two and half miles, from Union Park on the West Side to their destination in Federal Plaza. No immigrant justice march like this has happened in Illinois history since some 80,000 immigrants marched down State Street demanding an 8-hour workday in 1886. [link added]
Mexicans in America are indeed a sleeping giant. With a proletariat increasingly illegalized as a matter of everyday life, this response is right on time. The spark that lit this fire is the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. This law overturns "two Supreme Court rulings mandating fair treatment and due process for immigrants held indefinitely by the Dept. of Homeland Security [cough]... even more of these "indefinite detainees" would be held in legal limbo for long periods of time."
Democracy Now! talks with Abel Nunez, one of the protest organizers
Revolution: Chicago Immigrants—A Defiant Show of Strength (includes an excellent discussion of what it means to be (North) American and who we are in this land.
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