“Our university works because immigrants do.”
Posters containing phrases like this one confronted an audience
as they gathered on the lawn at Meyerhoff Park to rally for the
legalization of immigrant workers in the aftermath of tightened
immigration restrictions since Sept. 11.
Fourteen different student groups on campus united to put on the
press conference to demand that President Bush and Congress adopt
amnesty immigration policies, legalizing many illegal workers.
Guillermo Mayer, a second-year law student and organizer of the
event, said Sept. 26 was a national day of action and urged
supporters to sign one of the one million postcards that will be
sent to congress next month in order to make them aware of
immigration issues before upcoming elections.
Mayer said that even after Sept. 11 it is not OK to treat
immigrants as suspects just because people fear for national
security.
Mayer called immigrants the “backbone of our
nation,” pointing out that a recent UCLA study found they
contribute hundreds of billions of dollars to the country’s
economy.
“Immigrants maintain the facilities we will use this fall,
clean the classrooms we’ll study in, and prepare the food
we’ll eat,” Mayer said, before he introduced the first
speaker.
Irma Hernandez, a second-year law student and graduate of UC
lrvine who immigrated from Mexico, spoke of the hardships she and
her family endured just to obtain a “better way of
life,” which meant having food and housing. She pointed out
that she would not be attending UCLA today if not for the amnesty
she was granted under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of
1986.
Chris Punongbayan, also a law student at UCLA, spoke at the
rally about the impact legalizing immigrants would have on the
Asian community. He said “conservatives want to talk only
about Homeland Security but not about the impact it has on
immigrants … the government does not see their bravery.”
Punongbayan encouraged students to raise their fists in protest,
shouting “No amnesty, no peace.”
Two workers, Lorena Arrieta, who has worked in food services at
UCLA for twelve years, and Jose Sanchez, who has worked at the UCLA
faculty center for seventeen years, spoke through a translator.
Arrieta said that without a legalization program a divide is
created between immigrants, separating those with papers from those
without them.
Sanchez said people were gathered because their family members
don’t have documents, and they want them to have rights.
“Employers treat people like disposable utensils that they
can throw away after they use them,” Sanchez said.
The rally was wrapped up by Ruth Milkman, a professor of
sociology and the director of the Institution for Labor and
Employment. She said that current immigration policies are sending
out the message that social inequalities are OK.
“We should all be concerned,” Milkman said.