Thousands rally locally
Marches held in county to back immigrant rights
By Marjorie Hernandez, mhernandez@VenturaCountyStar.com
While thousands across Ventura County marched Monday morning carrying American flags and chanting the words "Si, se puede," day laborers waited at street corners, hoping to find work.
As the string of discount stores and mom-and-pop taquerias and panaderias in La Colonia remained dark and desolate, it was business as usual for most shops and restaurants in Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village.
Fields that normally would be filled with workers picking fruit and vegetables remained largely empty, while schools had fewer students than usual.
Immigrants and their supporters across the country hoped to make history Monday as the A Day Without Immigrants boycott drew hundreds of thousands of workers, students, laborers and field workers in a nationwide rally against a House bill that would make it a felony to assist undocumented immigrants.
The boycott drew more than 1.1 million protesters nationwide, while rallies in Ventura, Moorpark and Oxnard drew thousands.
In Oxnard, about 200 protesters converged just after 10 a.m. at Plaza Park, and they marched to the Inlakech Cultural Center for a full day of workshops on migrant rights, student rights and immigration issues.
Sofia Mondragon, 23, of Oxnard said she was compelled to organize the gathering because it was important to show solidarity among immigrants of all races.
"I believe the boycott will make a huge difference and show people that we are needed," Mondragon said. "Everybody here came to this country for work and to make a better living. I hope we all remember this day as the time when we all came together."
By 11 a.m., the crowd at Plaza Park joined about 300 more people at the cultural center, where area businesses and restaurants, including Sal’s Mexican Inn, Driscoll Farms, Taco de Mexico and Value Plus, had donated food, fruit, water, tortilla chips and other items for those taking part in the protest. About 2,500 protesters marched back to Plaza Park, where the rally continued until about 6:30 p.m., Oxnard police said.
"It’s already a victory," said Denis O’Leary, district director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "All the people are already talking about it. If you have a thousand people go to a march and 200,000 people know about, it’s already a victory."
About 6:50 p.m. in Moorpark, 250 protesters — high school students, parents, field workers and others — marched along Los Angeles Avenue from Spring Road to Moorpark Avenue, police said.
The economic impact of the boycott in some areas of the county, however, remained unclear as of Monday afternoon as some business centers were dark, while others remained open.
In Oxnard
People, including families, milled about the new Centennial Plaza downtown, where five restaurants appeared busy. The 14-screen Plaza Cinemas, however, had sold fewer than half the number of tickets for a typical Monday afternoon when schools are in session, said Yessy Medina, an employee in the box office. Along Fifth Street between Oxnard Boulevard and Meta Street, however, more than 15 Hispanic-owned businesses were closed, including restaurants, repair shops and check-cashing operations. Several stores posted signs in Spanish explaining that they were aligning themselves with immigrants.
City services were not affected, according to Oxnard Human Resources Director Rachel Shaw. About 60 percent of Oxnard’s employees are Latino, and officials were concerned that absences could affect trash pickup and water and wastewater service, Shaw said. Only one employee in the city’s solid waste division called to say he would not come to work, Shaw said. The employee did not give an explanation.
Around the corner on A Street, Gaston Gomez was doing excellent business at his 1 Stop Printing & Communications store. He started the day when a group of protesters paid $30 for markers and cardboard. "I sold more today than a regular day," said Gomez, president of the Downtown Oxnard Merchants Association.
On Cooper Road in La Colonia, every business except Ben’s Laundromat remained closed. The Laundromat was a hub of activity as people watched Spanish TV reports of the nationwide protest as they did their laundry.
Donnie Gutierez, 29, of Oxnard was one of those doing laundry. Rather than getting up at 8 a.m. to pick fruit, Gutierez said, he and six of his co-workers skipped worked but were still getting paid by their boss. When asked if he thought that the protest would make a point, Gutierez said yes. "That’s why I decided to take the day off," he said. "I think it will make a difference."
About 8 a.m., a handful of people, mostly men, waited patiently on street corners in La Colonia. Some, like Paulino Lopez, 39, were looking for work.
Lopez, who came to Oxnard about two months ago but has spent the last seven or eight years moving between his home in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Oxnard to earn money to support his family, was conflicted about the day.
"I’m looking for work, but I’d rather participate in the march," Lopez said.
Laborers said they thought that those who normally hire workers knew about the protest and weren’t looking for them Monday.
In Ventura
About 200 men, women and children, many waving American flags, lined up near the mission on Main Street at 10:30 a.m. to march to Pacific View mall. The protesters were greeted by some people yelling "go back home." Some protesters kept walking until they arrived at the Government Center around 3 p.m.
One of those taking part in the march was Adrian Gaspar, 24, an immigrant from Oaxaca, Mexico, who has lived in the United States for 15 years and works as a graphic designer in Santa Barbara.
"We’re here to show the whole community that we’re going to do something about this," he said. "Immigrants are already exploited as it is because they are here illegally and often forced to work long hours at wages that are often less than minimum wage. The new law would be a form of modern slavery."
Candy Herrera and her husband, Baltazar, have no doubt that their life would be much harder had they stayed in Mexico.
"If you work hard, you have opportunity here," Baltazar Herrera said. He works as a machinist, while his wife runs a beauty shop.
The couple live in Ventura and were among the hundreds who marched through town Monday to show solidarity with immigrants across the nation.
"We only want to be treated like everyone else," said Candy Herrera, who became a U.S. citizen 12 years ago, about the same time that her husband did.
Some smaller shops did take a considerable hit. Business was down at the Sari Sari Market on Ventura Avenue. Owner Julito Paras said he believes that immigrants would have accomplished more had they stayed at their jobs rather than walking off.
"They should be working within the system," said Paras, who came to the U.S. from the Philippines more than 50 years ago.
"This country did good for me," said Paras, 68. "But I got here because I worked within the system."
In Moorpark and T.O.
Although many smaller, independent restaurants closed their doors, most restaurant chains in the east county remained open.
At day laborer sites in the eastern part of the county, some people still showed up for work.
In Moorpark, about 35 men stood in front of the Tipsy Fox market at High Street and Spring Road. The manager of the corner store, which is a popular spot to find day work, said not many contractors came by to hire the men.
At a city-sponsored day laborer site near Hampshire Road and Thousand Oaks Boulevard in Thousand Oaks, about six men showed up looking for work. By about 10 a.m., most had given up and left.
No planting, no picking
Fields remained desolate as most workers from Ventura County to the Central Valley participated in the boycott, said Marc Grossman, principal spokesman for United Farm Workers of America.
UFW officials said they made arrangements with some local farmers, including Coastal Berry, California Mushroom and Muranaka Farms in Ventura County, to allow their employees to work extra hours over the weekend so they could take Monday off, Grossman said.
Some businesses, like Underwood Family Farms, anticipated the protests and decided to finish most of the work Sunday. Underwood employs about 100 immigrants through labor contractors, said Rolf Schoen, chief financial officer for the agriculture company, which has more than 800 acres stretching from Moorpark to Fillmore to Piru.
On Monday, workers stopped planting jalapeño pepper seeds on about 400 acres the farm owns throughout Ventura County. The packing and cooling plant in Camarillo also was shut down.
"All the shipments we needed to send out today we shipped over the weekend," Schoen said. "The protests really haven’t affected us. Nobody has to feel they would be let go as a result of this."
Port unaffected
Three banana ships at the Port of Hueneme were being offloaded normally Monday, said Will Berg, marketing director for the Oxnard Harbor District, which operates the deep-water port.
"I haven’t seen anything where it looks like people have stayed away or there are pickets or anything," Berg said. "Things are quite normal here. … Everybody’s working."
The ships, bringing fruit from Ecuador for Chiquita Brands International Inc., Del Monte Fresh Produce Inc. and Pacific Fruit Co. Inc., were the only vessels in the harbor Monday, Berg said.
School attendance down
The boycott also affected attendance in some schools.
The Hueneme School District reported the highest number of absences, with about 40 percent, or 8,100 students out.
Rio School District came close to that mark, with 38 percent, or 1,558 students absent. Officials could not say for sure that all of the absences were related to the nationwide boycott, but said a vast majority likely were.
With 38 percent of the Rio School District’s 4,100 students absent, interim Superintendent Hugh Pickrel said he is expecting a major hit to the district’s budget, which includes funding based on average daily attendance.
He has no idea how many students stayed home because of the boycott or for other reasons. However, the district typically has about 4 to 6 percent absent, Pickrel said.
Other districts in Ventura County didn’t report any major disruptions on campuses and said attendance numbers weren’t available. At the 124-student Mupu Elementary School District, however, officials said 21 children were absent Monday. Superintendent Jeanine Gore said she thinks 18 of those absences were related to the boycott.
Somis Union and Mesa Union school districts also reported more absences than normal.
In Moorpark, some high school students participated in a lunchtime march, Assistant Superintendent Anna Merriman said.
Bomb threat
Law enforcement officials said most of the rallies across the county were peaceful. Santa Paula police, however, did receive a bomb threat against La Cabana Restaurant at 8:30 a.m. Monday, Santa Paula Police Chief Steve MacKinnon said.
La Cabana received four anonymous telephone calls from a Spanish-speaking man who threatened to place a bomb at the restaurant and beat up the employees, owner Gabie Araiza-Reeves said. She had planned to keep her business open but decided to close at 3 p.m. after receiving the calls.
"I’m disgusted," Araiza-Reeves said. "Some of my employees are scared."
‘This is our time’
Although some protesters said a weeklong boycott would make more of an impact, many who participated in some of the local rallies hoped that their message was heard by legislators and workers alike.
"This is a country of immigrants," said Gabriella Berlanga, 47, of Oxnard. "We have been suppressed for so many years. This is our struggle … and this is our time. Every immigrant has a story, but in the end, it is all the same. We all want to be a part of this magnificent country."
— Staff writers Anna Bakalis, Zeke Barlow, Cheri Carlson, Charles Levin, Jean C. Moore, Marissa Navarro, Eric Parsons, Jim McLain and John Scheibe contributed to this report.