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Freedom Ride Echoes Civil Rights Movement

It started small-the idea of organizing a freedom ride to Washington to highlight the concerns of immigrant workers in the United States. It mushroomed into a barnstorming tour that traveled 20,000 miles of highways and touched off an unprecedented level of cooperation among community groups that could inspire a sustained movement.

Many perceive that immigrants take jobs away from native-born workers. The reality is that immigrants to the United States, including millions of undocumented workers, can be found performing society's most onerous tasks- back-breaking work in the nation's fields, washing dishes in restaurants, cleaning offices in high-rise buildings. The business community sometimes rails against immigrants during election time, but in fact many employers rely on a stream of immigrant workers and use the workers' status as a tool to intimidate and exploit them. The labor movement is seeking to organize immigrant workers and help those who are living and paying taxes in the United States to apply for citizenship, reunite with families and have a voice on the job-much the way the labor movement embraced immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Norway and many other European nations a century ago.

IBEW locals from across the country met the buses when they passed through, sponsored rallies and meals and other events and made the "freedom riders" feel welcome. The inspiration from the tour came from the early 1960s Freedom Riders, who traveled the segregated South to spark social change in the civil rights movement.

When the historic cross country trek of 900 immigrant workers came to its end in Washington, D.C., approximately 20 staffers of the IBEW International Office were among the union activists and civil rights allies who were there to greet them. Along their route, in places as varied as out-of-the-way hamlets to big cities, IBEW members were there to lend a hand and support the riders.

Chanting native songs and holding signs proclaiming their country of origin, the busloads of workers filed into the Bible Way Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., on October 1 for a rally attended by more than 1,000 people. The list of nations represented by the freedom riders read like the roster at the United Nations. "Si Se Puede!" they called, repeating the demand like a mantra. "Yes we can!"

The freedom riders had come a long way for the chance to raise their voices. In mid-September, the first buses set out from Seattle, Oregon, San Francisco and Los Angeles, stopping in 100 cities in 46 states to make the trip to Washington, New York City and Liberty State Park, New Jersey.

In Richmond, Virginia, a group formed in the months prior to the buses' arrival helped organize a well-attended event for the workers, said Local 666 Business Manager James Underwood. The Virginia Alliance for Worker Justice, a coalition of religious groups, community members and labor, is already active on the state level, seeking minimum wage increases, living wages and supporting organizing campaigns.

Three events in Arizona drew a total crowd of 3,000 participants, said Phoenix Local 387 member Rebecca Friend, who works for the AFL-CIO state federation. Some vigilante and anti-immigration groups threatened the immigrant riders; at one event they were also faced with counter demonstrations, Friend said. But the supporters far outnumbered the protesters.

Two busloads of workers that had left from Los Angeles stopped on September 24 in El Paso, Texas, for a gathering in a federal park. IBEW members were there to greet them, said El Paso Local 583 Business Manager Hector Arellano. But when they left El Paso the next morning for their next scheduled event in San Antonio, Texas, they were detained for four hours at a U.S. Border Patrol check point 90 miles east of El Paso.

Because some of the workers were undocumented, they had been prepared for the possibility of a detention, said Rick Provencio, secretary for an El Paso council of unions. The two buses also carried members of the clergy, representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union, lawyers from the Texas Rural Legal Aid Association and reporters.

The standoff, involving workers from all over the country whom Provencio described as black, brown, Asian and white, was a successful exercise in demonstrating the contradictions in the country's immigrations laws and policies vs. practices.

"The feeling is if they took immigration seriously, authorities would keep them out of the country to begin with," Provencio said. "These check points are discriminatory because they don't do it on the northern border, just in Texas, and not in other southern states either."

One long-term outcome of the freedom ride is likely to be the bonds of cooperation forged among people from different communities, Friend said. "Labor groups and other community groups sat down at the table to work together for the first time. It was interesting the way we stepped out of the way we usually do things. It was a good experience in community building. Labor tends to run their own show."