Protest Erupts Into Shouting Match : Migrants: North County residents clash with Latino demonstrators at site of alleged kidnaping of migrant worker.

Escalating tensions between Latin American immigrant laborers and the mostly non-Latino population of northern San Diego County were bared in public Sunday when demonstrators shouting anti-racist slogans faced off with area residents at a Carlsbad store where a migrant worker was allegedly kidnaped and beaten early this month.

The long-planned event, held under the watchful eyes of Carlsbad police, went off peacefully under clear skies and a searing sun.

However, a dramatic and ugly shouting match erupted between the mostly Latino marchers and about a dozen non-Latino residents who staged a counterdemonstration at the Country Grocery Store on El Camino Real. The establishment, which has a huge plastic chicken on its roof, is the site where Candido Galloso Salas, a Mexican worker, was allegedly handcuffed, detained and and beaten by the store’s proprietor and his brother.

That widely publicized incident--now the subject of local police and FBI inquiries, along with a civil suit--appears to have galvanized the mostly unorganized migrant laborers and their supporters, both Latino and non-Latino. Sponsors expressed hope that Sunday’s demonstration would catalyze better organization among North County’s huge number of immigrant workers, most of whom are from Mexico.

As the chanting marchers, numbering about 200, filed by the store, some of the waiting residents shouted anti-immigrant comments; several non-Latinos accompanying the marchers were derided as “wetback lovers.”

“Go home!” one counterdemonstrator shouted continuously at the marchers.

The pro-migrant demonstrators retorted in English and Spanish, deriding the residents as racistas-- racists.

“These workers make the food you eat,” one man screamed at the residents gathered in the front entrance of the store. “You should thank God that they are here.”

The confrontation, which lasted about 15 minutes, offered insight into the deep divisions prevalent in North County, where thousands of migrant laborers live in crude dwellings amid the brush, often in the shadow of luxurious suburban homes worth $250,000 or more. Pro-immigrant groups have long accused local governments and residents of malevolent apathy or hostility toward the workers. They say violence against immigrants is on the rise, as evidenced by the recent Carlsbad incident.

“They want the people to work and then disappear like a disposable cup,” said the Rev. Rafael Martinez, a Protestant minister who heads a chaplaincy in the fields.

The pro-immigrant demonstrators said they were seeking basic human rights--decent housing, freedom from physical and verbal abuse, and an end to racism directed at workers. “We’re just asking for justice,” said Algimiro Morales, one of the leaders of the Mixtec People’s Civic Committee, one of the event’s organizers.

“It is our dark hands and sore backs that plant and cultivate these fields,” said a written statement from the group, whose name derives from the many laborers who are Mixtec Indians, from Mexico’s Oaxaca state. “We ask for your help for better housing.”

But non-Latino residents who staged the counterprotest said they were fed up with the immigrant laborers, whom they blame for a wide range of problems, from trash on their lawns to trespassing on their properties to more violent crimes.

“I’ve watched this get worse and worse,” Reinette Thurman shouted excitedly as she traded verbal volleys with the demonstrators. “Where are our rights? They come into my home and steal from me. I’ve seen them walk into this store and steal. Once I saw four of them open cans of Coke and just start drinking it without paying. . . . Where’s the Border Patrol?”

Michael Haggerty, a Carlsbad electrician, stood beneath a U.S. flag at the entrance to the market carrying a sign urging employers not to hire foreign labor. He wore a hand-made button indicating his disfavor for “illegals.”

“If nobody hired ‘em, they wouldn’t get any jobs and they’d just go home,” Haggerty explained after a heated exchange with the demonstrators.

Joyce Stiffler, a 23-year area resident, spoke of what she characterized as a growing crime problem that she blamed on the immigrant work force.

“It’s very menacing,” Stiffler said as she rocked her infant grandchild in a carriage. “They (the laborers) used to be very low key. Now we’re getting the stabbings, the theft. . . . One of them chased me around my driveway a few years ago. They were just squatting in my yard . . . three of them very drunk. After I ran away from them, they ran into my neighbor’s driveway and broke a bottle. . . . My daughter walks to the store and she’s subject to these catcalls.”

Apparently not present at the march was Candido Galloso Salas, the migrant worker who was allegedly kidnaped and attacked early this month by Rickey Ryberg, proprietor of the Country Grocery Store, and his brother, Randy. An investigator for Marco E. Lopez, the San Diego lawyer who represents Galloso Salas, said he served Rickey Ryberg Sunday with a civil suit that was filed last week in U.S. District Court in San Diego. The Rybergs have denied any wrongdoing in the case.