Latinos Join March on Capitol to Show They Have a Voice

As 25-year-old Patricia Melchor of Bell Gardens explained why she and her 20-year-old sister Laura were going to Washington for Saturday’s historic Latino civil rights march and rally, her mother fought back tears.

“They’re going back to Washington to tell them we Latinos are here,” said the weeping mother, Esperanza Mendoza. “I can’t go because of my work, but we want a voice to have power. Too many people say, ‘If you’re Hispanic, you can’t do it.’ We can do it.”

There were plenty of hugs and tears to go around early Tuesday as the two sisters, along with about 90 others, boarded six buses and left East Los Angeles for a trip across the United States to promote a grass-roots Latino agenda.

Organizers say Saturday’s activities, concluding with a program of speakers and entertainment at the Ellipse near the White House, is significant because it is the first time tens of thousands of Latinos have gathered in the nation’s capital to demonstrate for their cause.

The idea of the Washington march hit especially close to home for some of those who decided to endure the grueling three-day bus trip, which includes stops in El Paso and San Antonio and in President Clinton’s home state of Arkansas.

“I’ve had my head in the sand for too long,” social worker Rosalina Campillo of Monterey Park said as she waited to board a bus.

For the Melchor sisters, it was a chance to speak up for members of their own family. They say they have asked for little from the United States but feel smeared by the anti-immigrant rhetoric of recent years. The family came from Monterrey, the capital of the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, and is proud of its roots. But now, the family members have a fierce loyalty to the United States.

“We work hard, we have rights,” said Patricia Melchor, a department store salesclerk. “If we don’t go [to Washington], we don’t have a voice.”

The two sisters emptied their savings to pay the bus fare ($200 per person) and came early--about 10 hours before the buses arrived--to make sure they wouldn’t miss them.

A prime mover in organizing Saturday’s event, Juan Jose Gutierrez of Los Angeles, said choosing Columbus Day, also known as Dia de la Raza in some Latino communities, is important in seeking a platform in Washington for Latinos to combat the growing anti-immigrant backlash in the country. It has only gotten worse, he said, with California’s passage in 1994 of Proposition 187.

“Something has to be done,” said Gutierrez, executive director of One Stop Immigration & Educational Center in Boyle Heights.

Speakers will discuss each item on the organizers’ platform: Human and constitutional rights for all; equal opportunities and affirmative action; free public education for all; expansion of health services; citizen police review boards; labor law reform and a $7 per hour minimum wage; a streamlined citizenship application program, and an extension of amnesty for those who illegally entered the United States before 1992.

Among the speakers confirmed for Saturday are Gutierrez; Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; Raul Yzaguirre, leader of the National Council of La Raza, and Linda Chavez-Thompson, a vice president of the AFL-CIO.

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Although some Latino officeholders will share the podium in Washington, most will stay home. Political analysts suggest that some mainstream Latino politicians would feel uncomfortable endorsing a call for a new amnesty for illegal immigrants or a new, hefty increase in the minimum wage.

But the event is oriented more to the grass roots than the Latino political establishment.

“This event is a very dramatic way to get people, especially the youth, energized at the local level,” said Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute. “I haven’t been invited to participate, but this clearly is [the organizers’] way to maximum political influence. This is in keeping with a fine American tradition.”

However, there are at least two factors that could diminish the impact of the event. One is attendance. Although Mexican Americans in the Southwest make up 65% of the nation’s Latino population of 26 million, relatively few will make the trek to Washington. In South Florida, with its large concentration of Cuban Americans, the event has received scant attention.

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Key organizers say they expect 100,000 people at Saturday’s demonstration. They had projected that about 2,000 from Greater Los Angeles would attend. But indications from Tuesday’s bus departures suggest that the Los Angeles estimate is a generous one. Other march participants will travel by plane.

Another source of trouble may be in comparing the Latino event with last year’s successful “Million Man March,” which drew more than 800,000 people. Organizers have gone out of their way to correct any suggestions that this is merely a Latino version of the African American gathering.

In the night chill of East L.A. on Tuesday, older brother Rolando Melchor joined his mother, Esperanza Mendoza, as they waited to see the two sisters off. The mother had prepared 36 burritos for her daughters. At first, the two rejected their mother’s suggestion to eat some before they left. But as the wait for the buses approached dawn, they gave in and ate two of the potato burritos. “They were warm and good,” Laura Melchor said.

The mother hugged the two as she left. “Be good,” she told them.

“We’ll take a picture of us in front of the White House for you,” she was promised.