Protests Are an Undercurrent for Fiesta Broadway Crowd

At the annual Fiesta Broadway street fair Sunday, a Spanish-speaking Ronald McDonald posed for photographs with children and seemed willing to talk about a lot of things.

But today’s planned immigration rights marches weren’t among them.

“That’s not a question for me,” he said, when asked how he’d be spending May 1.

On Sunday, as parents and children flocked downtown for balloons and music, today’s mobilization remained on the minds of many, parking debates across the country over whether it is a good idea.

“All of us Latinos, we have to be united so they hear us,” said Carlos Menjivar, a Salvadoran immigrant, over a hot grill of chicken tacos dorados. “We want people to know that we’re working so that they won’t treat us as criminals.”

Menjivar, a cook at Antojitos Latinos on Long Beach Boulevard, said the restaurant would be closed today so employees could march.

Two marches are planned in Los Angeles, and others will take place across the country.

Attendance at the festival, held just one day before the rallies, seemed thin.

Police estimated the crowd at between 10,000 and 15,000 for the daylong event.

The predominantly Latino crowd moved easily up and down Broadway, in contrast to years past, and its numbers were matched in places by representatives of companies sponsoring the fair -- among them McDonald’s, Home Depot, La Opinion, La Curacao, Monster Energy drink, Bally’s gyms and KWHY-TV Channel 22.

Children lined up for balloons from T-Mobile, as a DJ coached passers-by in dancing the cumbia and merengue.

Many revelers, enjoying the springtime sun, were not thinking about politics Sunday. Broadway was full of bright colors, pungent smells and melodious sounds.

“We came to celebrate Cinco de Mayo,” said Gabriel Castaneda, 29, who’d brought his wife, niece, son and daughter from Glendale for Fiesta Broadway.

More than that, though, they had come to have a good time by “hanging around, bringing the kids and hearing the bands,” he said. “We like the balloons and all the colors. There are crafts for the kids, lots of music and food.”

Amid the ordered chaos of men dancing on metal stages, strolling musicians, volunteers in green T-shirts and sidewalks lined with taco-chomping partygoers, Jose Mendez, 31, was somewhat taken aback when asked why he had come.

“I love the party,” Mendez finally replied.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the corporate come-ons and giveaways on Broadway, Fernando Amozurrutia was hawking T-shirts of his own design that promoted Latino unity in Los Angeles.

“I agree with immigration protests,” said Amozurrutia, 62, a former Marine who was born in Los Angeles.

“But I don’t agree with flying our country’s flag upside down or flying other countries’ flags. It alienates the middle classes in this country.”

Amozurrutia wasn’t sure if he’d march.

But Carlos Perez was.

Perez came illegally to this country in 1982 from Mexico City. Since then, he’s gained legal residency, and now works for a company that sells exotic fish.

“I’m going to be marching, and working selling sodas,” he said.

This being the land of opportunity, he said, “you have to know how to work things.”

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Times Staff Writer David Haldane contributed to this report.