DreamsYesterday, I was faced with an empty classroom. Granted, it was International Workers Day. Given that seventy different nationalities grace my classroom in an average year, it would make sense that a few students might take the day off to celebrate, or at the very least, have an excuse to escape from Mr. Freshwater’s history class. As a fifth-year teacher – of social studies to boot – I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know the holiday existed until today. My ignorance has been forever erased, as I spent the rest of the day in the throngs of the largest holiday celebration I’ve ever witnessed. On April 23rd, 2006, activists, working to counter impending anti-immigrant legislation in Congress, scheduled “A Day without an Immigrant.” This protest would result in the largest march Chicago has seen since the Vietnam War.
Recognizing at 8:05 AM my inability to bore a critical mass of students, I cashed in a personal day in the principal’s office, threw on an Irish rugby shirt, and headed downtown to scope out the activities. It didn't take long to find a crowd, as 200,000 gathered a good two miles north of the Chicago Loop for a march through the city center. Like hydrological engineers, the organizers were also creating a second reservoir of people on the Southside. Just before the lunch hour, they used their megaphones to open the floodgates, releasing two swollen rivers of people to wind there way through Chicago’s cement and steel canyons, past the Board of Trade, and on into a rising sea of marchers in the city's heart - Grant Park.
Being a political hack, my experience with marches of 100,000+ people numbers, maybe, five. If you'll allow me to throw in Ohio State games as cause-related gatherings, I can up that number to fifteen. However, during each of these gatherings there was a marked difference from today. Without a doubt, most of these past crowds were usually revved-up yet well-behaved. But in each instance, some rowdy element, usually fresh from adolescence, and usually Caucasian, maybe dressed in the black costume of an anarchist, or maybe bare-chested with a scarlet OSU emblazoned on their chest, would inevitably hurl a piece of the crowd amuck. Be it a rock thrown through the window of a policeman's cruiser or a Michigan fan's parked ‘85 Toyota hurled upside down on a fraternity house lawn, my past experiences with large gatherings always revealed something that would throw a good chunk of the crowd toward physical destruction.
Yesterday is the first time I have ever seen a crowd of 100,000+ people pull off an energized activity without a hitch; 400,000 protestors and not a single fight or arrest. Just a very loud and united throng of moving people, waving flags, brandishing signs for immigrant rights, and every so many minutes, bursting into coordinated cheers in Spanish and English - especially when the whirring blades of news choppers would buzz the crowd and send it into a chanting current. Yet, the human rivers never really flooded their banks. Nor did Chicago’s Finest, notorious for their shoulder to shoulder armored formations, move to stem the flow. Instead, the police force was dressed in regular uniform, spaced out, and placed a respectful distance from the crowd. After four hours and countless miles, everyone went home content. And today, the city's dormant businesses are back from a very obvious siesta.
Today, I talked to my students from the seventy different nations about the issue of immigration. For the most part, this is what they stressed: They believe immigrants have a right to come to the United States to find work. They believe that a lot of businesses in the U.S. would not function without them. They believe that the pathway to citizenship should be a rigorous one. When I forwarded the idea of just opening wide our country's borders, they almost all overwhelmingly shouted "No!" Some wanted amnesty for those illegal immigrants already in the country. One forwarded the idea that even non-taxpaying immigrant workers contribute to government revenue through the sales tax paid on their finished products. A few were worried that skilled jobs already filled in the U.S. would be lost to new lower-paid immigrants. One vividly painted a border patrolman's "inability to decipher between a human and an animal in their gun sights." A few preached the value of U.S. education and health care. A few praised the U.S. government and economy for the opportunities their home countries' do not afford. I heard the word “opportunity” a lot.
Yesterday, I spent a good five hours riding the current of a very long human river through some of this nation's deepest urban canyons. 99% of the folks on the march were Mexican. Maybe half a percent were "Other Latino." Perhaps a tenth of a percent were Polish. Maybe half that number were Irish, all clad in coordinated bright green. There were also a few groups of Ukrainians, with bright flecks of the rest of the world waving their rainbow of flags among the Red, White, Blue, Green, and Yellow of the rest. There were flags everywhere. Three out of four were American, and the shouts that accompanied them bounced off the Sears Tower, the Federal Reserve, and the Board of Trade in stadium chants that also bounced between languages in rotating waves.
I, of course, took a few pictures. In one of them, a few Irish participants are sharing humorous reflections in their thick native brogue, no doubt about the fifth-generation American red head focusing his camera upon them.
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