Saturday’s Immigrant Rights March: Who kicked the sleeping giant?

“It looks like someone went and kicked the sleeping giant. On Friday, March 10, 2006 Chicago’s downtown was paralyzed by an immigrant march estimated at more than 100,000 people. They carried hand-lettered signs saying: “We are America,” “My Mexican immigrant son died in Iraq,” “I’m a dishwasher””not a criminal,” and “Don’t deport my parents.” The peaceful crowd stretched two and half miles, from Union Park on the West Side to their destination in Federal Plaza. No immigrant justice march like this has happened in Illinois history since some 80,000 immigrants marched down State Street demanding an 8-hour workday in 1886.

The Chicago march is part of a growing tsunami of immigrant protest across the nation. Last week 5,000 Mexicans gathered in Oregon; on Tuesday, March 6, some 30,000 Latinos from the Washington, D.C. area rallied on the U.S. Capitol steps.”

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