Hundreds in Armory Park cheer ‘Sí, se puede’ – ‘Yes, we can’
by Sheryl Kornman on May. 01, 2006, under Local
Christian Rosario Lopez, 13, leads a group of boys through Armory Park, while riding a high-rise bicycle.
- updated at 2:30 p.m. – Armory Park erupted with cheers of “Sí, se puede” – “Yes, we can” – as speakers took to the stage to encourage the hundreds of people participating in the pro-immigrant events to make their voices heard and their opinions count.
Wade Colwell, 36, a Realtor and educational consultant, told the crowd of approximately 450 people outside the Armory Park Senior Center that “there’s too much divisiveness” over immigration in this country.
“We need to treat people like human beings,” he said.
As the temperature climbed above 90 degrees, families picknicked in the grass. Music played. Mexican and U.S. flags flew.
Inside the senior center, an estimated 250 people participated in a teach-in on immigration as members of unions and community and political organizations distributed information and registered people to vote.
Most of the people at the event appeared to be Hispanic or Latino. Many were school-age children with their parents.
Police officers on bicycles patrolled the area.
“The crowd has been very peaceful,” said Tucson Assistant Police Chief Kathleen Robinson, who was also present. “We are not anticipating any problems at all.”
Robinson praised volunteers wearing orange vests – from the American Friends Service Committee and the Service Employees International Union – who kept an eye on the park and responded to people’s questions and concerns.
“The peacekeepers have been doing a great job all day,” Robinson said.
Alberto Valenzuela, 91, a former bracero from Caborca, Mexico, said he came with his daughter, Natividad Cano, 58, to support Mexican workers.
“I feel grief for them,” he said. “They need the work.”
Valenzuela was part of the legal bracero program that brought Mexicans to the United States as temporary workers – largely in agriculture – to fill a labor shortage from 1942 to the 1964. He worked as a cowboy for 10 years driving cattle for the Ronstadt family and another Arizona ranch. He said he worked alongside his brother, Ricardo, and his father-in-law, Jesus Sanchez, for two pesos a day.
He emigrated to the United States in 1953. He lives in Tucson with his wife, Rebecca, 83. His children and grandchildren are also here.
After his bracero years, he picked cotton and worked in California in factories, canneries and in construciton. He is part of a bracero group of 100 in Tucson trying to get thousands of dollars in pensions collected and held by the Mexican government.
David Schachter, a teacher of ninth- through 12th-grade students at Cesar Chavez Middle School, said students were brought to the event by van.
“This type of event is part of our charter: political action and Latino empowerment,” Schachter said.
Christian Rosario Lopez, 13, a Cesar Chavez seventh-grader, rode around the park on a bicycle bearing a flag with an anarchist slogan in Spanish.
Christian said that the owner of the bike was letting him ride it but that he didn’t know what the banner said. He was at the park, he said, “for the Mexicans.”.
Jasmine Franco Ramirez, 10, a fourth-grader at Walter Douglas Elementary School, said she is at the park today to support her dad, Juan, who was deported to Mexico 10 years ago after “this woman reported his papers.”
“Mom brought us today to support our dad,” Jasmine said. “Mom asked us did we want to go to school or did we want to be here to support our dad?”
Maria Ramirez, 29, Jasmine’s mother, said she last saw her husband five months ago in Mexico.
“He’s staying there with family while our attorney in Tucson tries to get temporary papers for him so he can come to Tucson and apply for permanent residency,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said she is a U.S. citizen who worked as a cashier until she became disabled with kidney disease. She said her husband was working in construction in Tucson when someone reported that he was here illegally and he was deported.
Her husband worries about her because she is about to begin dialysis, Ramirez said. He misses the children, four of whom were born in the United States. The oldest was born in Mexico.
Ramirez and her five children are staying with relatives who help support them. One works in construction; the other at a restaurant.
Organizers of the day’s events across the nation urges participants not to buy, sell, send money abroad, make phone calls to Mexico, or go to work or school.
Twenty-two organizations were participating or supporting the events at Armory Park, said Alexis Mazón, a spokeswoman for the May 1st Coalition.
Mazón said the groups reject any proposals before Congress to increase border security through a buildup of Border Patrol or other law enforcement officers.
“The border is already one of the most militarized zones in the world,” she said.
More people are expected to arrive this afternoon for a May Day celebration, scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.
An interfaith prayer vigil is scheduled for 6:30-7:30 p.m., at which the names of people who died trying to cross the border last year will be recited.
Alberto Valenzuela, 91, attends the rally at Armory Park because he was a member of the Alianza Bracero program. He began work in southern Arizona in 1953.
Kristina Oslar, 24, registers to vote as her son, Andre, 15 months, watches the crowd at Armory Park.
A sign at Armory Park.
