Thursday, there was a rally, march, and civil disobedience aimed at stopping the deportation of the undocumented in Chicago. The sponsoring group was Familias Unidas.
Among the speakers was a Gold-Star mother -- and U.S. Citizen -- whose daughter was killed driving an ambulance in Kuwait. The speaker's husband -- the soldier's father -- has been deported to Mexico. I've been to a couple of meetings and rallies where the organizers tried to make it bilingual -- never quite successfully. This was my first where the default language was Spanish.
Another speaker was Congressman Luis Gutierrez. He reported that President Obama had promised the Congressional Latino conference a thorough review of the deportation proceedings. The major demand of the rally was that the President end deportations by executive order since Congress was paralyzed.
The CD was sitting in front of the entrance of the INS offices. Most of those arrested were United Methodist clergy, together with a few each of Methodist laity and clergy of other denominations. I don't know whether the CD was part of the original plan of Familias Unidas or whether it had been added to those plans be some Methodist committee. A more personal and chronological account after the jump.
I had heard about the rally from my minister, Carol Hill. After I got off the L train, I was soon greeted by her and my previous pastor, Amos Oladipo. They had been together on another car of the same train. I followed them to the "Chicago Temple," First UMC, Chicago, where the Methodist contingent for the march was gathering.
There, clergy were given stoles and those who were to sit in were given directions. We stood around for a rather long time while greetings were exchanged and people kept coming in. We were notified that this was not actually a Methodist event, but was sponsored by what was first described as "Families Uniting." Then another woman told us the actual Spanish name. We walked together to Federal Plaza where the rally was beginning. While the signs were in evidence, this was not a formal, licensed march. We kept to the sidewalk and stopped for red lights.
There were more people already at the plaza, and others came there after us. Two additions were groups: one, very late, was United Neighborhood Organizations. Another was a contingent of Puerto Ricans with Puerto-Rican flags. Puerto Ricans, of course, are not immigrants but citizens. They, or at least some of them, support their fellow Latinos whose families are torn apart.
There was a good deal of chanting and some singing. I heard, but didn't learn, the Spanish words to "We shall not be moved." The speeches were mostly from people whose families had been torn apart and people who had fought and won in the courts. The United Methodist bishop, Sally Dyck, spoke -- in English, translated on the spot.
Late in the session, "elected officials" attending were introduced. They were Congressman Gutierrez, whose speech I reported above, a Latino alderman, and Will Guzzardi. Guzzardi is technically only nominated for state rep, though nobody has been nominated to run against him. In earlier diaries, I've written about canvassing for Will and his election. It's nice to see somebody you've campaigned for wear a white hat after the election. (For that matter, I'd campaigned for Gutierrez, too, albeit for alderman not congressman and when Guzzardi was in diapers.)
From the Federal Plaza, we marched to Clark and Wentworth where there was some more chanting. A sound system was set up on a truck, but I didn't see any benefit from it. Finally, the people who were going to do the civil disobedience gathered together walked back the block to Clark and Congress where the entrance to the INS offices was. The actual entrance was under an overhang some distance from the sidewalk.
They sat down, and cops prevented anyone else from the crowd to go under the overhang. (Press, or at least TV cameras, were closer.) After what seemed like a long time to me, the cops ordered the sitters one by one to stand and stop blocking the entrance. When each refused, he or she was arrested, helped to his feet, and led off to a back corner where he was issued a ticket. The entire thing had clearly been orchestrated with the cops in advance.