As the Bible tells the story, on the night that baby Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph were strangers in another land, knocking on doors for help and facing rejection.
In Latin America, their journey is re-created during the holiday season, as a man and woman portraying the couple knock on doors and are rebuffed before they finally find a place where Mary can have her baby.
Yesterday, on the Three Kings Day, more than 350 immigrant advocates, clergy, and others walked behind two Boston high school students playing Mary and Joseph around Boston Common in a twist on the Latin American tradition known as "Las Posadas," which is Spanish for shelter.
Their goal: to make a point about the treatment of the 12 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.
Immigrants and advocates gathered on the Common amid holiday lights still twinkling on barren trees to re-create the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Reading from a script in English and Spanish, the two high school students acted out skits illustrating the hardships immigrants face.
With Mary about to give birth, a worried Joseph knocked on innkeepers' doors and was repeatedly turned away. Finally, the baby was born in a manger.
"That's why it's a good story for us," said the Rev. Robert Bowers of the Paulist Center, a Roman Catholic church and community in Boston. "The struggles they faced, people denying them shelter, welcome, healthcare - she was pregnant - and being turned away at the door, literally. That tiny little story is like the big story now."
Some disagreed with using a Biblical story to illustrate immigrants' plight, however.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, said advocates are misusing the Bible to make a political point to garner sympathy for immigrants who are breaking the law.
"They're essentially manipulating a scripture for current political purposes. It's not appropriate in any policy area," said Krikorian. "The Bible doesn't tell us what the minimum wage should be or anything else. It's a broad perspective on how to think about issues."
But advocates say that the night Jesus was born is an apt metaphor for the discrimination immigrants in general can face today, especially those here illegally. Yesterday, many said they came out to practice their own faith.
"It seems to have become very easy for people who call themselves Christians to forget this fundamental theme of our faith - that God directed us to love everyone without exception," said Jarrett Barrios, an organizer of the event and a former state senator who in 2006 sponsored a bill to allow illegal immigrant children to pay in-state tuition, which ultimately failed.
When the two students stopped at the State House, they asked for work at an unnamed New Bedford factory - designed to remind people of the real immigration raid there last March that led to 361 immigrants being detained - but the fearful owner said no.
At the next stop, immigrants sought sanctuary at the Paulist Center, but the church wavered and turned them away.
Then, they asked an American, symbolizing the United States, for admission to the country, and were rejected.
In the end, as onlookers watched at St. Paul's Cathedral, an Episcopal church, a 7-year-old girl named Noelle let them in.
Some in the crowd yesterday said they came out to support all immigrants, regardless of their situation.
"America's everybody's country," said Matt Canton, 21, a community college student from Boston, and the son of immigrants from Haiti and Jamaica. His friend Benjamin Wheeler, 20, nodded. "They came here to make their lives better, too," Wheeler said.
For others, the procession hit home. Celia, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, walked arm-in-arm with the 13-year-old sister she hadn't seen for seven years. Celia had left Honduras to work illegally waiting tables in the United States.
Her sister had been tiny then. But now, they stand shoulder to shoulder. The girl is visiting on a tourist visa.
"It's very personal," Celia said of the procession yesterday. "They're talking about us."
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