Planned walkout stirs immigrant debate

Manuel Madego will not be firing up his Friolator on Monday.

The Dominican immigrant, who sells fried meat and cheese pastries from his small cart on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, will be staying home Monday to protest what he says is this nation's harsh treatment of undocumented immigrants.

Many other businesses on Centre Street will be closed. Like Madego, their owners will be participating in national ''Day Without Immigrants" to call attention to the contributions made by the millions of undocumented immigrants in the labor force.

Across the country, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters are planning to stay away from work and school, avoid spending money, wear white, and join rallies and prayer vigils. The event is being planned as Congress grapples with the divisive question of illegal immigration.

''On that day, we show that America is immigrants," said Madego, a legal immigrant who settled in Boston in 1980. ''I hope white people, black people, Chinese people, everybody comes together on that day."

Despite that excitement, the plan has touched off an intense debate about whether the protest will backfire at a sensitive time in the immigration debate. Some immigrant activists worry that it may undermine a hard-won image of immigrants as tireless workers who come to America seeking only jobs and better lives.

''This is really not the best course," said Jose Quinonez, who runs the California-based BlueLatinos.org, a website for liberal Latinos. ''It undermines our message that we are here to work, here to learn and to achieve the American Dream. And to have this boycott of America kind of contradicts all these ideas that we really want to be part of this society."

In Massachusetts, some immigrant advocacy groups have discouraged workers from taking the day off, unless their boss grants them permission. They say some employers have threatened to fire workers who do not come to work Monday. And they worry that vast absences would erode the image of immigrants as essential to the labor force. There are many other ways to show support for immigrants Monday, they say, and they are urging people to choose the way that is most convenient, and least costly, for them.

''We want as many people as possible to participate in some way, but we are not calling on folks to risk getting fired," said Thomas Keown, spokesman for the Irish Immigration Center in Boston. ''The purpose of the day is not a confrontational day of demands. It is a peaceful way to highlight the contributions of immigrants and the important role they play in the economy and society."

Labor unions, including the AFL-CIO and the SEIU, are discouraging their members from staying home from work, saying such work stoppages are justified only over contractual issues. The Boston Public Schools issued a memo yesterday informing schools that students who take the day off Monday will be considered to have an unexcused absence.

The debate is taking place in an atmosphere of heightened activism among immigrants. On April 10, massive demonstrations for immigrant rights were held in major cities across the nation. Some of those demonstrations were later criticized, because some protesters carried foreign flags.

Organizers say Monday's events will be far more decentralized. In Massachusetts, for example, there will be a press conference with immigrant advocates and business leaders at the State House in Boston, a student walk-out and teach-in at Harvard, a 24-hour prayer vigil in Framingham, and a march to City Hall in Lynn, among many other local events.

Despite the other events, it is the question of whether to stay away from work or school that is setting off the most intense debate.

Jennifer Coto, a senior at East Boston High School, said students there have been talking about what to do for weeks. She said the students have been told they would be punished if they missed school, but said she would be staying home, anyway.

''I got to support my people," said Coto, as she waited for Madego to fry her cheese pastelitos on Centre Street. ''If I go to school, I feel like I'm betraying them. It's mostly Spanish students, so school is going to be empty."

It is not yet clear how many students and workers will be absent Monday. But some Latino business owners on Centre Street say they have already decided to close in support of immigrants. Advocates say some businesses in other cities with large immigrant populations will close, too.

''Our business is for Latin people, and we need to support our people, you know?" said Nondia Aquino, a Dominican immigrant and agent at Atlantic Travel on Centre Street. ''Everybody is going to close."

''I'm going to lose a lot of [money]," said Sixto Lopez, a Cuban immigrant who owns Vasallo's Fashions. ''But I support my immigrant community coming here to work. We must give them something."

The Allston-based Brazilian Immigrant Center is taking out advertisements in Brazilian publications and on radio this weekend urging business owners who rely on immigrants to give them permission to take the day off.

''If a business has a lot of immigrants and keeps it open, he doesn't care about us," said Fausto da Rocha, the center's executive director. ''He just cares about cheap labor."

Massachusetts Jobs With Justice, a Boston-based workers' rights coalition, is lining up community and religious leaders to intervene with employers who fire workers for participating in the Day Without Immigrants, said director Russ Davis.

''We're trying to get the message out preemptively to employers that that would be a mistake from a moral point of view and also an economic point of view," Davis said. ''If the unfortunate happens and people are actually fired, [the next day] we will have delegations to ask them nicely at first to reinstate the workers. And if not, we will bring their actions to the attention of their customers and the community."

The issue is not just difficult to navigate for the immigrant workers. Employers who show support for them by shutting down risk a negative reaction from those who want stricter immigration policies, who view the expected absences as proof that immigrants refuse to play by the rules.

''What they're trying to do is intimidate the American people," said Cyndi Ross, a Revere make-up artist who has joined protests against illegal immigration. ''I will not shop on Sunday at a store that's closed Monday. I will not give them my business if they support people who don't belong here. If they don't show up for work on Monday, they're only showing people that they are not dependable, and this country does not want people like that."