Carbondale – Teresa’s Market on Main Street was one of the busiest places in this Roaring Fork Valley bedroom community Monday. And Teresa’s, a Mexican grocery, was closed for the national day of action.
Members of Carbondale’s large Latino population kept congregating in front of the glass windows and peering inside where an American flag was propped between empty egg cartons and a display of dried chiles. Teresa’s is one of the network points for the half of Carbondale’s 5,800 population that is Latino. They came looking for information about la marcha taking place down the highway in Glenwood Springs. About 1,200 people would later gather in a park there to show their support for immigration reform.
Similar scenes played out across the state as Monday’s national day of action drew crowds ranging in size from 3,000 in Colorado Springs to 150 in Alamosa.
What was being billed as a “day without a Latino” by some actually turned out to be a day with Latinos in Carbondale.
Normally, people here say, artsy Main Street is devoid of Latinos during the day. They are busy working – putting up drywall, painting condominiums, planting shrubs, cooking in restaurants, cleaning hotel rooms, sanitizing hospital equipment, laundering tablecloths and driving loaders.
Fun and somberness
But they were walking up and down Main Street before heading to Glenwood Springs. They were barbecuing and blaring Nortena music in yards at apartment buildings and trailer parks. They were observing five minutes of silence in Sopris Park with members of the other half of the population.
Some say the day felt like a holiday. Others said leaving work was a serious matter.
“Today is stopped. I won’t buy food. I won’t put gas in my car. See. My money is in the pocket,” said Noe Huerta Hijar as he pulled a wad of dollar bills from his jeans. He said he took the day off along with 24 co-workers on a construction project in Basalt.
But Monday’s march didn’t put a stop to everything here, even though Carbondale has the heaviest concentration of Latinos of any town in this area.
Customers were still having their legs waxed and doing their Pilates exercises at the Fitness Center. They dug into catfish sandwiches at the Hurricane Grille. They bought fresh tortillas hot off the triple-decker grill at Tortilleria La Roca.
But they weren’t sending any dinero home because the handful of Latino check-cashing and money-wiring businesses here were closed. They weren’t eating at La Casita, where the patio tables sat empty in the noon sun and Caucasian businessmen on lunch break rattled the locked front door before they headed next door to stand in line for a slice of pizza.
Luke Merritt wasn’t operating his landscaping business because his six Latino employees took the day off – with his blessing.
“I’m all for it,” Merritt said. “They have houses. They have kids in school. They have health insurance. They pay taxes. They need to be legal.”
Bob Olenick, owner of the Red Rock Diner, was not as supportive. He was in his apron at 4:45 a.m. Monday as he prepared to cook until past 11 p.m. because all but one of his dozen Latino kitchen workers opted not to work.
Francisco Sanchez said he came to work because “I love my job. I need money for my children. I need to pay rent.”
Plea for dignity
Sanchez’s co-workers went to Glenwood Springs for the gathering in Sayre Park. Participants there pleaded for dignity and respect for immigrants.
“It’s not my fault that I came here,” said Heidi Marquez, 17, whose parents arrived in the United States illegally 12 years ago. “I know my parents didn’t come to this country thinking that they wanted to break the law or ever imagining that they would ever be considered criminals. They came here with me in mind.”
A three-hour rally in Colorado Springs ended with a march around Memorial Park. About a dozen protesters waved U.S. flags and signs that said “no amnesty.”
In Durango, a small rally at a downtown park had drawn about 100 people as of 6 p.m.
Eddie Soto, co-coordinator of Los Compañeros, said he expected the crowd to swell after work. “We told people not to miss work if it meant their jobs. Unemployment is not the answer.”
The number of workers taking off for the day was spotty in the Roaring Fork Valley and the Colorado Springs and Pueblo areas.
A handful of Colorado Springs businesses, Mexican restaurants and a Mexican grocery store that caters largely to immigrants from Mexico closed Monday.
In Pueblo, Mission Food closed for the day, as well as some Mexican restaurants and a concrete company.
In the mountains, about 70 percent of the workforce stayed away from the job at the Gallegos Corp., a Vail-based masonry company that is considered a community leader in supporting immigrant workers.
“We were planning on that,” said Lisa Ponder, the human-resources director for the company, which polled its 520 workers last week and allowed them to take the day off without pay.
For each summer’s construction season, Gallegos hires 150 to 200 Mexican laborers on H2B work visas – in addition to a cadre of those foreign nationals with permanent- resident status.
“We can’t get American workers,” Ponder said. “Let me tell you, if I could advertise and get American workers, I would do it.”
At Cocina Linda’s food stand in Durango, owner Linda Illsley – born and raised in Mexico like some of her employees – took a vote. Closed or open on May 1?
“I put it to my people. They decided to stay and work,” Alley said between serving customers in her packed establishment.
Most places on Durango’s Main Street were open and looked busy. But Fiesta Mexican had a sign posted that read: “Closed May 1 for kitchen repairs.”
Barton Rudisill, manager of the Budget Inn, said most of his housekeeping staff are legal Mexican immigrants.
“They all showed up,” Rudisill said. “But the owners agreed to buy them lunch and give them a $20 bonus if they came to work.”
Staff writers Electa Draper, Erin Emery and Steve Lipsher contributed to this report.
