New voices draw parallels in plight of illegal immigrants

Sometime after lunch, when 12-year-old twins Levi and Sophie Gittleman complete this morning's standardized tests at their elementary school, their father, Rabbi George Gittleman, will pick them up to join thousands of others in today's pro-immigration rally and march through downtown Santa Rosa.

The event, organized by local immigrant rights groups, is expected to be one of many May 1 demonstrations across the country protesting federal immigration raids and international economic policies that they say push workers in impoverished countries to cross borders illegally.

Gittleman, who heads Congregation Shomrei Torah, Santa Rosa's reform Jewish synagogue, said he asked permission to take his kids out of school early.

"I want my kids to understand that this is part of being a Jew, to stand up for the rights of other people," he said.

It is the first year that Gittleman's congregation will participate in a rally that has in the past been dominated by issues related to Latino illegal immigrants. The rabbi drew parallels between the Jewish experience in history and that of Latino immigrants in the United States.

"We as Jews know what it's like to be discriminated, oppressed and scapegoated," he said. "It wasn't that long ago that it was our experience."

Another new voice in today's event will be that of the Sonoma County Chapter of Japanese American Citizens League.

Representatives of both groups said they are participating in the marches because the country's political quandary over illegal immigration affects everyone, not just the country's Latinos.

Lina Hoshino, a board member of the local Japanese American Citizens League, said the region's Asian community has its "share of recent immigrants and some of them are not documented, and they're living in fear."

Hoshino, who recalled a time when federal immigration policies excluded many immigrants from Asian countries, said that currently "there are at least 80,000 undocumented Asian immigrants in the Bay Area alone, and it can be as high as 180,000."

She said they are in the United States illegally not because they do not want to become legal residents, but because current immigration policies make doing so very difficult.

David Cardenas, an organizer with the Graton Day Labor Center and a key organizer of today's marches, said the purpose of the event is threefold and includes support of a local "county of refuge" for undocumented immigrants in Sonoma County, as well as a call for Sonoma County Sheriff's Department to end cooperation with federal immigration officials.

Local Sheriff's Department officials have said that their participation with federal immigration agents focuses on serious criminal and gang activity.

But local immigrant rights advocates have repeatedly claimed that such law enforcement efforts sometimes result in the deportation of young men with no gang ties.

Cardenas welcomed participation from new groups in today's rally and marches.

"It's one of the most important aspects of this movement," he said. "In organizing it, we've been able to affect broader participation."

A counterdemonstration, organized by the local chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, is scheduled to take place on the other side of Sonoma Avenue, just a few yards from the site at Juilliard Park where today's marches will end.

William Gifford, director of the Sonoma County chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said he and others participating in the counter demonstration were not opposed to legal immigration, but rather "open border" policies that have allowed millions to enter the country illegally.

Gifford rejected the call for immigration reform.

"We don't need any more immigration reform. We have immigration laws now that were put in place in 1986 that were never enforced," he said. "We need to serve the cause of the American public and citizens."

While Gittleman acknowledged that the rule of law is essential, he rejected what he called a double standard.

"Basically, we're happy to look the other way and let these people come illegally because we need them to run our economy, pick our fruit and clean our toilets," Gittleman said. "But God forbid they should end up in our schools or in our hospitals."

The country, he said, should either create an economy that does not rely on immigrant labor or create a "just" immigration system that allows for immigrants to come into this country to both work and reap the benefits of living here.

"We can't have it both ways," he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com.