Drumbeats echoed Sunday from the old Albertsons parking lot in Roseland, a heart-thumping sign of the annual Cesar Chavez rally and march in Santa Rosa.
The event honored the 50 years since the civil rights leader moved his family to a small Central Valley farming town and helped form the United Farm Workers to address the rights of immigrant farm laborers.
Sunday's march was much smaller than previous years when people filled the streets to demand for police to stop impounding unlicensed drivers' vehicles. Crowds swelled to 5,000 in 2010 and 7,000 to 10,000 in 2007.
Families began gathering at noon, and within an hour 400 to 500 people clapped and bobbed in a circle around dancers and drummers in white T-shirts and jeans from Windsor Middle School.
Tradition was the common cause among many who brought their children and handmade signs calling for immigration overhaul, including Beatriz Alcazar, 22, of Rohnert Park. The handmade T-shirts for herself and her 2-year-old son read "Si se puede" - yes we can.
"It's important for me to come out with my son," said Alcazar, a Sonoma State University student who also works at Sonoma County's sexual assault crisis center, Verity, in Santa Rosa. "I want to teach my son that it's our responsibility to fight for equality for everybody."
Traditional Aztec dancers in full-feathered headdress and chachayote rattles on their ankles began the march just before 2 p.m.
Farmworkers, immigrants and their supporters took over an eastbound traffic lane of Sebastopol Avenue, wound through Santa Rosa's Railroad Square neighborhood and ended at Old Courthouse Square downtown.
The march was part of a statewide UFW campaign aimed at providing farmworkers with overtime pay and enhancing their safety on the job.
Some people carried signs calling for better labor practices and messages used since Chavez' time, such as "Bathrooms and drinking water, it's not luxury, it's necessary" and "Viva la Huelga" - long live the strike.
But, as in past years, more often the signs read, "My car, my property" and "Safe roads, license for all."
Last year, Sonoma County police agencies, including the Sheriff's Office and Santa Rosa Police Department, eased vehicle impoundment policies and started accepting Mexican consular identification cards as a valid form of ID.
Now, paving the way for undocumented residents to get driver's licenses is the priority, said Marguarita Rosas, 56, of Monte Rio, a UFW volunteer.
Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, earlier this year indicated he will reintroduced a bill seeking to make that possible.
Rosas waved at a group of men standing in front of a market on Sebastopol Road.
"Vengan unanse" - join us, she said.
They shook their heads.
Some people have become disillusioned that President Barack Obama has not addressed immigration laws, said Richard Coshnear, a Santa Rosa immigration attorney and a member of the Committee for Immigrant Rights of Sonoma County.
"People come out and march and what do they see? Crackdowns and no reform," Coshnear said.
And many Catholic families this year opted instead to attend Palm Sunday masses, some said. Morning clouds threatening rain and high gas prices also may have kept people away.
Although smaller, the event was infused with youth.
Fathers carried toddlers on their shoulders. Children giggled as they chased each other in circles once the marched landed at Old Courthouse Square.
Alex Perez Malvaez, 18, of Santa Rosa, a Santa Rosa Junior College computer engineering major, loaded signs and unused bottles of water into a pickup as people began filing out of the square at about 4 p.m.
Perez Malvaez said he started volunteering with UFW because he wants to inspire people to help others.
"Everyone has friends who don't have papers," said Perez Malvaez. "I want them to have the same rights as me."
You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com.
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