Ambivalence over May 1 Boycott

Lastweek, the Arizona organizers of a massive pro-immigrant rally turned thumbsdown on the call to join a national job and spending boycott set for Monday.

Onfurther reflection, and after workplace raids, they changed their minds and nowsupport what is being billed as a coast-to-coast “Day WithoutImmigrants,” an unprecedented effort to demonstrate the economic fuel suchworkers contribute to America’s economy both as consumers and producers.

Butin Dayton, Ohio, the reverse happened. An activist immigration coalition atfirst endorsed the boycott, but now does not.

Suchis the ambivalence evident across the country just days before “El GranParo Americano 2006” – the “Great American Boycott” – issupposed to leave job sites, schoolrooms and cash registers empty of millionsof Latino and other immigrants, along with dollars.

“We’restill not sure what we’re going to do,” a staffer at the Latin-AmericanCoalition in Charlotte, N.C., said – a comment common to other groupselsewhere.

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