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Utah Latinos ended a day of shuttered business and staying away from work and school with rallies Monday night that drew thousands of people to events in various parts of the state aimed at demonstrating the effects of the Latino workforce and business community and to push for immigration reform that gives legal status to undocumented workers.
Across Utah, students stayed away from schools and businesses closed or ran with limited staffing as Beehive State residents rallied in support of a nationwide boycott of school, jobs and shopping. Hundreds of Latino students skipped school and workers took a day off from their jobs at hotels, schools, restaurants, meatpacking companies, factories and construction sites.
At Liberty Park in Salt Lake City, Sgt. J.R. Nelson estimated the Monday night crowd at 5,000 to 10,000 people who turned out for a rally and march around the park. A crowd of up to 20 people wide nearly encircled the park as marchers chanted "USA, USA" and waved or wore U.S. flags. One counter protester held a sign reading "Got Deportation?" but police reported no incidents.
In Ogden, a crowd estimated at 500 to 1,500 listened to speakers, waved signs reading "We are not terrorists" and "I was born in USA.
Do not divide my family." Ogden City Council President Jesse Garcia urged those in crowd who could to register to vote.
"We've been asleep too long. We need to wake up and stay awake," Garcia said.
In tiny Wendover, more than 500 Latinos marched Monday afternoon carrying placards and American flags while chanting "USA, USA, USA" and "Utah, Utah, Utah" to mark a nationwide effort to underscore the economic and labor clout immigrants wield in the United States. A candlelight vigil was scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. at the State Capitol.
Meanwhile, an anti-illegal immigration group, the Utah Minuteman Project, drew about 100 people to a demonstration at the Salt Lake City-County Building. One sign referred to U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon and Sen. Orrin Hatch as "traitors" for their stances on immigration issues, while another asked "Which laws do I get to break?" In support of "A Day Without Immigrants," restaurants at the Peppermill, Montego Bay and Rainbow casinos in Wendover, Nev., where Wendover, Utah, residents work, were closed. Montego Bay employee Gabriel Garcia walked the two-mile stretch to underscore the importance of immigrants to Wendover, Utah's only Latino-majority city. "We tend to forget that we're part of the immigrant family," Garcia said. "But we need to back up our community. I want to see some immigration reform." Wendover schools reported that about one-third of their junior high- and high school-aged students didn't attend classes Monday. But for the most part, it was business as usual, as Latinos - who comprise about 70 percent of Wendover's workforce - showed up to deal blackjack, ring up groceries and flip burgers.
Some Salt Lake area businesses, including Mexican restaurants, were forced to close when too many workers stayed away. La Frontera, a local chain of six Mexican restaurants founded 26 years ago by Mexican immigrant Antonio Tovar, shut down its Salt Lake City store on 3300 South and sent workers to West Valley City to run that cafe, where five cooks and dishwashers didn't show. Still, La Frontera General Manager Jerri Quintana said the West Valley City restaurant was busier than any average Monday, with the lunch rush commencing at 10:30 a.m.
Salt Lake City restaurant Blue Iguana, which employs about 30 people, also closed. "The owners are supporting the people," Manager Ismal Gonzales said. But Lucy Cardenas, owner of Red Iguana and a daughter of Mexican immigrants, kept her restaurant open. During previous rallies, Cardenas allowed employees who wished to march to do so. And she made T-shirts, printed with "peace and dignity for immigrant workers" in English and Spanish, for employees to wear Monday.
"I'm open for business because I love this country, too," Cardenas said. "If somebody decides not to show up because they want to boycott, I honor that decision." But in north Orem, Mama Chus waiter Jorge Arias was not sure the work stoppage was a good idea."It's going to hurt the economy and going to waste millions of dollars," said the El Salvador native.
Absent workers forced the shutdown of one of the product lines at Merit Medical Systems' plant in Murray, where 25 members of the 100-strong day shift failed to show up for work. Another 10 employees were absent to the medical device-maker's South Jordan plant, leaving a clean room operation short-staffed. About half of Merit's total work force of 850 is immigrant labor.
"We're not going to take any punitive actions, but it will count against their attendance records, just like any other unexcused absence," said Merit spokeswoman Anne-Marie Wright.
By lunchtime, cars were circling a West Valley City strip mall that houses 15 businesses, most of them Latino or Asian. None of them - a Latino candy store, a hair salon, shoe store or cell phone center - was open. The Tenochtitlan Market, a popular neighborhood cafe usually packed during lunch, was shuttered, the parking lot empty.
Benito Salazar, 74, tried unsuccessfully to find a store at the mall selling phone cards so he could call his relatives in Venezuela.
"I guess I'll just get one tomorrow," he said.
Some school districts reported unusually high absenteeism. At Jackson Elementary in Salt Lake City's Rose Park neighborhood, nine of 22 pupils in a fifth-grade class were out, all of them Latino. So many kids were missing in a second-grade class at the same school that the teacher decided to postpone a statewide achievement test.
Jackson's student body is 60 percent Latino.
At Mount Logan Middle School, Principal Dan Johnson planned in advance to excuse Latino students from school if their parents made written requests, but absenteeism was only slightly higher than normal.
Responding to concerns voiced by students, in a "really organized and legal way," Johnson orchestrated a morning rally called "Together by chance - United by choice." Hundreds of students, teachers and Logan residents carried banners and flags as they marched along Logan's Main Street.
Ogden School District officials said 29 percent of the district's Latino students were absent Monday, compared with 15 percent a week ago.
At Ogden's Central Middle School, where 75 percent of the school's 450 students are Latino, absenteeism was about 12 percent higher than normal, said Principal Mark Peterson. Teachers had given students "a pretty clear message" that their educations were too important to skip a day, Peterson said. City police reinforced that message by enforcing the daytime school-hours curfew. Officers escorted at least one Central Middle School student back to class.
At West High, where Aileen Aviles teaches Spanish for Native Speakers, only five of 28 students showed up. "I believe in their cause and what they're trying to accomplish," Aviles said.
But Melissa Gutierrez, 16, was in class because she believes a boycott is not the right way to show why she is in the United States.
While supporting immigration reform, she said, "I'm here for a better life, a better opportunity, a better education." Farther south, participation in the rallies and boycotts was sparse.
In Moab, high school Spanish teacher Leticia Bentley said all the Latino students in her class stayed away to support the boycott.
Officials at other Grand County schools said only a few Latino students were absent.
Lyle Cox, director of personnel for Washington County School District, said a spot check of elementary and secondary schools showed no noticeable jump in absences among students, staff or teachers. The district's 2,278 Latino students comprise about 10 percent of the student body. Many businesses planned ahead to observed the boycott also known as "Brown Out" and "A Day Without Latinos." Lorena Riffo-Jensen and Vanessa Di Palma closed their Salt Lake City business, DPR Communications, to support the boycott and volunteer at a Liberty Park march planned for Monday afternoon in Salt Lake City.
Chris Hutchinson, director of Utah operations for Wendy's International, said the fast-food chain granted many employees' requests to take Monday off. Utah's largest construction companies, which included Big D Construction, Layton Construction and Camco Construction reported they were feeling no major effects from the day's demonstrations.
"We tried to be supportive of our workers and told them if they wanted the day off to just let us know," said Layton Construction spokesman Alan Rindlisbacher. Of Layton Construction's approximately 300 workers in the field, 11 Latinos requested the day off, Rindlisbacher said.
Two of Cache County's largest private companies, ICON Health and Fitness and E.A. Miller, were closed Monday in anticipation of the worker boycott. E.A. Miller, a meatpacking plant in Hyrum, is one of four plants temporarily closed throughout the United States by Swift & Co.
In Moroni, the Moroni Feed Company closed its turkey processing plant after "several dozens" of its 500 workers asked for the day off, said Kent Barton, the firm's human resource director. While many Salt Lake-area hotels employ Latino workers, Monday's call to action had minimal impact on their operations, hoteliers reported. Some hotels reached agreements with their workers beforehand. Bruce Fery, executive vice president of hotels for Grand America Resorts and Hotels, which includes both the Grand America and Little America hotels in Salt Lake City, said 80 percent of his housekeeping staff, which is 95 percent Hispanic, had requested the day off either as a vacation day or an unscheduled day off. Enough workers showed up as scheduled to keep operations flowing smoothly, he said.
The Hampton Inn in Sandy offered to pay time-and-a-half to workers willing to come in, but also made certain enough workers were scheduled that they could get done early and then participate in rallies later in the day. And at the Salt Lake Airport Radisson, all hotel employees dressed the same - jeans and white T-shirts adorned with a blue ribbon - to support the cause of the hotel's Latino workers, nearly almost all of whom showed up for work.
Other areas reported few absentees. In Utah County, Timpanogos Elementary Principal Diane Bridge said all 12 Latino school employees were at work at the school, whose student body is 56 percent Latino. "I talked to them personally and expressed support for them because they are tremendous people," Bridge said. "They all have mixed feelings about [the boycott]. They want immigration reform. At the same time, they are all here legally. They know what it takes to go through the process and be here legally." In St. George, Bill Stokes, manager of the Golden Corral restaurant said he checked with his workers before Monday to see how many - if any - planned to stay home. He said all his employees - about a third are Latino - told him they expected to be on the job Monday as scheduled. As of noon, the restaurant had not experienced a single employee no-show.
Pro-boycott rallies were planned in Ogden and Salt Lake City later in the afternoon and night, including a candlelight vigil at the Capitol. The Minuteman Project, a nationwide group that opposes illegal and other forms of immigration, planned an afternoon demonstration at the Salt Lake City-County building. An estimated 11 million people are in the United States without proper documentation.
Tribune reporters Jason Bergreen, Julia Lyon, Kristen Moulton, Bob Mims, Mark Eddington, Jennifer Sanchez, Rosemary Winters, Mark Havnes, Jason Bergreen, Steven Oberbeck, Dawn House, Christopher Smart and Mike Gorrell and Tribune correspondents Arrin Newton Brunson and Lisa Church contributed to this story.