As Utah Latinos heard about immigration rallies nationwide, they started talking and asking about a demonstration in the state.

And in late March, a Latino community activist decided to schedule a nonpartisan pro-immigration march in Salt Lake City and sent an e-mail to hundreds of people across the Beehive State.

Within 17 days, volunteers organized the largest demonstrations in Utah history, shocking the state - including Latinos. More than 40,000 people flooded downtown Salt Lake City on April 9 to rally in support of "humane and comprehensive immigration reform," according to some estimates.

Organizing the huge event began March 23, when Lilia Cardenas, a University of Utah medical student, called several community groups and activist Tony Yapias in hopes of finding Utahns who were heading to the Los Angeles march that week. She had no luck. But, Cardenas and Yapias discussed the idea of putting on a march for Utah, and "it snowballed from there."

"I needed to do something if I wasn't going to be able to go [to Los Angeles]," said Cardenas, 33, who moved from Mexico to Texas as an undocumented child and later became a permanent U.S. resident.

Within a few hours of the phone call, Yapias set a date - April 9 - and sent out a news release to his personal e-mail list of some 700 people and organizations. The next day, Yapias got a "free expression activity permit application" from Salt Lake City to hold a rally at the Salt Lake City-County Building. He estimated 3,000 people would attend.

There were some 201,559 Latinos in Utah in 2000 - 29 percent of them were undocumented residents, at the highest estimate, said Pam Perlich, a University of Utah senior research economist.

Yapias, an advocate for undocumented Latinos in Utah, said the purpose of the march was for the Utah Latino community to show its support for immigration reform that includes a guest-worker program. Many undocumented Latinos want a U.S. work permit to be able to visit their relatives and return to the United States with proper documentation.

Yapias, 39, said he knows how those people feel because his family was separated for eight years when he was a boy while his father worked as a sheepherder in Idaho. The Yapiases were reunited and moved from Peru to Wyoming in 1981. That's why Yapias worked with hundreds of volunteers to organize the march.

"They live with a hope that something will happen and they're going to be able to see their families," he said of undocumented workers.

Yapias, who was earlier criticized by Latino leaders for not meeting with them before setting the date, said he didn't care if Latino Republicans or Democrats supported the Dignity March. He later compromised with Latino leaders to plan a Unity Rally the day after the march to coincide with other immigration rallies nationwide.

"I feel like I know the pulse of the Latino community - I know the community well," said Yapias, former director of the state Office of Hispanic Affairs and director of Proyecto Latino de Utah.

For 16 days after the rally was announced, Latino volunteers met with community groups statewide. They passed out fliers at Mexican markets and dance clubs. They solicited sponsors to provide copies, U.S. flags and bottled water.

Utah's Spanish-language media - including two radio stations, two TV stations and several newspapers - provided public announcements for the demonstrations. Yapias also talked about the events during a Spanish-language morning talk show on Radio Exitos 1515 AM. He publicized the event on his and his brother's Web site, where supporters were able to download the flier.

Temma Martin, a public relations volunteer, planned a public sign-making party at Centro Civico Mexicano in Salt Lake City that was attended by more than 100 people who showed up with markers, paints and poster boards. Frank Cordova, a longtime community activist, recruited more than 100 volunteer security guards who spoke English and Spanish to work during the demonstrations.

Organizers said they knew the Dignity March was going to be a big event, but they had no idea more people would show up.

On April 9, more than 40,000 people marched three miles from the city-county building to the Capitol under the clear sky. That's bigger than the population of Holladay or Murray or South Salt Lake.

Salt Lake City Police Department Lt. Steve Cheever said about 45 police officers worked the march that was attended by "at least 40,000" people. No one was arrested or given a citation. Cheever called the volunteer security guards with whistles "wonderful."

A police spokesman previously had said there were about 20,000 marchers, while organizers estimated more than 40,000.

The next day at the Unity Rally, some 4,000 people showed up at the city-county building.

"I'm still in awe on how we did it," Cordova said of the demonstrations.

jsanchez@sltrib.com

Protests in Utah

Until last week, the largest demonstration in Utah was about 4,200 protesters of the Vietnam War in 1969. The largest Latino demonstration was organized in March 2005 by Latino University of Utah students; it drew 2,000 people to protest the state's driver-privilege card for mostly undocumented residents that was later signed into law.