Turning point in immigration march

YAKIMA, Wash. -- She says the first march shaped her.

It was the spring of 2006. Beljica Cortes was an Eisenhower High School sophomore when she joined thousands who marched in the streets of Yakima in support of rights for illegal immigrants.

Until then, Cortes said, she never thought much about politics, immigrant rights or racism.

"Then I went to the marches, and you saw these white people telling you to go back to Mexico," said Cortes, now a 20-year-old Yakima Valley Community College student. "Mexico is where my parents come from and, yeah, I'm proud, but I was born in the U.S.

"Them saying that was eye-opening. I didn't think racism was focused on us even though we were people of color. I never thought I was part of that until I saw it happen in the march."

On Friday, Cortes will join others taking to the streets here and across the nation in similar marches.

And while the national debate on immigration policy has quieted, it remains very much an issue in the Yakima Valley, where a majority of agricultural workers are in this country illegally.

The experiences of Cortes and her family offer some insight into their motivation for taking part in Friday's march.

Beljica's parents knew life in the United States wouldn't be easy if they immigrated illegally. Guadalupe Cortes warned his wife before they left their hometown in Colima, Mexico.

"I'd been living here, traveling back and forth to Mexico, for about eight years," said Guadalupe Cortes, who first came as a teenager in the 1970s. "I told her she had to work too if she wanted to come, that rent and utilities are expensive, and the pay isn't good."

The prospect didn't faze her. From the time she was 9, Berenice Cortes said she worked -- making pozole, enchiladas and sopes at a neighborhood cafeteria, selling clothes at a store and packing mangoes in a warehouse. For his part, Guadalupe Cortes recalls picking and selling peppers and lemons from age 5 to supplement his family's income, before crossing the border illegally at 19.

Once in the Yakima Valley, Berenice and Guadalupe Cortes accepted as fact that they'd never rise above their jobs of picking and packing fruits.

But they wanted something better for their children, who were all born in the United States. In addition to Beljica, they have Ricardo, 19, who graduates from Davis High School this spring, and Mayra Alejandra, 13, a seventh-grader at Washington Middle School.

"In Mexico if you come from a rural, low-income family, you can't get an education," said Guadalupe Cortes, 49, who never attended elementary school. His wife, 43, only reached sixth grade.

"You won't have the connections to get a job. I thought if our children were born here, they could do anything," Guadalupe Cortes said. "If they wanted to be professionals, they could be professionals."

Beljica Cortes believed her father when he said she could go anywhere -- including a university. But in high school she didn't know what she wanted to study after graduation. She wasn't interested in immigration issues, yet.

But in the days before the first march in 2006, the Corteses told their children that school and work were not as important as hitting the streets.

In cities across the country, millions demonstrated in support of rights for illegal immigrants. At the time, Congress was considering a number of immigration bills -- including one to construct a wall along parts of the Mexican border, and another to pave the way for illegal immigrants to gain legal status.

"It was all over the radio and TV," said Berenice Cortes, who had never participated in political demonstrations before. "The marches were something of a novelty then."

Estimates from the 2006 march in Yakima varied wildly, with somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 taking part.

The couple marched because they wanted a repeat of the amnesty granted to illegal immigrants through the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. They both gained legal residency within a year of the act. In 1996, Berenice Cortes became a U.S. citizen.

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They still want similar amnesty for their friends, relatives and co-workers.

At her high school, Beljica got swept up in the excitement of student-led demonstrations that preceded the march.

On May 1 that year, when she marched alongside her then-boyfriend, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, she was surprised to hear taunts from counter-demonstrators.

"I don't know why all these people say, 'Go back to Mexico,' because we're the ones who do all the (agricultural) work," Beljica Cortes said, referring to friends and relatives here illegally, as her parent once were.

The counter-demonstration prompted her to become politically active -- joining a Chicano activist club, MEChA; tutoring children of migrant farm workers, and even running unsuccessfully this year for student body vice president at YVCC, where she studies business.

She wants to continue her studies at Heritage University, where she also hopes to earn a teaching certificate. "You don't see a lot of Mexican teachers," she said, "and there's a lot of Hispanic students that need role models."

While the Corteses took part in the 2007 and 2008 Yakima marches, the overall turnout dropped.

Only a few thousand people participated in 2007, and less than 1,000 the following year, according to police and organizers. Nationally, the political debate had shifted to war and the recession.

Organizers blamed low turnout partly on rumors that "la migra" -- or immigration authorities -- would deport people at the march. This year, internal disputes at Radio KDNA, the Valley's only Spanish-language public radio station, have weakened its local coverage of march organizers.

"Perhaps people won't go because there hasn't been propaganda for it on the radio and TV," said Guadalupe Cortes, who was unaware of the march this year until his daughter found out at school.

Berenice Cortes has been telling her friends to go. She hopes another massive turnout will remind the Obama administration that the Latinos who overwhelmingly supported his presidential campaign expect something in return.

"The result of this march, I hope, is to show Obama what is happening to us, what our needs are," said Berenice Cortes, who voted for Obama. "I want Obama to give them amnesty like we got. Immigrants should have the chance to live well and come out of hiding."

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Many friends here illegally fear a knock on their door, she said.

"We all know people who opened their door, and suddenly they were taken away" by immigration authorities, Berenice Cortes said. "Families get separated when parents get taken back to Mexico. Who are their children supposed to stay with?"

She and her husband see a path toward legalization as an opportunity for the government to boost the economy -- by charging fees to illegal immigrants who go through the process.

Her daughter says she understands even more now why people choose to break immigration laws. Beljica Cortes has a 10-month-old son from her ex-boyfriend, who is still in the U.S. illegally.

"I want the best for my son and I'll do everything within my reach for him," said Beljica Cortes, who worries about what would happen if the father gets deported. "I didn't go to university like I'd planned; I went to community college.

"I want him to go to university. That's what parents try to give their kids -- a better life."

* Melissa Sánchez can be reached at 577-7675 or msanchez@yakimaherald.com.

Demonstrations

On Friday, two very different demonstrations are planned in Yakima. One urging rights and amnesty for illegal immigrants, the other adamantly opposed.

Today: The immigration issue viewed through the perspective of the Corteses, who came to this country illegally and raised three U.S.-born children.

Thursday: Another view of illegal immigration as seen by members of Grassroots of Yakima Valley and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, who oppose amnesty and want immigration laws enforced.