MB Civic

The Washington Post

Tuesday, May 2, 2006; A21

The construction sites I drove past on my way to work yesterday were abnormally quiet, almost tranquil, without the usual bustle of organized chaos. Every once in a while, a crane indolently traced its arc; every once in a while, a truck arrived or departed. But the basic activity involved in putting up an office building — picking stuff up and carrying it from here, where the crane or the trucks left it, to there, where it’s needed — went largely undone.

In Washington’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, long a magnet for Latino immigrants, it felt almost like a Sunday morning. Few people were out and about, and only about half the local businesses were open. On the padlocked doors of a pharmacy, a dental clinic, a barbershop, a wire transfer office where immigrants send money home to their families, and other offices were taped identical fliers, with a notice in Spanish and English: “We will be closed on Monday May 1st in support of the Latino national strike.”

Two middle-aged women who identified themselves as Maria and Sonia (neither would give a last name) strolled past, pointing out all the closed businesses. “This action is a good idea, a very good idea, because we have to support all the people who are here without papers,” said Maria, who, like her friend, is from El Salvador. “We came here to work hard, not to harm anyone. Salvadorans are hard workers. We’re not criminals.”

All morning local Spanish-language radio hummed with urgent news and advice. There would be a demonstration in the afternoon at Malcolm X Park. This was to be a day of peaceful solidarity. No one should jeopardize his or her job; if you have to go to work, join the demonstration later.

It’s too early to judge the impact of yesterday’s nationwide “Day Without Immigrants” protest, but it’s past time to recognize that something important is happening — something that goes beyond the debate on Capitol Hill about immigration reform. At this point it’s harder to say just what this nascent Latino movement is than to point out what it is not. It’s certainly not a monolith. There has been spirited internal debate, for example, over “Nuestro Himno,” the Spanish-language version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that was released by an all-star chorus of Latino recording artists last week. Some heard a genuine expression of patriotism; others heard an unnecessary and unwise provocation.

Maybe it was neither. Maybe “Nuestro Himno” was a step in forging and tempering a stronger pan-Latino identity and political consciousness. Black people have skin color as a factor to unite us; Latinos, who can be of any race, have Spanish.

But let me be clear: We can also say that the movement whose birth we are witnessing is not a clone or even a descendant of the civil rights movement that won for African Americans our place in this society. There’s just no way to compare a group of people whose ancestors were brought here in chains, forced to work as slaves and then systematically classified as second-class citizens for more than a century with another group of people, however hard-working or well-meaning, who came to the United States voluntarily.

That said, I am convinced that the nation’s two biggest minorities are natural allies, not rivals, and that a crucial task over the coming months and years will be to find ways for African Americans and Latinos to work together. Our histories may be different, but we have at least one big thing — discrimination — in common.

For the two groups to fight over low-skilled, low-wage jobs would be a tragic waste of time and effort. The issue is how both African Americans and Latinos can claim a fair share of this nation’s vast wealth and opportunity, not how we can wrestle the scraps from one another. The issue is who gets to occupy the corner office during working hours, not who gets to clean it at night.

Congress may do something reasonable on immigration, giving the estimated 12 million people already here without papers a chance to become citizens or legal residents, but there’s no guarantee. It may be that there’s no common ground among the president, the House and the Senate — at least not in an election year. But if you take the long view, I’m not sure that Capitol Hill is where the real news is happening.

Yesterday the news was happening at construction sites, where it was demonstrated that steel, lumber and glass will not move from here to there on their own.