At lunchtime on Monday, students and staff members linked arms creating human chain around the Campus Center to represent the barriers that illegal immigrants face in their lives. The chain was formed at 12:16 p.m. to symbolize Dec. 16, 2005, the date when House of Representatives Bill 4437 (HR 4437) was passed by the House.
“We affected students getting their mail and lunches for about 15 minutes and you saw that people [trying to enter the Campus Center] were kind of shoving and being kind of angry about what was going on,” said organizer Fielding Hong ’07. “This was something to make people think about the privileges we all have that we take for granted.”
Molly Dengler ’06 thought that creating a wall drew attention to the demonstrators’ cause.
“I think the visibility of making a wall instead of just talking on the P.A. system was really good,” Dengler said. “With everyone linking arms, janitors to students to faculty members, I felt like a lot more people [noticed].”
The human chain remained together for fifteen to twenty minutes amidst chants of “Education, not deportation,” and personal sentiments shared by participants.
HR 4437 makes it a felony to be or aid an undocumented citizen, implicating even clergy and social workers. It also gives police and law enforcement and not just federal officials the power to round up illegal immigrants.
“I think that these are basic human rights and that its ridiculous that a piece of paper puts a label on somebody as legal, especially in a country founded on genocide, rape, theft and slavery,” Hong said. “A country without the work of undocumented people would basically collapse. The infrastructure relies on the money and the work these people put into the economy.”
According to the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington D.C., approximately 7.2 million undocumented citizens hold jobs in the United States, making up 4.9 percent of the country’s work force. Twenty-four percent of farm workers and 14 percent of construction workers are illegal immigrants.
The human chain was one element of a program held by University activists in conjunction with International Workers Day in protest of HR 4437.
In the afternoon, about 25 students traveled to Bushnell Park in Hartford to participate in an International Workers Day rally. According to organizer Jose Marantes ’06, the rally had over 700 attendees.
“The interesting part about the rally was that it wasn’t anti-American, and people are not upset at the U.S.,” Marantes said. “It’s about letting people know that ‘we are Americans too,’ at least that’s the majority [sentiment]. Wesleyan kids might have a different viewpoint, but that’s the politics of the rally, ‘we work hard to be active citizens, we aren’t criminals, we deserve our rights to be citizens or to be recognized.’”
International Workers Day is held annually on May 1 in commemoration of Chicago’s Haymarket Riot in 1886 and the demand for the eight-hour workday. According to the New York Times, due to this year’s national participation in the “Day Without an Immigrant,” local businesses closed, students skipped school, and produce was left unpicked.
HR 4437 is currently stalled. The Senate is expected to address immigration reform before the end of this month.
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