The April 10 National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice organized by hundreds of grassroots organizations across the country was a historic day in the United States. Millions of immigrants, students and activists organized and took to the streets of dozens of cities to demand the civil rights for all undocumented peoples in this country. In the past two weeks an estimated 1.5 million people marched in Los Angeles, 300,000 in Chicago, 500,000 in Dallas, and in dozens of other cities across the country people marched in the tens of thousands. It is clear that today we are in the middle of a national civil rights struggle for undocumented peoples in the US.

The April 10 day of action was a national movement to stop the anti-immigration house resolution HR4437, stop all attacks against immigrants, and stop the criminalization of immigrant communities. This national coordination also demands comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship-not a temporary guest worker program, family reunification measures, worker protection and full rights for all immigrants.

On Monday, supporters of the Amherst College La Causa and Chicano Caucus along with student organizations and leaders from UMass, Hampshire, Smith and Mt. Holyoke, as well as community activists, artists and professors gathered to show our solidarity with the national movement. Our demonstration and series of events from Sunday to Monday evening primarily was to bring the issue to the forefront of our campus. Despite the massive uprisings and the prominence of this issue on a national level, very few professors are covering this in their classes and the lack of dialogue on this campus needed to be addressed.

The demonstration that we organized on Monday forced our unresponsive community to address this issue and encouraged those who are interested in taking action on this campus, in the Five College area and in the larger community to organize with each other. One of the greatest accomplishments of the gathering of over 100 people was the representation of all five colleges. Following the demonstration we convened a meeting together and formed the Five College May 1st Coalition that will work in connection with the newly formed grassroots initiative, Amnesty Ahora. Together we will partner with community organizations, neighboring immigrant communities and college students to observe the May 1st General Strike. On May 1st the points of unity will be no work, no school, no sales and no buying. We will be holding a rally on the Amherst town common on May 1st to visually show our unity with the immigrant communities in our area. The newly formed Five College May 1st Coalition will be organizing our respective campuses to collectively encourage students and professors to join this mobilization. As students it is our role to specifically observe the No School Call to Action on May 1st.

Across the country students are taking control of their power to resist and to be heard. High school students from Los Angeles marched 30,000 strong, taking over the L.A. freeway in order to get the media to cover their discontent with HR4437. We as college students, with our resources, knowledge and skills need to learn from our younger brothers and sisters who are courageously exercising their rights. For those of you who think that taking action on May 1st is not important, we ask you to simply look at the newspaper and see that the visibility and solidarity of immigrants and activists is restructuring legislation in the Senate and forcing politicians to acknowledge the power that immigrant communities can have if we are organized.

In the next two weeks we will organize petitions to send to your senators, provide phone numbers for your senators and send email messages that can be delivered electronically to your representatives. On Monday, April 17th the Five College May 1st Coalition will meet at Smith College and again on the 24th at Hampshire College to organize ourselves for the May 1st mobilization. All who are interested in working together with us are welcome at the meetings. If you would like to get involved, contact (lacausa@amherst.edu) or for more information, go to (www.immigrantsolidarity.org).

Over 3,000 people have died crossing the U.S. Mexico border in the past ten years, 461 died crossing the border last year alone. Immigrant farm workers are working in slave-like conditions in Florida, California and other states. Immigrant factory workers and laborers have no rights to unionize or exercise basic American Rights. We as a nation need to wake up and see that the failed immigration legislation is a Human Rights issue that needs to be addressed with compassion and humanism-not xenophobia, racism and nativism. Join the national movement, act locally and be a part of history.

Written on behalf of

La Causa and Chicano Caucus