IMMIGRANT STRIKE
Dozens of Bay Area businesses join national protest
With signs of solidarity taped defiantly to their doors, dozens of restaurants and businesses across the Bay Area abruptly shut down Thursday, joining a national protest to show America what it’s like to live “A Day Without Immigrants.”
The strike, coordinated largely through social media and word of mouth, spread quickly throughout the country, with many immigrants skipping work and school and closing
their wallets to demonstrate their impact on the country’s economy and culture. Many Bay Area businesses — from popular breweries to Latin supermarkets and fine-dining venues — shut their doors, missing out on a day’s earnings to stand with their immigrant employees and customers.
The strike comes at a time when fear in immigrant communities is at an all-time high following raids across the country by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in which hundreds of people have been detained. Rumors of raids have lingered in the Bay Area, as unsubstantiated claims spread this week that ICE is rounding up undocumented immigrants at schools, businesses and workplaces.
The decision to close for the day was extremely personal for Ajay Walia, owner of Saffron Indian Bistro in San Carlos and the Michelin-starred Rasa Contemporary Cuisine in Burlingame.
“We work with first-, second- and third-generation immigrants,” said Walia, who immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1992. “At the end of the day, we’re all immigrants. There is no America without immigrants.”
Walia said the restaurant had to cancel about 95 reservations Thursday for Rasa alone. He made all the calls to customers himself, he said, a feat that took him most of Wednesday. While most of the customers supported his decision to close for the day, Walia said a few were upset about the inconvenience.
“We just want people to realize that we’re all in this together. Everyone is needed. There is no such thing as one race being more important than the other,” he said.
Adolfo Guevara, coowner of El Rancho Market in Menlo Park, said he closed the business to show solidarity with his staff of 22 who stayed home in protest.
“We’re very proud to be immigrants and proud to be part of the Menlo Park community, especially in these political times when we wake up every morning to scary news and we’re not sure what will come next,” he said.
Oakland’s Doña Tomás restaurant and its sister restaurant in Berkeley, Tacubaya, also closed. In a Facebook post announcing its temporary closure, Luka’s Taproom & Lounge said: “We come from the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, France, Brazil, Cambodia and other places around the world. We are immigrant run and support immigrant rights as part of the universal rights of man on which our country was founded.”
Tens of thousands of protesters walked off the job in cities across the country including Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Houston, Chicago and New York. But some critics wondered if the immigrants participating in the walkouts were merely sacrificing a day’s pay and only hurting themselves. And a museum in Massachusetts even removed all of the artwork created or donated by immigrants and replaced it with black cloth and the words “created by an immigrant.”
“I think it’s kind of selfdefeating in a lot of ways because, really, nobody is much inconvenienced,” said Joe Guzzardi, spokesman for the grass-roots organization Californians for Population Stabilization. “If a certain venue is closed — whether it’s a restaurant or a coffee shop — there are other places where people can go and patronize.”
The protest is the latest in a string of actions inspired by the historic 2006 immigration-reform protests and the 2004 political satire “A Day Without a Mexican,” which built momentum in a decadeslong debate that rages on today.
Other actions are sure to follow — organizers plan to protest the Trump administration’s recent ICE raids during a gathering at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco Friday evening.
ICE officials said rumors of roundups at schools or in other locations in the Bay Area have been “entirely false.”
“Baseless reports like this create mass panic and put communities and law enforcement in unnecessary danger,” said ICE spokesman James Schwab Tuesday in a statement following rumors of enforcement activities at a school in San Jose.
Thursday’s walkouts were the latest episode in a drawn-out war between immigrant communities and President Donald Trump, who has vowed to double down on deportations and punish sanctuary cities that protect undocumented immigrants.
The Half Moon Bay Brewing Company closed for the day, in solidarity with many of its employees. Owners of the Bay Area’s Tacolicious restaurants gave employees the option of protesting or coming to work. The business donated its sales Thursday to the American Civil Liberties Union, according to co-owner Sara Deseran, who said immigrants are the backbone of California restaurants. Chavez Supermarkets in San Jose also closed for the day.
“Not only are they an essential part to our restaurants’ success, but they’re family,” she said. “What we hope is that people realize how crucial this (action) is. The immigration policies in the U.S. need to change, not go backwards in time.”
Jose Manzo, superintendent of the Oak Grove School District in San Jose, said fears of ICE raids have significantly lowered student attendance this week. Among the school’s 10,500 students, absences jumped from 279 students on Tuesday to 788 on Thursday, according to Manzo.
He noted that Oak Grove has only a moderate enrollment of Latino immigrants and said school districts with higher immigrant populations likely saw a greater impact.
Educators also reported a significant number of absences at schools in the East Bay, although it wasn’t clear why, with as many as 200 students absent at Dover Elementary in San Pablo, according to Demetrio Gonzalez, president of the United Teachers of Richmond CTA/NEA.
Not everyone was ready to support the protest. In a letter to students and their parents, Redwood City School District Superintendent John Baker encouraged families to bring their kids to school.
“We have heard that some families plan not to send their children to school tomorrow, either to participate in a Day without Immigrants event, or to get a head start on the 4-day President’s Day weekend. I want to encourage all parents to please bring your students to school tomorrow.”
Critics said immigration officials should have used the strike as a day to single out immigrants who are in the country illegally or to carry out more raids. Others said they supported the strike, so long as the immigrants protesting arrived here legally.