Sept. 30: On the bus to Baltimore
Sept. 30: 'Justice for Janitors' in Columbus
Sept. 29: A day of stories on the bus
Sept. 29: Encountering protesters in Indianapolis
Sept. 29: Rallying outside Congressman's home office
Sept. 28: 'We need more good songs'
Sept. 28: Civil rights veteran provides encouragement
Sept. 28: A welcome from a U.S. Senator

Tuesday, Sept. 30: On the bus to Baltimore
By Michael Kuchta

ON THE BUS TO BALTIMORE ? We mostly cheered when we learned the Twins beat the Yankees in the first game of the American League playoffs. We mostly groaned as a steady parade of fellow riders proved how poorly they tell jokes.

Most of us danced in the aisles to a brief burst of James Brown on the bus speakers. At the end of another day that didn?t end until nearly 10 p.m., we chanted in mock rebellion at the prospect of yet another 5:30 a.m. wake-up call tomorrow: ?If we don?t get no sleep, you don?t get no justice,? ?No sleep, no justice? and ?Hey hey, ho ho, 6 a.m. has got to go.?

But what really got Minnesota Freedom Riders going Tuesday was a discussion about power.

Pablo Tapia, from the Twin Cities church coalition Isaiah, lit the fuse, first with a role-play that more than made his point about how easily people give away their power, then by throwing out the definition that ?Power is the ability to act.?

Pablo Tapia leads a discussion about power. Photo by Michael Kuchta

Opinions flew like the shuttlecock in a spirited game of badminton. Who controls power? How do you get more of it? Does power automatically corrupt ? or is it more like money, a neutral force that can be used for both good and bad? And speaking of money ? do you need it to have power? If so, how much to make it really count? If not, how do you explain the reality that 5 percent of Americans control more than 75 percent of the nation?s wealth?

There wasn?t anything that resembled consensus, but plenty to decide another day. If not, why ride?

The day ended with the most relaxed event of the entire journey ? a relatively unstructured, homemade dinner at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church in Baltimore, where noted activist Philip Berrigan once served as priest. But even after letting loose with an extended round of singing and dancing, we put only a small dent in the seemingly endless supply of deserts. Carryouts are a wonderful thing.

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Olegario Ledesma, from Voces de la Frontera in Milwaukee (above, in green jacket) and Miguel A. Barron Luna, of SEIU Local 26, drum up support for janitors in Columbus during a rally Tuesday. Below, Jamie Gulley, of Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 21 in Rochester, and Susan Kang, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, rally Tuesday for janitors trying to organize in Columbus, Ohio.

Julia Dreier, of the Twin Cities Religion and Labor Network, and John Burczek, of St. Thomas University, rally Tuesday for janitors trying to organize in Columbus, Ohio. Photos by Michael Kuchta

Tuesday, Sept. 30: 'Justice for Janitors' in Columbus
By Michael Kuchta

Columbus, Ohio ? One thing about the Freedom Ride. Wherever the buses show up, it?s an instant rally.

That was twice as true Tuesday morning. The two Minnesota buses crossed paths with buses from Portland and Seattle; together, they rattled some windows at the largest commercial office building downtown.

Banging homemade drums, shaking aluminum cans filled with stones, and chanting ?Minnesota, Seattle, united in the battle,? the riders stood in support of a yearlong Justice for Janitors campaign being run by SEIU Local 3.

The rally combined two themes of the Freedom Ride ? workplace and immigrant rights. SEIU is trying to organize about 1,000 janitors in Columbus; half of them immigrants, most of them making less than $8 an hour. ?Without our work, these buildings wouldn?t function,? said Marcella Martinez.

Columbus has the second-largest population of Somali immigrants in the United States ? behind only Minneapolis. But Somali janitors working for ABM Lakeside are forbidden from taking even three minutes from their workday to pray at sunset, as their faith requires, said Deborah Schneider, an international vice president for the Service Employees International Union.

Even though ABM Lakeside has signed master agreements with SEIU for buildings in Cleveland, New York and Chicago, she said, ABM refuses to recognize union representation in Columbus, saying it?s not a union town.

ABM also faces a growing list of labor law, wage and hour, and civil rights charges, Schneider said. ?Workers have endured threats, intimidation, coercion and even termination.?

The rally ended a visit to Columbus that featured not one, but two, receptions for the riders. In events prominently attended by the mayor and a legion of other elected officials and dignitaries, the riders made sure things didn?t get too self-righteous by breaking out in energetic binges of chanting that made the urgency of their goal unmistakable.

Even between the bouts of boosterism at the head table, the core messages of the ride found new words.

?Civil rights and liberty for all are empty words for immigrants in this country,? said Jim Lowe, AFL-CIO field mobilization director for the AFL-CIO.

?In a country that professes that all men are created equal, it is wrong to hold some people down while holding other people up,? said the Rev. Vincent Frosh, a co-president of the interfaith group Bread. ?It doesn?t matter what country you were born in, you are now part of this wonderful country we call the United States.?

Maria Silva, training coordinator for Pinesos y Compesinos Unidos del Noroeste in Oregon, paid tribute to those who pointed the way for this ride ? the farmworkers? campaigns and the civil rights movement of African-Americans.

Black leaders in the Pacific Northwest encouraged the ride, she said. ?We?ve seen so many injustices,? she said they told her. ?We will not let other people be exploited for 200 years the way we were.?

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Monday, Sept. 29: A day of stories on the bus
By Michael Kuchta

ON THE BUS IN OHIO ? It was a day of stories on the People bus Monday, as Minnesota Freedom Riders rolled into the Eastern Time Zone in cool but sunny weather.

With more than 9 hours of highway to cover, riders began to of tell the very personal past that remains with them, and of the future they hope to create through this ride for themselves, their families and their country.

?The United States we hear about is not the country we experience,? said Yabesh Osnungo, who came here from Kenya two years ago after being forced out of his job for helping to lead a nurses? strike.

Onsungo, whose wife and four children remain in Kenya, expressed frustration at not having his credentials and experience recognized in trying to resume his nursing career.

?To get your certificates recognized is hell,? he said.

He told of a friend, a professor from Ethiopia, who has his articles and other published works being used in classrooms in Minnesota, yet is prevented from being able to teach in those very same classrooms.

Onsungo may not be able to continue nursing, but he hasn?t stopped organizing. While going to school, he is working with the Twin Cities Religion and Labor Network through the Organizing Apprenticeship Program.

Chuck Wilt and Zoe Massaquoi discussed the immigrant experiences of their families.

Chuck Wilt, a retiree from Minneapolis, arrived on the ride from a completely different perspective. His ancestors, he said, came to these shores in 1650. Then, he says, they spent generations ?discriminating against the people who came after them?. That?s why I?m on the ride and involved in other things I?m involved in, to make up for what my ancestors did.?

Family separation is a reality that riders can?t hide.

Zoe Massaquoi told of having her mother, brother and other family members killed in one day during the long civil war in Liberia. Massaquoi, a former deputy finance minister in Liberia, has been granted asylum in the United States. But her five children remain in Ghana, and other family members remain in Liberia. They all depend on her for financial support.

?You work 16 hours a day and have nothing in the bank to show for it, because we have to make sure our family is taken care of,? she said.

Most of the stories are told in the increasing familiarity of the bus. But some are shared more widely, at rallies or in interviews with media in the cities riders visit.

Araceli Zarate and a rider using only her first name of Rosa point out that workers often come here because it is the best ? and sometimes only ? chance to support their families, even if that means leaving some of that family behind.

Zarate, of SEIU Local 26, ahas two children with her in Minnesota, but two children who remain in Mexico. Rosa, of Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 17, had to leave two children behind in Ecuador. Both have worked here for nearly a decade, but can?t obtain the legal status that would allow them to bring their children here, or to go back and visit and still be able to legally re-enter the United States.

?We are asking that you help us and support us so we can have our families together,? Zarate said at a rally in Indianapolis.

There were more than personal stories, too.

Riders watched one video about the Holiday Inn Express case in Minneapolis, in which hotel management called the INS on workers who voted to join HERE Local 17. It was that fight ? to prevent the deportation of eight workers trying to exercise their workplace rights ? that is credited with prompting the AFL-CIO to change a policy that for generations had seen immigrant workers as a threat.

Riders also viewed the Ken Loach movie ?Bread and Roses,? based on the Justice for Janitors campaign in Los Angeles in the 1990s. But the fictional story of janitors ? most of the immigrants ? trying to form a union became all too real at a Justice for Janitors rally Tuesday morning in Columbus, complete with the singing of ?No Nos Moveran?.

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Supporters in Indianapolis send the Minnesota riders on their way Monday afternoon with prayers. Photo by Michael Kuchta

Monday, Sept. 29: Encountering protesters in Indianapolis
By Michael Kuchta

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. ? As if Freedom Riders needed reminders of the opposition they face, about half-a-dozen protesters awaited them in Indianapolis, including some waving a flag bearing the Nazi swastika.

Outside of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in the Haughville neighborhood, police easily outnumbered the protesters. Inside the church gym, supporters tried to make it clear that the message of hate was a minority opinion.

?What this ride stands for is in direct contradiction to those unfortunate, misguided individuals across the street,? said Noel Beasley, and international vice president for UNITE.

?What?s sad about the people outside,? said Salvador Aguilar, District 7 organizing director for the United Steel Workers of America, ?is that they are descendants of people who fled the very things we are fighting against.?

Pearlie Dean, of SEIU Local 113, connects the goals of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride to the civil rights struggles of African-Americans during a presentation Monday afternoon at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Indianapolis.

If the protesters did anything, they reinforced a point that Pearlie Dean, of SEIU Local 113, and a number of other speakers have made: This Freedom Ride is the rightful continuation of the civil rights struggles of half a century ago.

?We?re here to do some things, Dean said. ?Like in the ?60s, we?re scared, but we?re doing something.?

As it was then, Dean said, success will depend on people of all colors, faiths and backgrounds working together. ?We all need each other,? she said. ?This country is not free till we?re all free.?

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Laura Gaitan, of Richfield, signs a petition for Wisconsin Congressman James Sensenbrenner. Gaitan is from Centro Derechos de Laborales and the Progressive Technology Project in St. Paul.

Monday, Sept. 29: Rallying outside Congressman's home office

BROOKFIELD, Wis. ? Freedom Riders interrupted the calm of a tree-lined suburban office park Monday morning for a blitz of the office of Congressman James Sensenbrenner.

Riders and immigrant rights advocates in Milwaukee are targeting Sensenbrenner because, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he controls the fate of legislation that would make it possible for immigrant students living in the United States to attend American colleges.

Advocates would like Sensenbrenner to co-sponsor the legislation or, at the very least, quit being an obstacle and allow a hearing and action on the bill (HR 1684).

?At this point, he won?t sponsor it or schedule it,? said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, of the Milwaukee advocacy group Voces de la Frontera. ?He killed it last year by not calling for a vote.?

As riders and other crowded into Sensenbrenner?s office and the hallway outside, Neumann-Ortiz explained what advocates want Sensenbrenner to do. They refused to let chief of staff Tom Schreibel avoid scheduling Sensenbrenner for a meeting to discuss the legislation.

The House legislation is called the Student Adjustment Act. Its Senate companion (S. 1545) is the more widely publicized Dream Act.

Both bills would address obstacles facing an estimated 50,000 high school graduates each year. Even though they have lived in the United States for more than five years, it is almost impossible for them to continue their education or obtain work permits because they originally were brought to the U.S. by parents lacking legal documentation.

The legislation would allow states to determine their own definition of ?resident? students and allow students who meet certain criteria to apply for legal residency.

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Sunday, Sept. 28: 'We need more good songs'

Michael Kuchta, editor of the Union Advocate in St. Paul, is on board one of the buses. He filed the following reports on the riders' first day, as they left St. Paul and traveled through Wisconsin.

ON THE BUS IN WISCONSIN ? We need more good songs, more lyrics to the songs we think we know, and it would be nice to be on schedule. But otherwise, things are rolling smoothly for Minnesota riders on the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride.

Monday ? if we make it through Chicago traffic ? it?s on to Indianapolis and Columbus.

Ninety riders nearly fill two coach buses ? one called People, the other called Power. To cut down on the need for translations, riders are divvied up by language ? those who speak primarily Spanish in one bus, those who speak English or are bilingual in the other. But we?re all learning quickly ? besides ?Si, se puede,? many can now say ?Yes, we can? in Swahili, Oromo and Somali, too.

Altogether, it turns out, riders speak at least 14 languages ? not counting, as rider Marv Davidov puts it, those who speak sense and nonsense. The riders come from 14 countries beside the U.S., from at least 8 unions, and from nearly a dozen community and religious groups.

Education is a big part of the trip. Sunday, we got a quick introduction to some of the reasons our fellow riders came to the U.S. ? fleeing civil war, poverty, genocide or religious persecution; reuniting with family members; or seeking a job, education or freedom. We learned some of the differences of what it means to be classified an immigrant, a refugee or an asylee. We began to hear first-person stories of the toll that living as immigrants takes on families and individuals.

We saw and discussed a video about the fast-growing immigrant population in Houston, and how unions, immigrant workers and activists from the Hispanic, African-American and other ethnic communities are working together to minimize competition, tension and misunderstandings. They?re also finding ways to fight problems such as exploitation of day laborers.

Pedro-Jesus Romero-Menendez and Lu Samaniego lead singing during breakfast Monday morning at the Cousins Center in Milwaukee. Romero-Menendez is working at Centro Campesino in Owatonna as an intern through the Organizing Apprenticeship Program. Samaniego is from Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 21 in Rochester.

Serious stuff, all of it, broken up ? at least on the People bus ? by occasional comic relief from Davidov or Lu Samaniego, a rider from Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 21 in Rochester.

But the most serious time was no-nonsense training for what to do if law enforcement officials pull over the buses. It?s no theoretical exercise, either; on Thursday, border patrol agents stopped the buses from Los Angeles. Riders were delayed for three hours outside El Paso, Texas, as authorities took some riders off the bus to question them.

The training makes it clear that we say nothing. Such unified action is vital, organizers say, to maintain solidarity and to protect all riders, especially those whose documentation may be questioned.

The only ones supposed to speak are specific riders designated as spokesmen or legal observers. The rest of us, if questioned, are simply supposed to show our ID badges and a card we wear around our necks. The card reads, in part: ?I am a participant in ? a peaceful campaign by citizens and immigrants in support of equal rights for all workers. I wish to exercise my right to remain silent. I will not speak to anyone, answer questions, respond to accusations, waive any of my legal rights, or consent to any search.?

Minnesota riders left from the Neighborhood House on St. Paul?s West Side about 8 a.m. Sunday. The Rev. Doug Mork, of the Twin Cities Religion and Labor Network, was among clergy and others offering prayers before the buses left.

Mork prayed not only for safety, but also ?for a new order in which people are not oppressed, in which immigrants are seen as brothers and sisters, in which people may know their common humanity.?

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Volunteer Oscar Gardego serves lunch at the Madison Labor Temple to Lucy Duroche, of Carpenters Local 1644 in Minneapolis. Photo by Michael Kuchta

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Sunday, Sept. 28: Civil rights veteran provides encouragement

MILWAUKEE ? A fiery speech by the Rev. James Lawson and a rousing welcome at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church capped Day One of the Minnesota leg of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride with an exclamation point.

Riders arrived at the South Side Milwaukee church just as Lawson -- an original leader from the civil rights movement in the 1960s -- was concluding a blistering statement challenging the priorities of those in power in Washington.

?The Freedom Ride is a sign that it?s time for the people to rise up and again become a force for freedom,? Lawson said.

Riders ? as they had earlier in the day ? then heard painful stories that reinforced why the ride is necessary.

Mariana Lezama, of the church coalition MICAH, gave a glimpse of the hardship her family faces since her husband was deported three years ago. He had legal residency status until 1996 changes in immigration law forced his deportation, she said.

?I live in Milwaukee without my husband,? Lezama said. ?Our two sons live in Milwaukee without their father?.

?Immigration laws are anti-family,? she declared, ?and laws that are anti-family are anti-American.?

Her testimony, like many others?, was interrupted by clapping, foot-stomping and raucous chants of ?Si, se puede? and ?Yes, we can!?

Juan Evangelista, who is now working with the Laborers Union, told of contractors who routinely take advantage of immigrant workers, forcing them to remove asbestos without proper training, without proper safety equipment, without proper procedures and without proper cleanup.

Jaime Gonzalez, also of MICAH, urged workers to get angry about the way they are treated. ?They ignore our rights, they ignore our safety, they pay us less,? Gonzalez said. ?We can work here, but we can?t raise our families here.?

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Sunday, Sept. 28: A welcome from a U.S. Senator

MADISON, Wis. ? U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin told Freedom Riders Sunday that American immigration policies must be rewritten.

In a brief speech at the Madison Labor Temple, where riders stopped for lunch, Feingold said: ?We must respect the laws of this country, but some laws must be changed.?

Standing in front of a banner that stated ?Labor Rights, Immigrant Rights, The Same Struggle,? Feingold singled out laws that keep families apart, limit the ability of even the best immigrant students to attend college, and give immigrant workers even fewer rights on the job than American workers get.

Feingold picked up a theme introduced by rider Jorge Flores, of Centro Derechos de Laborales at the Resource Center of the Americas. ?If the law has turned into a way to break up families, then we need to change it,? Flores said. ?If we are breaking up families, then we are violating a basic human right.?

Jaye Rykunyk, president of Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 17, said: ?If America is the home of the brave, then it is also the land of the free. That is the promise these brave riders are going to Washington to demand?. This ride is for the promise of America.?

Although running behind schedule, as they had all day, riders did stop briefly in nearby Jefferson, where they joined a rally in support of UFCW workers who have been on strike for seven months against Tyson Foods.

Senator Russell Feingold

Jaye Rykunyk

Abdul Jama (left), of SEIU Local 26 in Minneapolis, and Amina Arte of Rochester, grab some lunch in Madison. Photo by Michael Kuchta

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