Boycott leaves restaurants scrambling (TX)

[struggle4progress]

Some eateries are closing for immigrant workers' 'Day of Action'
10:02 PM CDT on Thursday, April 27, 2006
By DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News

Mario Ramírez plans to take a $25,000 hit to his business on Monday. He'll close his 12 taquerías and bakeries in solidarity with his workers, who want to participate in a national action day in support of immigrant rights.

"If this were an economics class, I would fail," Mr. Ramírez says. "But if this were a sociology class, I would get an A-plus."

On Monday many illegal immigrants and their supporters plan to stay off the job, make no purchases and join in rallies to show the value of America immigrants. The effort comes as lawmakers debate the most significant overhaul of immigration laws in two decades. <snip>

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/042806dnbusRestaurants.143869ce.html

[Erika]

1. American employers have engaged illegals

every since Reagan gave them amnesty and hope in 1986.

[struggle4progress]

4. "Illegal immigrants" has always been a mystification. Agreements ..

.. like NAFTA increased the mobility of capital, allowing companies to off-shore their work and further increase the insecurity of workers, which frightens workers into docility and depresses wages; there were supposed to be side agreements negotiated to stop the run to lowest-paid workers, but these never materialized.

The Reagan era was also characterized by new tools for union busting.

If we had meaningful protection against capital flight and against unfairly priced cheap good based on exploitation of labor abroad, that would increase worker security. And if we passed and enforced meaningful living wage laws at home, people fleeing poverty wages ABROAD wouldn't undercut workers' wages here.

By encouraging people to p!ss on "illegal aliens," the corporate class hope to confuse workers here about the true causes of their own insecurity ...

[spindrifter]

2. A restaurant owner

in Seattle is closing both of his places--no one will work at them on Monday. Our public transit is already making announcements that traffic is expected to take an hour longer during the afternoon commute.

[lovuian]

26. This will definitely send a Wake up call to Americans!!!

I await the results...

[TomInTib]

3. Go, Mario!! I love to eat and hang out at La Paloma in Oak Cliff.

[struggle4progress]

5. Is it a good place to eat? And is it in Oak Cliff?

I used to live in the Big D and get back every once in a while. When I do, I'm always desperate for some good TexMex.

[TomInTib]

7. He has a bunch of them all over Dallas.

But be forewarned, La Paloma is the sort of taqueria you would find in Mexico. Lengua, tripes,etc.

As far as great MexTex (which I far prefer to TexMex) my favorite place is in Oak Cliff across the street from Fiesta grocery store (I cannot remember the name of the place, but it serves the northernmost available machacado in the US).

If you are in Downtown or S Dallas do not fail to check out La Calle Doce in Oak Cliff. Es muy bueno.

[struggle4progress]

9. Gracias!

[TomInTib]

11. De nada

And then there is El Gallo del Oro on Harry Hines under the Tollway, the coolest greasy spoon MexTex in the world.

And if you like affordable Mexican seafood, La Jaivita on Harry Hines past Mockingbird is not to be missed.

I also can lead you to the not-quite-so-affordable places.

[struggle4progress]

17. I use to eat at a bunch of greasy spoons thirty years ago --

but they all went upscale.

Pietro's Italian used to be a one roomer with the lights down low (cuz they probably never swept the floor) in one of the brick complexes on Greenville: saw Jim Lehrer eatin there once, back about the time he wrote Viva Max and was workin with the local PBS affiliate. Stopped eatin there when they went upscale, cuz the prices got higher but the food got worse: don't know if they're still around.

It's been a while, so I'm forgettin the names, but IIRC Ojeda's was a greasy spoon back then too and ain't no more so downscale now. Chuy's on McKinney was satisfactory.

I prefer downscale generally: out in the countryside in the El Paso area, about ten years ago, I stopped at a tiny roadside place and gorged myself with some of the best I've ever had for about $5.

[fudge stripe cookays]

25. La Calle Doce rules!

I still haven't been to the original Oak Cliff location, but the one in Lakewood is lovely, and the food is awesome!

[VirtualChicano]

6. Deport All Illegals!

Send their butts back to europe NOW!

[katinmn]

8. Yes, all non-native people, get the hell out!

[struggle4progress]

10. !

[Zorra]

12. Native folks maybe should not have been so friendly to their

European visitors in the early days of the European colonization of this land.

In retrospect, if the peoples native to this land had killed off all the Europeans when they first "got off the boat", they might have retained their ancestral lands on this continent for a lot longer than they did.

Heck, they might even still be in control of the continent.

[Erika]

13. There are signs of established communities in New Mexico

way before the 1400's. We obliterated them and declared us as conquerors/liberators/reformers, or whatever. We took over and damn the natives.

I get a big hoot about the White European group saying all others should assimilate. Did they assimilate to the Indian culture?

[Divine Discontent]

14. yes WE would be still in command... our numbers would've increased!

someone above made a GREAT point, of course RAY-GUN made all those illegals citizens with his amnesty gift, because they wanted to BUST UP the unions, I've never thought it that way, THANK YOU it makes perfect sense! I will tell that to people constantly now.

www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable CHECK IT OUT I got a great anti-W pin to put on my purse!

[Erika]

15. Yes. Reagan let the illegals become citizens

in 1986. He was instrumental in doing away with the middle class and the economic downfall of this country. We're reaping what his ilk and his voters sowed.

But he saw to it he would receive a level of quality of health care none of the rest of us would receive.

[Divine Discontent]

16. right on!

and you try and talk these points to most repubs and they say you have no proof, you're blaming all the mistakes made on ONE MAN... etc... you've all heard it before.

makes me sick people won't see what laws they push through and justify as 'good for the country'...

[Igel]

20. So you want the W. Hemisphere to

be a nature preserve?

There are no humans native to the western hemisphere. Remember the 'out of Africa' business? We're all immigrants, some earlier than later. The Na-Dene, for example, are later--not as late as Europeans, but certainly later than the ancestors of the tribes in the Amazon.

It's probably that most of the N. American and Meso-American "natives" were invaders, and took over from earlier tribes, either ethnically cleansing them or committing genocide.

Welcome to a leitmotif of human history, where the "innocent" peoples are simply those whose history is least well known.

[katinmn]

22. forgot this

:sarcasm:

[fasttense]

18. Illegal employers are closing. I'm making a note of who is closed

on Monday and who is still open. I don't believe for one minute that a business will allow its legal workers, immigrant or not, to not show up on Monday and close their business down. Those stores that are open on Monday will get my business.

[BeFree]

19. Money before people, eh?

The poor downtrodden people who take a stand for their rights are ignored by the lovers of the money machine. Same old story with a new twist. Sad.

People First!

[fasttense]

23. Those poor downtrodden people who are illegal immigrants

are certainly not ignored by lovers of money. They are exploited at the expense of Unions and the American middle class. You are doing the corporatists' work when you support the influx of illegals.

[0007]

21. Tear down all fences in the World. Take down all military regimes

Use nuclear power for the well being of the citizens of the world. Cage all world leaders, presidents, kings, queens, prime minsters and tin horn dictators and put them all together without their interpreters.

[DeaconBlues]

24. Surprise. Surprise.

Collusion between illegal immigrants and the people who hire illegal immigrants. Mr. Ramirez gets an "A+" in economics no matter what he says, because keeping people here who work at slave wages and have no other workers protection IS in his financial interest....

I think I'll go on a spending spree on Monday.