Oct 15, 2006 2:00 am US/Pacific
Protesters Disrupt Hispanic Festival In Riverside
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CBS) ―
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A woman looks at a passer-by as she demonstrates against the immigration laws being discussed in the US Congress in Los Angeles, CA 10 April 2006. (HECTOR MATA/AFP/Getty Images)
HECTOR MATA/AFP/Getty Images
About 40 activists disrupted the Press Enterprise's annual Hispanic festival to protest what they call anti-immigrant coverage in the newspaper's editorial pages.
Organized by a coalition of university students and community-based immigrant rights groups, the protesters marched through the annual Fiesta de la Familia and handed out fliers contesting the newspaper's
immigration coverage.
The newspaper, as well as its sister Spanish-language paper La Prensa, have hosted the two-day food and music Fiesta de la Familia in downtown Riverside for nine years to mark Hispanic Heritage month.
Leaders of the march said the festival celebrates the spending power of the Latino community, while the newspaper attacks immigrants on its editorial pages.
It's an attempt to cash in on the "purchasing power of the Latino/Hispanic community" without considering the well being of that community, said protest organizer Francisco Sola.
Sola pointed to a recent editorial supporting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent comments about Mexican immigrants. The governor said immigrants should assimilate and that too many Latino immigrants want to "stay Mexican."
An Oct. 12 editorial in the paper called on Californians to "embrace Schwarzenegger's message rather than condemn it."
The governor's statement "has been widely condemned as divisive because implies that maintaining our heritage and culture is not valued," the protest group said in a flyer.
Protest organizers included students from the Latino student organization MEChA at U.C. Riverside and Riverside Community College as well as from the National Alliance for Human Rights and Southern California Human Rights Network.
The group started at the Riverside Convention Center at 11 a.m. Saturday and walked to the festival on 10th Street. While at the festival, protesters passed out fliers denouncing the event in English and Spanish.
The Fiesta de la Familia festival will continue Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Protesters have said they will return to hand out flyers.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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