01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 26, 2006

BY KAREN LEE ZINER
Journal Staff Writer

Carlos Arias and Winston Pena say they take in an average of $65,000 daily at their two Compare supermarkets in Providence. On Monday, however, their stores and what organizers predict will be hundreds of other Rhode Island businesses will close in support of a national May 1 general strike for immigrants' rights.

"I'm doing this from my heart -- it's something I feel that is right," says Pena, whose family emigrated from the Dominican Republic. Pena is also pragmatic; he says 75 percent of his customers are Hispanic, "and if you do not support them, maybe in the future they don't support me."

But some merchants say they do not intend to cooperate, and resent the request made by local strike organizers last week.

"I can't afford to close," says Richard Harootunian, whose grandfather opened Tony's Delicatessen on Broad Street in Providence in 1929. "I don't think people should tell you what you should do with your own business."

May 1 is especially bad, says Harootunian, "because food stamps, SSI checks, pension checks -- everything's [issued] on the first," and typically the first day of the month is one of the store's busiest.

The call for a nationwide boycott on Monday follows demonstrations in dozens of U.S. cities on April 10. Participants demanded "legalization, not criminalization" and a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in this country, part of the divisive debate on immigration reform that has paralyzed Congress and heated the airwaves.

Rachel Miller, director of Jobs with Justice, a member agency of the Immigrants United coalition, says the May 1 strike is being called "to highlight and emphasize the important role immigrants play and the impact they have on society and the economy."

Rhode Island organizers are dubbing it, "A Day Without an Immigrant."

Nationally and locally, strike participants are being asked to boycott work, school, stores and banks, and not to make phone calls (unless it's an emergency), buy alcohol or use their computers or the Internet.

Miller says people who marched in the April 10 demonstration have been asked to honor the boycott. Word has also gone out on Spanish-language radio stations, fliers, "and announcements from the pulpits" of local Catholic churches.

Along the primarily Hispanic commercial district on Broad Street in Providence, posters that stating the business will be closed on May 1 in support of immigrants, are hanging in windows of automotive shops, beauty salons, restaurants, markets and check-cashing centers.

Juan Garcia, head of the Immigrants in Action Committee (Comite de Inmigrantes en Accion de St. Teresa) at St. Teresa Church in Olneyville, is part of an organizing group that has been going door-to-door or working a phone tree, asking businesses and individuals to join the boycott.

An estimated 500 to 600 Rhode Island businesses have pledged to honor the boycott, according to Garcia.

"We have people closing in Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence and Newport. And right here in Providence, [businesses] on Manton Ave., Elmwood, Chalkstone, Broad Street, Atwells," have agreed to close, he says.

But Garcia said he was disappointed that some businesses plan to remain open. While not Hispanic owned or operated, those businesses have a largely Hispanic customer base, he says.

"That's their decision," says Garcia. "But we say to the people who don't close, right now is a time for business to support the [Hispanic] community," that has supported them "for years and years."

Garcia stresses, "We are not forcing anyone to close."

Roger Pelletier, who owns Providence Automotive Engineering Co. on Broad Street, does not want to close, "but I'm afraid if I do stay open, are they gonna ruin the place -- vandalize it?"

Pelletier says he was approached last week by two people whom he says "were Dominicans with a poster and everything -- they just asked me if I was willing to close [the shop] to help them support that immigration thing, whatever that is that they're fighting."

He adds, "I do a lot of business with Hispanic people. They're fine to do business with. But I can't see losing a day of wages for this whole thing. What are they gonna gain from this? I can't understand."

Pelletier says, "I've been here 46 years. I pay taxes, I pay workers' comp, I have Blue Cross" for his employees. "Now who is gonna come in here and tell me what to do? I was here first."

Juana Horton, chairwoman of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and president and CEO of Horton Interpreting Services, says the chamber will honor the strike by closing its office in Providence.

"We have a respect and a belief that this is a very, very important statement," Horton says of the strike. However, for each of the chamber's 75 members, "it's an individual decision," she adds.

Horton says her own interpreting service likely will not close, "because we provide emergency interpreting services for the hospitals. So our business is kind of a little bit different. It's not a restaurant or a hair salon or a law firm. The person we would be hurting would be Hispanic."

An informal survey on Broad Street yesterday and Monday found numerous participants, including Adriana Carolina Delgado, owner of Carolina's restaurant, which specializes in piquant chicken, fried plantanas and other Dominican fare.

"We know a lot of illegal immigrants, and we will support everyone," legal and illegals alike, says Delgado. "Those people who are anti-immigrant, they don't have god in their life. The immigrants come here to work, to send money to their families," she says. "American people don't want to do the dirty jobs."

The Immigrants United Coalition includes: Local Council 94; The Guatemalan Alliance of Rhode Island; ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now); The Mexican-American Association of Rhode Island; Immigrant Students in Action; SCIU Local 615; DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality); the International Socialist Organization; Ocean State Action, among others.

kziner@projo.com / (401) 277-7375