Chicagoans Go On Hunger Strike for Immigration Reform

By Micah Uetricht

Reverend Jose Landaverde stopped speaking mid-sentence as a cook placed a steaming plate of vegetables and beef with a side of homemade potato chips in front of him.

The table fell silent for a moment, as Eduardo Piña watched him, clutching his mug of water--the only thing he had consumed for two days. He paused, smelling the pastor's food. Smiling, he feigned a motion towards Landaverde's dinner, pretending to steal a floret of broccoli and pop it in his mouth, then laughed and sipped his water. He wouldn't be eating for another two days.

It was a moment of humor in the middle of a discussion in a Little Village cafe on a topic taken very seriously by both men: immigration reform, and the hunger strike completed by Landaverde, then taken up by Piña in an attempt to achieve it.

Rev. Landaverde, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Anglican Mission on 26th Street, had just completed a 15-day stint drinking only water and juice as part of a rolling hunger strike taken up by activists around Chicago to call for immigration reform that includes a moratorium on deportations. The longtime community activist has been arrested at recent civil disobedience actions, including in Broadview and at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services headquarters in Chicago; two weeks into his fast, he collapsed during a prayer service and was rushed to a hospital.

But the pastor, who came to the U.S. in the early 1990s after surviving torture in El Salvador during the country's civil war, does not pause to discuss any health problems he might have suffered during the hunger strike. Instead, he speaks of the future of the action, and what he hopes to accomplish.

"We've already achieved much, like the lawsuit against SB1070," he noted, referring to the recent federal suit against the new strict immigration law in Arizona, set to go into effect at the end of this month. "Progress has been made."

Piña acknowledged the steps forward, but said they aren't enough.

"We need a moratorium on deportations," he stated.

"Immigrants are strengthening this economy and this country, but our resources are going into raids and deportations. And then nothing happens to the people who are actually doing bad things."

Piña, who was born in Veracruz, Mexico, claims that for immigrants, the U.S.'s reputation around the globe does not match up with the realities of life here.

"The U.S. is known around the world as a country of freedom, but for immigrants, it doesn't exist," he said. "This country creates the conditions that force people to come here through globalization, and then persecutes them."

Piña's fast ended yesterday, and will be taken up by Chicago activists, including, he says, Rev. Jesse Jackson. Landaverde says he hopes to see the rolling hunger strike last for six months--unless, of course, satisfactory immigration reform happens first.