Migrants' Boycott Plan Is Crossing the Border

"Send this message to as many people as possible!" read one sent by a video-rental shop owner in San Salvador to more than 200 clients. "Don't buy anything North American

Spreading now by word of mouth as well as through cyberspace, the campaign calls for a 24-hour boycott Monday of American businesses in Mexico and other Latin American countries. The idea is to show solidarity with immigrant rights protests scheduled in several U.S. cities that day.

This week, a growing number of business groups, trade unions and political leaders in Mexico said they planned to join the boycott, which will be on the traditional May Day holiday here.

Even though Internet access is still a luxury in Mexico (only 9% of households have it), word of the boycott is quickly spreading.

Teresa Garcia Hernandez, a 44-year-old nurse in Mexico City who doesn't surf the Internet, heard about the boycott from her teenage children.

"They're really excited about it and they're telling all their friends, cousins and uncles," she said. "They told me, 'Mama, since your friends don't have this thing called the Internet, you tell them in person not to buy anything gringo that day.' "

Many Mexicans are closely following the immigration debate in the United States. There is a growing sense among Mexicans that proposals being debated by the U.S. Congress could hurt millions of compatriots who crossed over illegally.

In Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, the Chamber of Commerce announced that its 5,000 members would neither buy nor sell U.S. products that day. And leaders of a Chihuahua state peasant group said they planned to block the bridges that link Ciudad Juarez and El Paso.

"For those of us who live on the border, it's to our advantage to shop in El Paso, but one day isn't going to hurt us," Ciudad Juarez resident Adriana Olague told the newspaper El Universal. "And this way we help the paisanos [countrymen] over there who are looking to get better treatment."

For some Mexicans, however, the talk of a boycott is worrisome.

In the Mexico City neighborhood of Anzures, Carlos Torres pointed out that his McDonald's franchise was the joint investment of "many families that are completely Mexican."