Mark Your Calendars

By Robert Wilonsky Fri., Mar. 31 2006 at 1:29 PM

Categories: News

On Wednesday night, a Deep Ellum club employee said he had a scoop for me: "On April 10, all of the cooks are walking out." He talked about rampant rumors he'd heard about a Dallas-wide initiative that involves all Latino restaurant employees skipping out of work on the Monday after next as part of an even bigger and better-organized protest against federal immigrant legislation than this week's. The rumors had been picking up enough steam for him to be both concerned and happy; "It's gonna be a headache," he said at one point, only to follow with, "I'm all for it."

Unfair Park isn't in the rumor business (especially around this time of year), but rumor became fact when he followed up with a phone call and a link to this Web site. He mentioned that San Antonio and Houston were also a big part of this walkout, and the site lists even more major American cities (and doesn't have the restaurant-only stipulation that our original tipster mentioned).

A lot of talk around the recent student walkouts in Dallas made a point about how kids and teens protested on their families' behalf; this walkout, should it proceed as planned, will out a lot of workers and immigrants who aren't legally protected in ways their children are. More importantly, though, it will out just how essential immigrant labor is to Dallas' daily operations, which should provide a sorely needed eye-opener to anyone who laughed off the student protests. Good luck, folks. -Sam Machkovech

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