Absences were felt across the nation on Feb. 3, as people stayed home from work and school, and abstained from shopping to demonstrate for “a day without immigrants.”
In the Latino Research Center on the University of Nevada Reno campus, senior anthropology student, Dalia felt these impacts first hand.
Dalia said she wanted to stay home in solidarity, but couldn’t afford to miss school.
“We pay so much money for these classes, and we miss so much by missing one of them that we're kind of stuck,” Dalia said.
On the way into school though, she noticed that some Latino businesses in her community of Sun Valley were closed.
One such business was Mendoza’s Coffee. The coffee shop and cafe announced on their social media they would be closed in honor of “a day without immigrants.”
“Every single morning all the sheriffs go to their location,” Dalia said. “They were all just waiting there, and Mendoza’s was completely closed. I don't think they realized that they were gonna close.”
Dalia said it was powerful to see businesses taking action, and that this day was important to show how much the United States relies on the immigrant community. For her, as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in a mixed status family, it hit home.
“It's to highlight the importance that we play in the economy, but it's also to highlight that we're not just a labor force, that we're actually human beings too,” she said. “We're students, we're sons, we're daughters, we're fathers, we're mothers – we’re everywhere. And people need to recognize that we're people and that we deserve rights too.”
