HUNTSVILLE – “Si se puede!,” Spanish for “Yes, we can!” was the rallying cry Monday as hundreds of north Alabama Hispanics gathered in Huntsville to protest federal legislation that would criminalize illegal immigrants and fortify the U.S-Mexico border.

Organizers of the Huntsville rally, Lili Serrano, along with sisters-in-law, Anna and Brie Serrano, instructed protesters to wear white and bring American flags to symbolize peaceful intentions and love of the United States.

A crowd of about 500 gathered several blocks west of the Huntsville courthouse square, chanting and waving placards expressing solidarity with a nationwide boycott, before marching eastward around the square. Police blockaded side streets and provided escorts for the marchers.

Across the nation the “Day Without Immigrants” attracted widespread participation despite divisions among activists over whether a boycott would send the right message to Washington lawmakers.

Huntsville’s rally drew a few spectators who also carried signs and shouted their own sentiments. One onlooker shouted at the marchers, calling them “communists,” but the demonstration remained peaceful despite even louder calls of “Se se puede!” from the marchers.

Lili Serrano, who was born in the U.S. the daughter of immigrants, said the majority of marchers came from Huntsville, Decatur and Athens.

An unnamed Pilgrim’s Pride worker at the Athens plant said about half of day shift workers were not at work despite receiving a letter in their Friday paychecks urging them to show up for work. The Pilgrim’s Pride day shift ended at noon rather than 4 p.m., but management posted signs saying that workers were to work Saturday to make up for Monday’s absence. One of three Wayne Farms plants in Decatur closed for the day.

Rey Lopez, a history teacher at Butler High School, did not march, but supported the protestors’ sentiments, saying, “everyone in America is descended from an immigrant.”

Lopez, an American citizen by right of his Puerto Rican birth, said he spent 24 years in the military before going to college to become a teacher.

“We are a nation of immigrants – we’re a melting pot,” said Lopez, who is in his third year at Butler and the school’s only Hispanic teacher. He said he is in favor of amnesty.

“If they have been in no trouble for five or 10 years, they should be able to apply for citizenship,” he said.

Lopez said there are 70 Hispanic students at Butler, 90 percent of whom are Mexican. He described one outstanding student, “Paola.”

“She has been here since she was 5—12 years—this is the only land that she knows. She speaks perfect English and carries a 3.7 grade point average. But she can’t qualify for a scholarship because she is technically an immigrant. She is an awesome student, awesome.”

An employee of Huntsville City Schools who preferred to remain anonymous said that the system has 830 Hispanic students and about 90 percent were absent Monday. She said that they would be marked as “unexcused absences” but they would not face the usual disciplinary action.

Marcher Gene Lankford of Collinsville, who held up one end of a banner and wore a button saying, “God’s Love Has No Borders,” and said he is the north Alabama coordinator of Hispanic Missions for the United Methodist Church, said “We’re all God’s children from a standpoint of faith.” He quoted Leviticus 19:34: The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself…”

Another marcher, Josè Garcia, said he has been in the U.S. since he was 16, when he came to Chicago with his parents from Mexico. His father worked as a janitor in a governmental building and Garcia works at G.E. in Decatur.

Ramon Cerro, another marcher, is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He was born in Argentina and has lived in the U.S. for 20 years. Cerro said he supports amnesty.

“These people work so they have the right to be united with their families,” said Cerro. “They do the work nobody else wants to do and for very little pay. If Americans are going to get mad, it should be at the companies who take advantage of them.”

Onlooker James Hobbs, an employee of C.F. Flags, said immigrants are “taking too many of our jobs – they’re taking over.”

Hobbs is not alone in his sentiments. Northeastern University in Boston economist Andrew Sum was quoted by CNNMoney.com as saying, “About 85.5 of every 100 new workers are new immigrants in this decade,” he said. “At no time in the last 60 years have we come close to this. They’re really displacing young workers at a very high rate.”

However, Sum acknowledges, “We couldn’t have grown nearly as much as we did in the ’90s if we didn’t have immigrants. And in the last few years our growth would have been slower.”

Another spectator at Huntsville’s rally, Brazilian-born Yara Ruther, who came to America when she was 7, said that she doesn’t believe that immigrants should get special considerations. She said she had no special English language teacher as a child, only her mother, who labeled common items such as “book” in English and expected her to pick up the language.

“They should learn to respect this country like our forefathers and learn its history because it is a beautiful history,” said Ruther. “They should pay taxes. They should also have to go to Iraq. My children, and maybe even my grandchildren, might have to go to Iraq. They should come in the front door like the rest of us immigrants, stand in line and work their butts off like the rest of us. If they don’t like it, don’t stay. But if they do stay, they must follow our laws.”