Hispanics protest immigration law

Ezequiel Gutierrez didn’t put out pastries Wednesday in his Russellville shop, Mexico Cakes & Bakery.

Juan Martinez kept the front door locked at his grocery store, Tortilleria Daisy.

Jaime Valdez did not oversee his commercial and residential properties.

And at least half a dozen chicken plants across the state were forced to shut down or scale back operations. The parking lot was virtually empty at a Wayne Farms poultry plant in DeKalb County that employs about 850 people.

Gutierrez, Martinez and Valdez are all legal immigrants in Alabama, but they stood in solidarity with other Hispanics across the state in protesting the new immigration law by keeping their businesses closed and their children out of school.

The protests were at least partially prompted by social media outlets such as Facebook, as well as a Spanish-language radio station in Birmingham.

Valdez said he would make efforts to use very little utilities, showering Tuesday night instead of Wednesday, for example, to further the idea that he had, in essence, left the state for the day.

He said Hispanics also tried to refrain from making purchases Wednesday to show how the economy would be affected without their tax dollars.

Valdez became a U.S. citizen in 1988, but he crossed the border from Guatemala into California illegally in 1980.

“I don’t forget — I was an undocumented, too,” he said. “I crossed the border undocumented, and I don’t forget what that was like.”

Russellville Mayor Troy Oliver said Franklin County might see some economic impact as a result of the protest.

“The Hispanic community has a large impact on the economy here and also on the school system,” he said. Because businesses were closing for just one day, however, he said the impact would be minimal.

Oliver said while he appreciates Hispanic residents’ exercising the right to peacefully protest, he does not encourage keeping children out of school, adding that he’d spoken with one boy who cried because he hadn’t been taken to class Wednesday.

“The white kids, too, are really worried about what’s going to happen to these Hispanic kids that they’re friends with,” Oliver said. “They’re truly concerned. So why bring (the protest) into the school system when the children are doing so well? Why get them focused on something that they really can’t do anything about and really shouldn’t know anything about until all of this is sorted out?”

Valdez said this was one time he could not honor Oliver’s wishes.

“He told me I should send my kids to school, and I said, ‘No, I’m disappointed now. I have to support the people who need it,’ ” Valdez said.

School officials in Franklin County said children of immigrant families who didn’t report to school Wednesday ultimately punished themselves, adding that unexcused absences lead to truancy issues.

The Russellville school system, with about 800 Hispanic students, had 170 students out Wednesday.

“We must follow board policy on attendance, and our hope is that they’re back in school (today),” Ramona Robinson, the system’s federal programs coordinator, said Wednesday.

At Tharptown School in Franklin County, where there is a significant population of Hispanic students — about 32 percent of the student body — there also were unusually high numbers of absentees.

Tharptown is one of the smallest schools in the county. There were 34 Hispanic students absent at the high school Wednesday and 39 of the 100 Hispanic elementary-age children.

“This is of great concern for us as a school system, but also as a state,” Tharptown Elementary guidance counselor Brandi Gholston said. “We could get into the emotional aspects of this all day long, but looking just at numbers, we stand to lose a lot of revenue. It hurts us financially when our average daily attendance takes a dive like this, but several days like (Wednesday) would really be devastating. The really sad thing is that these aren’t children who normally miss school at all.”

In Florence, Hispanic student absenteeism wasn’t higher than usual Wednesday, Superintendent Janet Womack said.

“Communication with these families has been the key on our parts,” she said. “I wasn’t alerted Wednesday to any unusually high absenteeism.”

An estimated 185,000 Hispanics live in Alabama. According to the latest census reports, the largest number of Hispanics reside in Franklin County. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 70 percent of the state’s Hispanic residents are Mexican.

Republican supporters say Alabama’s strict new immigration law was intended to force illegal workers out of jobs and help legal residents find work in a state suffering from high unemployment.

The law allows police to detain people indefinitely if they are suspected of being in the country illegally and requires schools to check the status of new students when they enroll.

Since a federal judge upheld much of the law two weeks ago, many frightened Hispanics have hidden in their homes or fled Alabama.

The Obama administration is among the critics of the new law and asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to at least temporarily block enforcement, arguing in court documents that the statute oversteps the state’s authority. It’s not clear when the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will rule on the administration’s request for a preliminary injunction.

Meet the Ideas for Good winners

Last year Toyota officially announced the Ideas for Good Challenge. Participants in the challenge were tasked with taking one of five Toyota technologies and creating a new non-automotive application that would benefit society. More than 4,000 valid ideas were received and ultimately five winners were chosen, one in each of the technology areas. Last week, the winners gathered in Pittsburgh for a prototyping weekend at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

The five winners, who are mentioned only by first name, joined forces with engineers from Deeplocal, CMU staff, Toyota employees and others to take these ideas and turn them into working prototypes, all in a single weekend. I had the opportunity to travel to Pittsburgh and watch these creative geniuses transform their ideas into something tangible.

Congratulations to all of the winners.

We all know that a bicycle helmet could save your life in the event of a fall, but what if that helmet could tell you whether or not you need to go to the hospital? That is what Stu (pictured second from left, below) wants the bicycle helmets of the future to do. Using T.H.U.M.S. (Total Human Model for Safety) technology, Stu envisions a bicycle helmet that can gather impact data and determine if the biker needs to seek medical attention based on this data. This same data could also be used to make better bicycle helmets.


Pure Air by Tim
A major health problem in developing nations is smoke-based illnesses caused when biomass is cooked indoors. If you’ve ever cooked over a live campfire, you know that if you are in the path of the smoke, you can end up a coughing mess. Millions of families deal with this issue daily because they have no choice but to use wood and other biomass fuels to cook indoors. Tim's idea (that's him pictured below) takes the solar panel used on the new Toyota Prius and converts it into a power-generating device for an exhaust fan. The fan can help pull the air out during the cooking process and improve the air quality inside the dwelling.


Power Plant Gym by Birken

Birken was the youngest winner in the contest and his idea has been brewing in his head since he was a teenager — taking the energy produced by gym equipment and converting it into usable power. Birken’s prototype used Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive to convert energy into enough power to charge an iPod or even a laptop.


Automated Firefighting Extension Ladder Guidance System by Fran

Fran can thank his 6-year-old for his winning submission. His children were playing fire rescue but there were no firemen around. Fran asked where the missing firefighters were and the children said it was too dangerous for them — and an idea was born. Fran’s idea uses Toyota’s Advanced Parking Guidance System to create a sensor pack that can provide firefighters with real-time data. The data provided helps firefighters make more informed decisions without putting them directly in harm’s way.