Jaime Contreras Quotations

We lack a national leader and national structure. Right now you have a lot of strong coalitions with a lot of different ideas of how to create this movement.

If we all participate, we will empower respect and real immigration reform.

What we want to achieve is to send a very strong message to the Senate, to the Congress in general and this administration that immigrants are fed up, that we are tired, that we work very hard.

I think that for the most part, people in the community understood the reasons why . . . we asked them to go to work and go to school. Rest assured, if we don't have a bill we can live with, we will have a general strike and a general boycott.

Our community has been ready to mobilize, though we have not been able to provide them with the structure and leadership. Now we are all connected. We are all coordinating through the Internet.

We have the same goals, and that is what is going to keep up strong.

We have been able to provide the leadership that our community needs.

We could do it and do it well, but this is not the right time to do it.

The sleeping giant is awake -- wide awake -- and we're paying close attention.

Some days, work is truly a four-letter word.

Any immigration reform has to be comprehensive and not mean-spirited.

This is something we need to take very seriously, and consider all the repercussions of not doing it right or of creating a backlash.

This is a movement. We're sending a strong message that we are people of dignity. All that we want is to have a shot at the American dream.

It's not what one does for a living but what one does while living that matters in the end.

It's premature to do the boycott May 1, given that the Senate doesn't get back in session until the week of April 23. We want to see what comes out of the Senate and what compromises (with the House) emerge before we do that.

No man or woman shall dictate my character, behavior or worth.

Immigrants are coming together in a way that we have never seen before, and it's going to keep going.

If you act crazy enough, people will leave you alone.

The longer the chain, the more humping will occur.