As the bus sped through the New Mexico desert and into West Texas, Federico Gonzalez talked of his dream, an odd dream for an immigrant from Colombia. He wants to be an FBI agent.
Back home, he was studying to be a police investigator, but he dropped out of college because he was too poor to pay all the expenses.
Eager to support his girlfriend and infant son, he moved to Arizona and took a job as a roofer, attracted to the relatively high pay by immigrant standards -- US$9.50 an hour. But the work was grueling, 10-hour days in scorching heat. And he soon learned that there could be a price for protesting harsh conditions.
"They tell me this is the country of freedom," said Gonzalez, a passenger in the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a caravan of buses heading to Washington from 10 cities nationwide to campaign for immigrants' rights. "You're supposed to have the right to speak. But immigrants don't have the right to speak out on the job because they get fired."
Sitting alongside immigrants from Mexico, China, Sudan, the Philippines and elsewhere, Gonzalez, 26, helps keep everyone's spirits from flagging, banging out Latin rhythms on a drum and bantering nonstop about soccer, salsa and discrimination against immigrants.
"I can't wait until we get to Washington," he said. "I'm going to be screaming loud. I just want to make sure they listen to us."
The trip, by 900 riders on 18 buses, was inspired by the 1961 freedom rides that sought to integrate bus terminals in the American South. Today's riders are pushing for legalizing the status of illegal immigrants, more visas for family reunification and stepped-up protections for immigrant workers. Gonzalez's bus originated in Los Angeles, and he boarded in Tucson after a rally at the Roman Catholic cathedral that attracted 700 supporters.
"Immigrants do a lot of jobs that nobody else wants to do," he said. "They come here for one reason, to work. They make this place go. They help build America."
As a roofer, he worked such long hours that he did not have the energy to attend night school to study law enforcement. When he pushed to form a labor union to improve wages and conditions, he said, his employer dismissed him, suddenly telling him that his papers were not valid, even though it had long accepted his papers.
Gonzalez, who has not seen his son since leaving Colombia five years ago, now drives an ice cream truck. "I always heard about the American dream, and I'm still looking for it," he said.
He gestured to another passenger, Dhel Galwak Jourchol, a native of Sudan who immigrated to the US to escape his country's civil war. "We have a lot in common," Gonzalez said. "We both came to America alone, with no friends."
Jourchol first fled Sudan for India, where he obtained a law degree, and later the US granted him refugee status. "Since my childhood, I never have seen peace at all," he said. "The war started in 1983, and we run from the bush to other places. I don't know where a lot of my family is. I don't know if my parents are alive."
Although he is protesting immigration policy, Jourchol, 32, is a passionate cheerleader for America.
"I love the freedom here," he said. "I want to take the system here, and someday establish it in my country. We really appreciate what America has done for us, and we will pay you back someday."
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