Another Baby for Immigrant Rights... We Were There

250,000 at City Hall and 400,000 on Wilshire Boulevard for immigrant rights


Me and Mama walking from Little Tokyo down Broadway
heading for the Metro subway


Me and Daddy crossing through MacArthur Park
heading for Wilshire Boulevard

We were there... it was amazing. We closed our childcare center today, so Maiya and I drove to my office and met Tony, along with 15 other of my co-workers in Little Tokyo. The freeway was wide open, and every shop I passed in the Garment District and Toy Town was closed. We left the office at 2:30pm, getting caught in the wall-to-wall masses still marching towards City Hall, and then taking the Metro subway to MacArthur Park and walking several miles down Wilshire Boulevard, through Koreatown. The streets were packed with people. We marched until almost 6pm turning around at WIlton Place, after running into one of Tony's former 4th grade students who is now an 11th grader. We walked back to Western and Wilshire and then took the Metro back downtown.

A day without immigrants? Huh, from where I was, immigrants were everywhere... entire families filling the streets waving American flags, chanting, singing, celebrating. In my head, I keep repeating, "we were there..." a line from one of Tony's poems written maybe 10 years ago. Maiya was wearing her "Activist" t-shirt and her stroller had a sign, "Another baby for Immigrant Rights."

Today, I felt proud to be an Angeleno. Si se puede.