POV: The Santa Barbara Immigrant Protest March
I was crossing the street to go from my office in downtown Santa Barbara to the gym and ended up smack dab in the middle of my first protest march. Signs, flags and chants swirled all around me. My heart pounded while I got caught up in the emotion. My camera phone snapped this image. It was engrossing and magnetic, so I didn't give it a second thought when I decided to skip my workout and stay.
Young, old, families, a grandmother in a wheelchair, babies, a barking dog, a father with his daughter perched on his shoulders waving an American flag, a boy using an empty Arrowhead bottle as a drum - all gathered to protest HR 4437. I stood there for a good 45 minutes, beginning to end, as they all pressed on. A police officer estimated 10,000; today's paper said it could have been 20,000. Curb to curb for 7 blocks, they moved like a slow rolling wave. All were peaceful, smiling and most of all united. I was struck by how well organized it was. Young men in red t-shirts with "SECURITY" scrawled in black marker kept everyone in step. Women with bull horns rallied the crowds. And so much patriotism for this country, with lots of red, white and blue adornments and American flags, it was almost hard to find a Mexican flag. This is what I observed:
Chants:
"Si se puede!" Yes we can.
Signs, mostly scribbled on pieces of cardboard:
"We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us."
"We love America, we want to stay here."
"HR 4437" circled and slashed.
"Hate is not activism."
"Don't make me divide up my family."
"Keep marching, only 200 miles to the Mexican border." This one was held on the curb. A policeman stood nearby, but he wasn't needed.
"Today we march, tomorrow we vote."
"We are all immigrants."
Don't I know it. My people got here on the Mayflower; I guess that makes me an undocumented Mayflower immigrant.
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Comments (2)
This issue has been poignant for me. What I keep thinking is that the only people I see in the streets are the people who have recently come to this country. What will it take to bring the rest of us out into the streets? We were out there for a while when the government invaded Iraq. We haven't been out there to comment on the administration's leak of the name of an American operative. We missed our opportunity to ask for true Homeland Security when the media reported that the administration knew the potential damage Katrina could do. I wonder if everyone whose family has been here for several generations is as jaded as I am. I am inspired by the hopefulness that I've seen in these protests - the belief that this is a better country than the places the protesters came from. That we have more freedom, more voice than El Salvador, Honduras, even Mexico. It also makes me realize the obligation we have as citizens to speak our truths to power.
Comment #1 Posted by: Heather | May 2, 2006 07:32 PM
May we all learn to gentle ourselves ...
To realize enlightenment is a journey of cultural, ancestral, personal, divine experience ...
That a ten-times greater economy awaits us ...
As we learn to give up the pain and abuse which separates us from sacred nature ...
And all our relations
Millennium Twain
Comment #2 Posted by: Millennium Twain | May 3, 2006 10:57 AM