cesar chavez march/ pro-immigrant protest
Friday, March 31 my roommate Sam and I attended a pro-immigrant rally and march in El Paso, Texas with an estimated six-thousand other individuals. The original occasion for the gathering was the celebration of Cesar Chavez' birthday and continuing legacy. (Chavez, a Mexican-American, was the son of migrant farm workers who himself picked crops starting at age ten. He grew to be a labor organizer and activist who founded what is now known as the United Farm Workers). Because of the attention that immigration legislation is currently receiving, leaders of the March 31 El Paso event decided to honor Chavez while also addressing immigrant rights.
We gathered in San Jacinto Plaza, a well-known downtown square to hear encouragement from a range of speakers from local politicians to an enlivened local poet-activist, La Rana (The Frog).
After a time we marched the ten or so blocks from the plaza down to the border, where we found ourselves sandwiched on three sides between the Migrant Farm Workers Center, a US Border Patrol Holding facility, and the US/Mexican border.
It seems that my overall reaction to the march is much like my overall reaction to life on the border in general. It's a bunch of extremes all smashing into each other. Elder priests and nuns and braceros (WWII era farm laborers) marched alongside teenagers. Students proud of their immigrant parents and Mexican heritage marched alongside kids who were looking for an excuse to ditch school. Established politicians spoke alongside an anti-establishment poet. We ended the march standing in the street between the Migrant Farm Workers Center (a shelter, resource, and advocate for undocumented labors) and a border patrol facility (where Mexican migrants are held before being walked across the bridge to their home country).
It was a powerful experience and something I was honored to be a part of.
[and i should credit my roommate sam for most of the writing done in this entry....]
We gathered in San Jacinto Plaza, a well-known downtown square to hear encouragement from a range of speakers from local politicians to an enlivened local poet-activist, La Rana (The Frog).
After a time we marched the ten or so blocks from the plaza down to the border, where we found ourselves sandwiched on three sides between the Migrant Farm Workers Center, a US Border Patrol Holding facility, and the US/Mexican border.
It seems that my overall reaction to the march is much like my overall reaction to life on the border in general. It's a bunch of extremes all smashing into each other. Elder priests and nuns and braceros (WWII era farm laborers) marched alongside teenagers. Students proud of their immigrant parents and Mexican heritage marched alongside kids who were looking for an excuse to ditch school. Established politicians spoke alongside an anti-establishment poet. We ended the march standing in the street between the Migrant Farm Workers Center (a shelter, resource, and advocate for undocumented labors) and a border patrol facility (where Mexican migrants are held before being walked across the bridge to their home country).
It was a powerful experience and something I was honored to be a part of.
[and i should credit my roommate sam for most of the writing done in this entry....]
posted by josie at 11:21 AM
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