Al Abut

SF Protest March

Monday, May 01, 2006

Update: For those that got this post in their email or feed reader earlier this week, I made a mistake about the name of the protest. I accidentally wrote the title of that horrible movie A Day Without A Mexican instead of A Day Without An Immigrant. It definitely wasn't intentional, it was simply an embarrassing slip. Considering that my girlfriend Yesi is Salvadorian, I was a Poli Sci major at our nation's largest border town, and (most importantly) I'm a huge soccer nut, I'd have to be quite the numbskull to not notice that Latino immigrants are from a wide assortment of countries and I didn't mean to imply the opposite at all.

Today at lunch, I cruised down to where the city-wide A Day Without An Immigrant protest marches were all converging, since it was only a block from work. It was packed but wow, I had no idea how much! When I was at the street level, I only had a hunch about how big this thing was. I knew it was tens of thousands of people - you just don't realize the scale of something like that until you see pictures.

My little contribution was to wear a name sticker that said "Immigrant" on it all day, since I am one. It was just the funny little conversation starter with coworkers I'd hoped it'd be. I thought about taking the day off but around here, that would have been preaching to the choir. If I was in San Diego, on the other hand...

It was wonderful and inspirational to go to, something so exciting and hopeful that it's difficult to even put into words. Seeing all those bright happy faces, seeing the solidarity of the Mexican lunch place next door being closed, the loud drums resonating up from the streets to our 12th floor and demanding to be noticed - it was simply great.

My friend Oso has an in-depth discussion of what the day means and more usefully for non-Spanish speakers like myself, a roundup of Spanish language blogs commenting on the issue. And be careful not to stereotype - one of his friends and regular commentators runs the Hispanic Pundit, a conservative political blog (he's noticeably silent on this issue, though).

(pictures and links via boingboing)

elsewhere on the web: adaywithoutanimmigrant, protest, march, SanFrancisco, immigration, InternationalWorkersDay, MayDay, GreatAmericanBoycott, ElGranParoAmericano, Boicot, ElBoicot, NothingGringoBoycott, HR4437