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May Day: Si Se Puede |
| Southern Californians far and wide showed their support for migrant workers on Thursday, May 1, when roughly 8,500 people (according to the Los Angeles Times) marched through downtown Los Angeles to City Hall to rally for workers’ rights during the annual May Day march. It was a smaller, more peaceful gathering this year, relative to the previous year’s debacle when the police opened fire upon the crowd at MacArthur Park with rubber bullets and canisters of tear gas into a crowd that was more than 10 times larger last year than this year. Due to the unmanageable chaos and admitted error on the part of the Los Angeles Police Department, LAPD officers were retrained for this year’s event, and successfully, as the rally went over smoothly with no swinging of riot sticks or firing of weapons, causing the event to take on a much more festive feel. According to Lt. Reuben Delatora of the LAPD, last year’s incident was due to a lack of planning and coordination, a short fall that was fixed this year by improving six key points having to do with crowd control and other issues. “The story here is not with the police department,” said Delatora. “The story is in these groups, and we are here to facilitate their First Amendment rights. And if we can do that quietly and in the background, then we’ve done our job.” And although there was an undeniable sense of celebration in the air, as one could see marchers dressed in traditional celebratory Aztec garb performing traditional Aztec ceremonial dances, there was also the obvious presence of people who felt that they were being treated unjustly. According to Moeses Escalante, a community organizer for the Interface Coalition for Immigrant Rights, “This is a demonstration that has two goals that make one big goal. The first is to celebrate immigrant workers day, which is [May 1]. We want to be recognized as more than immigrants, we’re workers. And as workers, we are building this nation. The second, more important purpose that this day serves is it allows us as immigrants and as workers to act, and lift ourselves up into the public eye, and hopefully spark some kind of immigration reform. With a good immigration reform, we would no longer be persecuted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ‘ICE,’ which would allow us to produce better as workers, and allow us to live freely in this land of liberty.” American Apparel, a clothing company with a major production factory in the downtown area of Los Angeles, showed its support of the fight for immigrant worker’s rights by mass producing neon green signs and T-shirts that read “Legalize L.A.” Employees of American Apparel who attended the rally passed these signs and shirts out to the public, making quite a splash as the immense number of people toting these posters was seen far and wide throughout the demonstration. Tanner Elza, a Tech-Pack Specialist at the American Apparel factory in downtown L.A., said that the reason for the signs was to show support for the cause. “We’re trying to promote a broad reform in the legalization of immigration,” said Elza. “Our factory is a big supporter of this subject. We’re all about equal opportunity.” And among the sea of uniform green signs, a more modest, hand-made sign floated just below the level of the other pickets, held as high as possible by a pair of tiny arms above the head of a 12-yearold boy. The sign read “ICE: Why Did You Take My Father?” The well-spoken young boy gave a detailed narration of how ICE raided his house and took his father right before his own young eyes. The boy asked to be named only as Kevin in order to protect his mother, who is also currently illegally residing in this country. “I don’t need to lose her, too,” said Kevin. “I was born here, so ICE can’t deport me. But if my mom got deported I don’t know what I would do.” Kevin’s story is just one of the many that a broken system of immigration generates. Here in Los Angeles where our local economy relies so heavily on immigrant workers, May Day hits especially close to home, and is a crucial reminder that although not every member of this country’s workforce has a set of government issued papers to certify the legality of their employment and/or residency, they still contribute to our economy and society as much as any other hard-working, red-blooded American. |