Take to the streets
In nearly every American city immigrants from the far reaches of the globe are joining in solidarity to demand their rights. They demand only what they have justly earned by the hardships endured on extended sea voyages in shipping crates from Hong Kong, deadly desert crossings from Mexico, and the many other myriad ways that immigrants make there way to our border.
These immigrants have earned the respect and dignity they demand through years of toil. Whether picking crops that supply our overstocked grocery stores or locked in a WALMART through the night expected to clean for little pay they have suffered as our government turns an official blind eye.
They have had enough. Their safety is being threatened by jingoistic Republicans desperate to garner votes in the fall elections by inflaming the latent racism and desperation of the white working class. These machinations will fail and through solidarity and public protest the deep believers in the promise of America who take to the street today will have their voices heard.
Immigrant communities, it is reported by the press, are divided over whether a strike is the best course of action. One need only look at the direct cause and effect of a few short weeks ago. The House of Representatives had passed reprehensible legislation that would have made the millions of undocumented workers who clean our offices and stores, pick our vegetables, and construct the edifices of our opulence into felons. In Los Angeles and elsewhere, students and workers took to the streets demanding justice.
Congress responded. The protests worked. The Senate reached a better compromise. The new position is not good enough, but those who took to the streets learned that they could stay the hand of intolerance through mass action.
Today is another opportunity and as I drove to work this morning I was excited to see the shops in the immigrant neighborhoods closed. I was glad to see traffic a little lighter than usual and imagined that all of those people would be joining the marches.
I'm at work today and not at the mid-day march. I will join the afternoon march for those who did not take off work. I am the descendant of immigrants, we all are. We all must turn out and show solidarity.
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Who is this guy?
Very moving words, and so true. Over the last couple of hundred years, how far has this country's government really evolved? From persecuting the original occupants of our land...to persecuting more recent immigrants?! Despicable!