With a Movement Like This, Who Needs Activists?
Latinos Protest The Criminalization of Immigrants
Story by Elizabeth Gonzalez
by David Madrid

Saturday, March 25th San José made history by joining millions across the nation to protest the proposed bill HR4437 that would criminalize undocumented immigrants and those who aid them. In East San José the sentiments of the Latino community against a bill that is aimed at them could not be ignored. We gathered in defiance, lead by only ourselves and demonstrated that this attack had made us activists, although that is not how we would describe ourselves by profession or hobby. There were parents, workers, students, and the sons and daughters of immigrants. They hadn't taken a class on activism or a course on organizing and weren't accustomed to holding signs at every rally. The spirit of movement is within them, and taking to the streets in mass is the way that they know change can come about.

From my house near the meeting point on Story and King Roads in East San José, I could hear the roar of the crowd and the horns honking. I couldn't miss this. The announcements that people should meet there at 9am had been all over the local Spanish radio stations and my family urged me to go and find out if it was really happening because they couldn't miss work.

The East Side of San José is home to ethnic, immigrant communities of San José, largely the Latino community. This is the community that witnesses the heaviest police presence, the side of town that the rest of San José is afraid to drive to and you are automatically labeled as poor if you are a resident of it. These are the people directly affected by the proposed legislation and finally we had had enough. This place was packed with the faces of the people who originally inhabited this land before it was part of the United States. In today's modern Silicon Valley they are still an integral part of maintaining the economy from the base, but always the first to be scapegoated.

The people I saw as I walked toward the intersection amazed me. Never before had I seen such a crowd gathered to protest against an injustice. Sure I have been to protests before in San José, but these people--my people, never make it to those protests. There were families pushing strollers packed with kids, there were mothers holding newborns in their arms, grandparents and teenagers. Everyone was there with their heads held high and their country's flags held even higher.

With the memory of proposition 187 still in the back of our minds, the racist minutemen patrolling the borders and the support they have gotten from our own Governor (who seems to have forgotten he immigrated to this country), we took San José by storm and sacrificed this Saturday to demand respect and acknowledgement that this country needs us and cannot continue to treat and portray us as villains in the story of the United States.

This day of protest was self organized, everyone was a leader—showing the traditional activists who act like the people need leaders, that the people carry all the capacity to defend themselves. In fact, those traditional activists –the ones that are at every march and rally--were not even present on the day that could have changed their lives and renewed their belief in a people's movement. It showed the detachment from the very community they say to be a part of, to be protectors of. This gathering wasn't passed along on a mass email, or in between progressive organizations, it was communicated through the radio stations that people connect with and from there it was word of mouth between families and friends.

That morning there was live broadcast from the rally, urging others to join them and the crowd called their families and friends on cell phones to get them to join. People in cars that passed by, found somewhere to park and came back to be part of the action that proudly stated that no permits were bought to rally or march in the streets. We didn't need to ask the permission of anyone to express our outrage. The protest also didn't have a hierarchical leadership that had to call all the shots. The crowd didn't wait to hear an order to begin walking the streets, and the microphone was there for anyone to give testimony to their story. There weren't any chant sheets to follow, people just began chants and others joined their voices.

The protest was different in that you could literally see the diversity of the crowd not only in age, but in place of origin because flags represented nearly every Latin American nation. The protest had a celebratory quality missing from other protests. At one point, cars packed the street, and it could have easily been mistaken for a Cinco de Mayo celebration where young folks cruise the strips with flags adorning their nice looking cars. Only that in this cruise, having a car didn't even matter, you couldn't be too old or too young, and flags weren't the only messages on the vehicles. When cars were at a standstill people ran into the streets to mark the message, “NO HR4437” on windows with washable paint.

People walked back and forth from the East Side of San José to downtown several times filled with an energy that now can't be subdued. This moment was lead by Latinos, but we aren't the only ones affected in this immigration struggle and for it to continue to move and grow it needs to include other immigrants with a recognition that our struggles are one. The people with revolution in our blood, with the blood of struggle, and the blood of liberation are no longer going to be the country's doormats to be stepped on, we are dusting ourselves off and getting on our feet.

Related stories, audio, and video:

San Jose Rising
Video by David Madrid

"To Reclaim Our Latino Legacy of Men"
Audio by Block to Block

Immigrants Take The Streets of San José
Photospread by Elizabeth Gonzalez and Adrian Avila

On March 25 th the Streets Belonged to Us
San Jose Protests Against HR 4437
By Hector Gonzalez

Step In the Name of Pride
Students Walk Out of San Jose Schools in Protest
Story and Photos by Jessica “Dazel” Valadez