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May Day MAY DAY!! | May 1st 2006
Tonatiuh is setting to the west as night falls upon us. The year is Chicome Tochtli (Seven Rabbit) on the date Ce Ozomatli on the Gregorian calendar it is known as May 1st 2006, the big day of boycotts and mass protest. We are along way from Boyle Heights (East Los). We are tired and hungry as we stand on the corner of Wilshire and Alvarado it has been a long day. I have never seen so many people take to the streets. We see cops running drills on 7th street and we move in to get a better look on what the commotion is down there. The cops are closing down ANAHUAK KALLI who had some performers (Krazy Race among others) in front of the store. From the slopes of the park we could see the way they are being pushed to Alvarado out of 7th street. About 150 cops close down the street as 40 of them push the crowd toward Alvarado. Shorty notices that there is a Mc Donald’s open across the street from park. Hutzitlanetzi suggest that we close it down and I agree. “First we need a plan and a place to meet if anything goes down,” I said. We are going to need some help to do this. We walk over to some friends and a group of people who have gathered around them as they stand in the middle of the street. These are the same people who got pushed down from seventh just a minute ago. We notice that the crowd around them has gotten careless and others are filming a promotional video using our struggle as a backdrop. “Hey we need your help to shut down the Mc Dee’s “everybody nods their heads but no one moves into action. I ask one more time before Hutzitlanetzi says, “Hey lets just go and do it ourselves man” so we start walking and some of them come along with us.
Krazy Race at Anahuak Kalli (May 1st 2006)Sal Rojas Photography
We walk up to the doors of the establishment and start a chant “SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN!” No apoyen a esta corporacion ya que ellos no apollan a nuestra gente o a nuestra comunidad en este dia de accion. We notice some of the people in line start to walk out and ask questions. We tell them that this corporation does not care about our people or our community all they see is dollar bills. We let them know that it is corporations like this one that hire economic hit men to destabilize the economy within our countries they poison our people with chemicals in our food and disrupt healthy eating habits. These corporations are part of the big picture, which sends people to get trained in the schools of the Americas, which trains death squads, and military regimes that keep our people oppressed and abuse in our own countries. It is also these corporations that benefit by criminalizing us and calling us illegal so that we feel privilege that we even have a job and should be happy that someone even wants to hire us. Pero chale this son of a bitch is going to shut its doors. We keep on chanting and making our word be heard. People join in and start to chant with us soon we have over 200 people yelling “Shut it Down” we could see more and more people come down from Wilshire Blvd. Hutzitlanetzi keeping a look out as Shorty and I lead the people in: “EL PUEBLO UNIDO JAMAS SERA VENCIDO”
This man approaches me and asked, “Hey man what are you?” I could not understand his question and I think my facial expression let him know that I was baffled by his question so he rephrases it “Are you an American citizen?” I answer “Aren’t we all this is America right” No he said “Are you from here, this country”, Well we as indigenous people are from here this continent. The foreigners came from the other side of the ocean. ”No man your avoiding my question. Well are you an illegal immigrant” Chale I said we are not illegal nor are we immigrant our people are migrants who have traveled from north to south and south to north for thousands of years before this land was even called America. He look’s at me and tells me off. I have to keep my cool because he could be an under cover trying to start a confrontation I stay focus and keep on shouting. I hear Hutzitlanetzi shout, “trucha the placa is coming” Shorty taps me on the shoulder and signals to the left. We see a squad of about 40 cops coming towards us in full on riot gear and they shove us to the street and line up along the Mc Dee’s front door and windows. By this time we are over five hundred deep. We keep on shouting, “SHUT IT DOWN!” As the sergeant of the squad points to Shorty and I and asked to get near. Why us I ask myself, could it be I was right about the man who approach me a minute ago. We approach him with caution. “What’s going on here?” he said. Shorty responds with “we want to shut this place down” the officer responds “they have the right to be open for business” and I step in and tell him “Well we have the right to be here and exercise our first amendment right we are not blocking the front door of the business and are not harming the structural building in any way we are here to inform the community of the business practice of this and other corporations and why it is important to boycott them” He look at me then at Shorty as we stand our ground. He signals with both hands in the air and the cops behind him form two lines and like sheep and marched back toward 7th street.
The crowd goes crazy and starts to chant “la hura la migra la misma porkeria” Mc Donald’s employees scramble as they see the cops moving out and we take over the sidewalk again. Franticly they lock the doors and turn off the lights. The crowd starts a new chant “si se pudo!” As a man holding a camcorder points to Shorty and I, you guys are responsible for this I over heard the cops they are going to fire rubber bullet to disperse the crowd and it’s all your fault there’s innocent people and children here. Shorty and I look at each other and know this guy is an undercover so we ask him to stop filming and we tell the crowd this here is what an undercover looks like. The crowd booos him and he disappears into the crowd toward the metro station. We know it is time to move on they have us on film we stood our ground with the sergeant all they need now is for the rest of the undercover to insight a riot and they have the right to call this an unlawful assembly and come in full force in some sort of payback for all that went down.
But today, today was beautiful the biggest protest in this Nations history. All of our people as one in unity saying YA BASTA! Ya basta with the false accusations of our brothers and sisters Mexicanos, Salvadorenos, Guatemaltecos, and Indigenas who come to this country escaping the situation that they are being force to by the globalization and economical unbalance by corporations who have no soul. And when they get here they become victims of ignorant reporters and writers who tell lies to the American people and keep them ignorant of what really is going on in this country.
This country whose heroes of the nightly news are the minutemen or some pinche politico and his racist agenda trying to blame immigration for the financial problems of this country. They call us Terrorist. They call us Bandits. They call us Gang members, Savages or Indios ignorantes. Here nothing has changed for over 514 years. Here our people are raped, beaten, and murdered. I ask myself “what am I going to do?” I know we could do more than just march. We need to organize and educate our people. Our weapon is knowledge. Our biggest enemy is ignorance.
I leave you with a Mayan phrase IN LAK’ECH. It means I am you. That’s right we are you. Those people in Guatemala and Mexico murdered by government paid officials. We are you! Those people in El Salvador and Nicaragua who died by US government guns. We are you! I think of all the people slaughtered by escuadrones de la muerte. We are you! I think of the slave’s dumped in the ocean or hung from a tree. I think of the many Indigenous Nations of North America murdered and betrayed. I think of all the people who die crossing the border each year. Of las Mujeres de Juarez. The kids in the sweatshops or in the farms picking bananas and coco’s in South and Central America. I think of the kids working like slaves in the sugarcane fields so your coca-cola can taste so sweet. I think of their pain. I think of their suffering. I think IN LAK’ECH...
We are you!
Ask yourself
What are you going to do?
-NAGUAL
All Photos by Sal Rojas Photography
All photographs on this site (www.BrownPride.com) are
copyright protected by Digital Aztlan.
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