Paul Loeb posts at DFA tonight about the Seattle immigrant march. Amazing

[madfloridian]

Paul Rogat Loeb's newest book is The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear (Basic Books, 2004), named by The History Channel and The American Book Association as their #3 political book of 2004. It's also a BookSense bestseller with 60,000 in print, an alternate selection of the Quality Paperback, One Spirit and Insight/Out book clubs, and won the Nautilus Award for the best social change book.


Out of the Shadows: The Seattle Immigration March

People marched because families and futures were at stake. Seattle didn't have a half million marching for immigrant rights, like Los Angeles or Dallas, or 300,000 like Chicago, But 25,000 marched for fifteen blocks through the heart of our city, packing the streets. "I heard it on the radio," people said. "I heard it at my church." "I heard it from a friend." Students came on chartered buses from farm towns 40 miles away. One family drove ninety miles after hearing on the nightly news that a march was going to happen and traffic might be swamped. Except for some students passing the word through MySpace and scattered social justice listservs, this march didn't rely on the on-line networks that have become the activist standard. It built on more intimate networks, and as coverage rippled out, people came and brought others, affirming that this was now their country too, and they wanted to be treated with dignity and respect.

"It moved me to tears to see people coming out of the shadows to find their voice," said my friend Jay Sauceda, a community activist who grew up poor in South Texas. "There are so many people in this situation," he said. "They've been so quiet. Now they're marching."

"We're hard workers, not criminals," said the signs. "We aren't terrorists." "Don't separate us from our families." They proclaimed "Liberty, Equality and Dignity" and showed pictures of crops that they picked. Children paraded in strollers, teenagers laughed with their friends, elderly women helped each other walk step by step. The march was mostly Latino but also Korean, Filipino, Somalian. The rainbow tilted brown, but it was still a rainbow of participants.

There's been a lot of flag brandishing for blind patriotism these days. The sea of American flags here were part political strategy—a more salable image than a sea of Mexican flags. But they also felt proud and celebratory. People carried them high, waved them again and again to say that they were Americans too and ask that this country honor promises of refuge and hope. The flags felt so far from the "we're number one" belligerence of sealed-off Bush rallies.

He concludes with this statement:

"Maybe by finding their voice and courage, those who marched in America's cities these past weeks can teach the rest of us how to come out of our own shadows and fears and join across our own divides."

—Paul Loeb

[madfloridian]

1. Forgot to put Loeb's personal website.

http://www.paulloeb.org/index.htm