Muchas gracias para sus comentarios considerados. Unas de mis amiga/os y parientes estan discutiendo la misma pregunta. I am glad to hear that you have decided to participate.

What really burns me up about this anti-immigrant, anti-Chicano, anti-undocumented vitriol welling up in much of the US, is the arrogance and ignorance of many of the Anglos. My Chicano ancestors freely crossed the so-called “border” on a regular basis before the bloody Mexican War in 1846. It was commonplace– to till the fields and keep the flocks healthy, not to mention stocking up for the winter months, Chicanos would regularly trek north and south, between what’s now the California-Arizona-New Mexico triad and the Baja/Sonora region. Nobody ever thought of proclaiming some stupid “frontier” between the regions because of the geography and the seasonal migration patterns, people naturally crossed north and south freely.

Now, to move along that very same path, many Chicanos and other Latinos today, many of them probably my own blood cousins, have to risk their lives to evade the Border Patrol and vigilante nuts like the Minutemen, many not making it and succumbing to the thirst, heat, and exhaustion, or being shot by some bigot in the north. Perhaps thousands killed every year. Me enoja tanto!!! I can’t think about this lunacy without getting very angry. These arrogant Anglo jerks have the audacity to put a fence right in the path of the natural and necessary historical movements of our people, to ruin the culture that grew up around these migrations, to cause the death of thousands, exploit the labor of those who do make it and *then* to spit in our faces???? Grrrr.

Fortunately I’ve also met and befriended some Anglos who actually have some awareness of this and are sympathetic. I just wish there were more of them. Seems like to a lot of Anglos today, Chicanos and Latinos aren’t people worth caring about and respecting, they’re just pawns to use for their own enrichment, and obstacles to their own greed. Just like 1846 all over again.

Yo no planeo en aguanter estos insultos mas recientes. Mientras mas de nosotros que participamos en las manifestaciones, de muchas maneras, mientras mas fuerte sera nuestra mensaje!

Maribel is also going through the internal conflict of whether to go teach and be with her students who will not be boycotting school or to not show up at all. Romer sent a very strict letter telling new teachers that if they missed, they would be put on record as teaching a full year when they begin next academic year.

My family and I have been talking about what they are going to do since they are conflicted to. My father will go to work, him and the rest of the workers will all wear white instead of their uniform and do a slowdown. (Their boss is a die hard republican, the wall of one building has a large Bush-Cheney banner and has made it difficult for them to unionize already—threats are amok). My mother will take my youngest brother to school since the elementary is organizing a teaching. She is connecting with other mothers from different schools and have a mini marcha and platica around the city. My high school brother has no choice but to attend school since the school and ETS has refused to reschedule their AP exams. He will most likely take his exam and go walk with other students while studying for his AP exam on Tuesday morning.

What will I do? I don’t know yet. We are trying to get the administration to reschedule our finals on Monday like Boalt has done with their students—no luck so far. Definitely not spending a dime, but still undecided on what to do.

In terms of how to get to the marcha, driving seems to be difficult especially with the high prices of parking (which essentially defeat the point of an economic boycott). So what to do? In speaking to an organizer, he said that if you have to choose how to get there spending 3.00 for an all day pass on the metro is the “lesser evil” that is unless you can bike it which I don’t think I am physically in shape to do (hehe). Conflicted…