Community in the Crowd at Olvera St.
Olvera Street, bustles with activity pretty much every day. Lately, its centrality and its location in the city’s historic old town have made La Placita, as it’s known, the perfect rallying point for many recent protests for immigrants’ rights.
The events have periodically transformed the place into a boisterous caricature of itself - and April 10th’s gathering was no exception.
The ubiquitous street vendors and performers were out in force well before the crowd had finished assembling – ready early to provide people with the flags, music, and ice-cream necessary to fuel any effective push for social change.
The atmosphere at times felt as much like a celebration as it did a protest. It was quickly apparent that the recent rush of organizing around this issue had built community among many of those who had become active in the immigrants’ rights movement.
And as the crowd gathered, it was hard to turn around without seeing someone’s face flashing with a smile upon recognizing a friend, or rushing to embrace them through the assembly. The crowd was not as much a mob as it was a community.
It was also clear that the Monday evening protest was going to be a family affair.
Throughout the assembly, groups of people stood together – the ages of their faces reflecting the distinctive pan-generational pattern of a family group. As younger children ran around chasing one another, teenagers leaned against planters with arms folded, too cool to be there.
I talked to Lupe as she stood with her husband and her two young boys, Alvin, 7, and Richard, 5. Lupe, who is undocumented and who moved from El Salvador with her family eight years ago, said that bringing her family with her to the rally was important.
“I want to teach my children that they are people, not animals,” she said, “and that in the United States people get to ask for the things that they need, and for things to change. It is important to me for them to know that.”
