By Millicent Jefferson

The Los Angeles Times said Monday that 500,000 people turned out Saturday to the rally for immigrant rights in downtown Los Angeles and I was one of them.

As I and a fellow reporter arrived to cover the rally/march the excitement gave me a rush. I saw people marching and turning the corner onto Broadway and First streets. I heard chants, shouts, and cheers.

There was a man’s voice constantly speaking in Spanish which was being transmitted for blocks by huge speakers stationed on the street corners. As we approached the crowd my heart began to beat a little faster — I was nervous. I was feverishly searching the crowd for anyone I could connect with. Someone else, besides the reporter I was with that was also African-American, but I didn’t see anyone.

We took digital pictures of the people marching, it was exciting. As we made our way through the crowd I had an epiphany. I suddenly felt that I knew how some white reporters may have felt when covering some of the predominantly, if not all, black rallies and marches for civil rights in the sixties. They may have felt uncomfortable, but they did their jobs. And thank god they did because thanks to them we have some remarkable documentation of an important part of American history.

As I immersed myself in the crowd I noticed that I did not hear the announcer switch to English at all. I was thinking how crazy, but not so crazy it was that a rally of hundreds of thousands of people was being conducted entirely in Spanish. It almost felt like I was on some adventure abroad but alas I looked up to see City Hall and I was reminded that I was in downtown L.A.

I decided that I wasn’t uncomfortable with the language thing because I actually understood what the man was saying. I guess that four years of Spanish I took in middle school and high school is finally paying off.

As I expected when I first tried to get people to speak with me no one wanted to talk. I would hear people carrying on conversations in English and then when I would approach them they would tell me that they did not speak English. I immediately became frustrated because I wanted to hear why people were there from their own mouths. I considered asking the questions in Spanish and recording Spanish responses, but I decided against it. I was just going to make people talk to me in English.

I have to admit that I was a bit mad for a minute. I was thinking that people who want their voices heard should jump at the chance to say what they have to say not pretend to not speak English. Now, I know there could have been many issues. They could have felt that they did not speak English very well so they did not want to answer. Or they could have perceived me as an enemy in some way because I was not Latino. This is all speculation, but it did force me to be more sensitive to the fact that people were not talking to me—at first. I decided I was not going to give up. I just kept asking people. Then finally a graduate student attending the rally spoke to me.

People in that area saw me interviewing her then others were more willing to speak. I even got the opinion of an 11-year-old attending the march. After getting about four interviews and taking dozens of digital pictures and shooting video footage my colleague and I decided to head back to the car.

It was crazy trying to get out. It was packed. The most interesting thing on the way out was seeing all of the different countries represented-Nicaragua, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, etc… They all came together for a common cause. I saw entire families out there from grandparents to infants. One mother spread a blanket out in the middle of First Street and was feeding her pre-school-age children sandwiches. I was thinking wow these people are making history and even though the babies don’t know it yet they are making history too. And my job is to record all of this — what a job.

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