jailhouse does NOT rock
got out around 9am this morning from jail. was held at 77th Street Police Station for... 11 hours.
yesterday at 4:30 began the rally and march for hotel workers' rights, as well as immigrant workers' rights. the hotels in the LAX area are some of the worst in terms of violations of fair labor practices, not even allowing its workers to unionize. so, about 350 of us who were signed up to participate in the civil disobedience action marched alongside thousands of other marchers. we marched right by the minutemen, too. *shake head* we followed a truck that blasted on its huge speakers various songs of resistance. it was beautiful and inspiring! at around 6pm or so, 170 of us sat down in the street in front of the westin hotel, 170 others in front of the hilton, blocking off century blvd leading straight to lax. we sang and chanted for about an hour, i believe. i sat back-to-back with KIWA executive director danny park, which was an honor! i told him my parents would have a heart attack if they knew i was participating in something like this. i said he'd have to explain to my parents in korean, cuz i lack the vocabulary to explain my politics fully to them. (language barrier... another issue) danny told me that if he were my parents he'd be proud of me as his daughter. awww~!
eventually, a large LAPD van with a speaker system asked us about 3 times to disperse and clear the streets. we remained, chanting "no nos movera," "aqui estamos y no nos vamos, y si nos echan, nos regresamos," "we shall overcome..." "ain't no power like the power of the people cuz the power of people don't stop!" "si, se puede!" "el pueblo unido jamas sera vencido" "we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us"... and many more. very moving, along with speakers and a truck that played songs of resistance. so inspirational! after some time, the full squad came out. police on motorcycles, on horseback, 5 busloads of officers surrounded us. then they began the arrests.
i was handcuffed with zip ties because they didn't have enough metal handcuffs for everyone. it hurt. we were loaded onto the bus, driven to 77th street station and sat in the bus waiting until 1am. finally we were processed and checked into a small ass cell. 20 womyn in a room about.. i don't even know. there were so many people packed in that cell that everyone couldn't sit. we took turns sitting and standing. it got so stuffy, no circulation, the toilet is right there where u go in front of everybody, the food was shit... anyway. i was there until 8:30 in the morning. finally got us out and i was released around 9am. i didn't make it to work because i hadn't slept and i was needed to shower. i have a lot of thoughts about our system and where our tax dollars are going...
more to come.
