The March for Human Rights

Yesterday was the first time Ramona and I had gone protesting since she was an infant.  I am actually not much of a protester these days.  However, the protest yesterday was the first one I really felt compelled to join in quite a while.  It was a march for Human Rights, organized in response to the Arizona law SB 1070 that encourages and advances racial profiling and racism.

I am so proud of my little girl.  She was so present at the protest, she danced with the Aztec Dancers.  She has never walked so far.  She was so inspired by the energy and the people at the protest, she didn’t complain one time during the three hour ordeal.  She walked (and ran, as her little legs were no match for the rate of the march) at least a mile, and carried the sign the rest of the over three mile march as I carried her.  She was completely absorbed in what was going on and asking all sorts of questions which I answered as best I could in terms I hoped she could understand.  It was sort of easy to explain the reasons for people coming and the reasons for the protest, but difficult to explain to her why there are borders in the first place and how the people got so poor.

Later, when we got home, my friend Christina came over to stay the night and I beamed with pride as I heard Ramona explain to our friend what had transpired earlier in the evening.   She really personalized her retelling of the story, by talking about the woman  (she loves) who runs her daycare, who emigrated from Mexico.  “People like Maria come here and make their homes and then others say, you can’t be here go away, and they say, ‘No this is my home!’”  She continued to chant today  “Aqui Estamos, y no nos vamos.”  I think Ramona knows more about immigration than any three year old I know (who isn't an immigrant, of course).  It also helps that she has spent some many months in Mexico.

These are the kinds of experiences that shape children, these are the places that children learn.  In society, in the street, through rich interactions with life…not locked in an institution 6-7 hours a day, five days a week.  Learning about the world by experiencing it, not being told about it from inside four walls.  Learning how to act by experimentation, not by authority and the culture of the carrot and the stick.



Ramona is at 1:30 in this video