Commonalities

On the march for immigrant rights and dignity, April 10, 2006

"A community that had essentially been trying to remain invisible suddenly concluded that their invisibility was only making them more vulnerable."

Frank Sharry
Executive director of the National Immigration Forum, April 8, 2006

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"We have Arab men disappearing from the neighborhoods of Brooklyn. No one hears from them. No one hears about them. They're arrested and they disappear. Is it secret evidence? Whose secret is this? Why? What's going on? We'd like to know."

Samia Halaby
from Al-Awda (Palestinian Right to Return Coalition), 2001

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"Living with AIDS is like living through a war which is happening only for those people who happen to be in the trenches. Every time a shell explodes, you look around and you discover that you've lost more of your friends, but nobody else notices. It isn't happening to them. They're walking the streets as though we weren't living through some sort of nightmare. And only you can hear the screams of the people who are dying and their cries for help. No one else seems to be noticing."

Vito Russo
ACT-UP co-founder, 1988

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"It was a theme repeated often by marchers and speakers at the afternoon parade and rally, which capped weeks of dialogue and vehement opposition to the march.

Parade organizers estimated the crowd at about 10,000, although others said that the crowd looked significantly smaller. About 25 protesters showed up at the end of the parade route, still in their Sunday church clothes. As they chanted 'Repent' and waved Bibles high in the air, the marchers chanted back:

'We're here. We're queer. Get used to it.'"

Winston Salem Journal, 1996

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"A boisterous, mostly Hispanic crowd of almost 400 added Mount Vernon to the list of cities nationwide where people rallied Monday against proposed immigration reforms.

'Aqui estamos y no nos vamos!' the crowd chanted in Spanish at passing traffic on the corner of Kincaid and S. Third streets, in front of the Skagit County administrative campus.

Translated, it means, 'Here we are, and we're not leaving!'"

The Herald, Washington State April 11, 2006

Also marching for immigrant rights and dignity, April 10, 2006