Immigrant rights are human rights. Labor rights are human rights. Civil rights are human rights.  No human being is illegal.

The sun was shining in our nation’s capitol today and across your land and mine.  We gathered in different places, with one goal.  To speak for and about the desperate need for comprehensive immigration reform that can reunite families, send lovers and children and grandmothers back to their beloveds, to their mothers, fathers, sons and daughters.  We were not asking for much, just the promise of these United States to be extended to all.

Some were proudly waving United States flags, the red, the white and the blue as we heard advocates crying out in Spanish and English, for the truths that we all hold so dear, the right to be a whole person. The right to be paid for the work you do.  The right to aspire toward and obtain an education, to be free of fear.

We were there, crying out that this country should be for us all. We are one nation, with many people–the more diverse we are, the stronger we are.  !Si se puede!

“I know this – your boss is making suckers outa you boys every minute. Yes, and suckers out of all the wives and the poor innocent kids who’ll grow up with crooked spines and sick bones. Sure, I see it in the papers, how good orange juice is for kids. But damnit our kids get colds one on top of the other. They look like little ghosts. Betty never saw a grapefruit. I took her to the store last week and she pointed to a stack of grapefruits. “What’s that!” she said. My God, Joe – the world is supposed to be for all of us.”

–Edna to Joe in Waiting for Lefty, by Clifford Odets