http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_4281106

March draws a smaller turnout
Immigrant-rights protesters rally
BY BRENT HOPKINS, Staff Writer

Their numbers were diminished, but their voices were still loud and angry.

Immigrant-rights protesters descended by the hundreds into downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, aiming to keep alive the spirit of the springtime marches that began the nationwide movement.

Banging drums and bearing signs, they rallied for amnesty for the undocumented and protection from laws they called racist.

Estimates on the crowd's size varied from several hundred into the thousands, but the march clearly drew smaller numbers than the massive crowds that jammed downtown streets March 25 and May 1.

"We're not criminals, we're not terrorists," said Socorro Berberian, a 45-year-old Ventura preschool teacher who came here illegally from Mexico 30 years ago, but has since become a U.S. citizen. "We're just normal people, looking for work."

While previous protests were raucous affairs that filled the streets with marchers for blocks upon blocks, Saturday felt smaller and more orderly.

Parents wheeled their children in strollers; kids toted signs demanding respect and justice for families.

Toward the front, labor unions hauled banners proclaiming solidarity. A few blocks back, near the tail end of the procession, more-extreme groups wearing bandanas and carrying signs likening Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., author of a controversial bill calling for the prohibition of aid for undocumented immigrants, to Nazis.

The march was a prelude to a larger Labor Day gathering planned for Monday in downtown Los Angeles, where state and local officials are
expected to gather at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels for a Labor Day breakfast in advance of a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

"The momentum went out in the spring, but I think it'll be back again," said Eugene Hernandez, 54, of Sylmar, a Green Party member, social worker and second-generation Mexican-American. "This helps empower the undocumented people. They're not citizens, but they have tremendous political impact."

Pete Sake, a rapper and warehouse worker, came to the United States at the age of 3 and later became a citizen. With a group of friends, he walked through the sweltering heat and chanted.

"I gave up my Saturday because I see these people out here and they're the future of America," the 20-year-old said. "It's a beautiful thing, people of all different colors working together. Regardless of what people think of this march, we're out there working, proving the point that we're not going to give up."