Thread: Houston Immigration Reform Rally

My apologies for the long post but I wanted to write this down and post
it somewhere. Sort of, the story the media won't report, since most of the
news reports I've seen so far make us look like racist and stupid
rednecks.

Saturday was the first time I've attended a protest against illegal
immigration. Their side's theme this year was something like, Dignity and
Justice for Immigrants. (insert rainbows and unicorns here), Making the
uninformed feel a little like immigrants are being treated badly. I mean,
who wouldn't be against that?

My counter protest sign was designed to put it into perspective and said:

AMNESTY
IS NOT DIGNITY
FOR LEGAL
IMMIGRANTS

We counter protesters were from several groups including the
North Houston Tea Party Patriots and the guys from US Border Watch.
I arrived at a parking lot where the march was supposed to make a turn
and met up with several people from the tea party. After a few minutes we
were asked to go a few blocks down the street to a corner where the
march was going to make a turn and go into the park. There was
supposed to be secured parking about a block away and the Houston
Police Department was there to provide security.
Once there, I got to meet Curtis Collier and one of the guys from that
I have been exchanging emails with for the past couple of years.

We stood on the corner for about two hours waiting for the protest to start.
I was enjoying watching the faces of people in their cars as they waited at
the traffic light. It was a predominately Hispanic neighborhood and the
reactions ranged from those trying their best to ignore us and look the
other way, to those who gave us the evil eye to those who honked and
waved and gave us the thumbs up. One lady picked up her Bible and
waved it at us. Maybe she should stop shaking it and read it. Especially the
part where Jesus said to obey the laws of the land and Solomon's laws on
immigration. One guy rolled down his window and spit in our general
direction. He was several yards away and just ended up making himself
look foolish and getting loogie all over his truck. During that time, several
people wandered through our crowd taking pictures. I also noticed about
eight yellow school buses marked "Huerta Bus" pull into a closed gas
station across the street. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the protesters were
bussed in from somewhere.

The police were out in force and there were mounted police as well as a
police chopper overhead. My thanks to HPD and their hard work.

The marchers came down the street toward us and turned to the right,
directly in front of us, across a parking lot to a park where they had their
rally. We were seperated from them by a barricade and mounted police.
We said the Pledge of Alligence and shouted "No you can't!". Their group
was obvously professionally organised, they all carried these yellow "Si
Se Puede" banners. There were black civil rights leaders and priests and
nuns, banners of Martin Luther King. The Communist party was there with
their red banners followed by the Socialist "Workers Unite" banners.

Swastikas were abundant on many of the homemade signs. I'm sure if
our side did that we'd have been roasted by the media. The purple shirts
were there, trying to hide their presence by wearing orange safety vests
but I could clearly see SEIU on their shirts through the mesh on their vests.

Once they had gone past us and were in the park we were escorted by
the police to an area they had fenced off for us. There was a double
temporary fence and I commented to the police officer as I went in that
they didn't pay attention to a fence before what makes him think the will
now? He replied "Because I'm here"...YOU SEE PEOPLE! HOW SIMPLE
ENFORCEMENT IS?!!...

Things were a little exciting for the first few minutes as soon as the other
side began noticing we were there they came right up to the fence and
began shouting. The lady next to me said she felt a little like she was at
the Alamo. Once HPD showed up with the mounted horses (about 15 of
them) the illegal crowd backed off several yards away. The down side to
that was that the horses blocked the oppositions view of us and kept us
from engaging in constructive dialog with them (insert laugh track here).

The news reports said there were about seven thousand protesters and
about fifty of us counter-protesters...that sounds about right.

One of our guys had his step-son with him. It was his step son's first rally
and I was impressed at how well he handled himself on a bullhorn, telling
the opposition that Obama is just using them as pawns in his own agenda
to fundamentally change our nation and if they don't wake up we're all
going to be slaves to his Socialist machine. "Look around you, you're in
bed with the SEIU, the communists and the socialists, Is that what you
want for yourselves? your children? for America?"

We were asked to leave about 5 or 10 minutes before the rally broke up.
The police escorted us back to the corner and we left without much incedent.

My pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8373748...7623984224286/

Article at the Houston Chronicle:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...e/6985382.html

http://www.chron.com/news/photogalle...around_US.html

Def

There was a Mexican guy who was with our group I think his name was Frank.
He called himself Pancho Villa.


As we were walking back to the parking lot, I didn't want to go alone so I went with him
and one of the elderly gentlemen in our group. As we were waiting at the light to cross
the street I was looking around in order to keep an eye on people to make sure we didn't
get jumped. I noticed the bus drivers over there by the gas station were all sort of grouped
up. One lady with them was standing, straddling the sidewalk, with her hands on her hips

giving us an evil look. I told the other guys to pay attention because she looked like she
intended to confront us. As we approached her she yelled at us, "How come you guys
hate illegals?" Intending to simply walk by and not give her the satisfaction of getting in
our faces I simply replied "Because they're breaking the law".

Frank, on the other hand, was more than happy to accommodate her. He said something
along the lines of "Because they're taking everything I've worked for from me." She came
back with "You know this land once belonged to the Mexicans before the white man took
it from us." Pancho put a finger in her face and said something I can still hear clearly in
my head. "That's right mija but that happened a long time ago, look around you today
we're Hispanics, Whites, African Americans, Chinese and it belongs to EVERYBODY in
this country legally, we all worked hard to make it what it is and illegal immigrants and
their supporters are taking that from us and turning this land into another Mexico ."

Voices were being raised and I was trying my best to get him to leave before we attracted
unwanted attention or before they got physical so I didn't pay attention the entire
conversation but as we were leaving he turned to her and said "My Grandparents came
to this country the right way, they worked hard to get what they got and I've worked all my
life to get what I have, to raise my family. I love my country and I'll BE DAMNED IF YOU'RE
GOING TO TAKE THAT FROM ME!" There were tears in his eyes and I was taken back
by the amount of passion he had in his voice. I wish I had taken a video of the whole
incident.


When we got to the parking lot I shook his hand and told him I have the highest respect
and admiration for him. He simply replied that he had a chance to vent something that
has been building up inside for years.


That dude deserves a medal.

Def