March for Humanity causes “psychological traffic jam” on Pico
Not fifty feet from Santa Monica College (SMC), several hundred Santa Monica residents gathered outside John Adams Middle School on March 22 for a “March for Humanity,” a demonstration calling for humane immigration policy in solidarity with the city’s immigrant community. Marchers paraded down Pico Boulevard, paused for a “people’s prayer” at Tongva Park, and made a final stop at the Santa Monica Pier for speeches and socializing.
These elements were intentionally varied, said Manuel Lares, organizer with Homies Unidos.
“We’re servicing different components of reality,” said Lares. “The psychological traffic jam at the beginning… then we service the spiritual component, the emotional component, and now we’re going to help spark some intellectual responses.”
“What the country is is all different kinds of folk,” said marcher Joe Martinez. “To live alongside each other and get along with people seems like the right way to do it. But to do mass deportations, and everything, is not right.”
“So when you come together and do a nice peaceful walk down to the pier, you can see that we’re all equal. Together,” said Martinez.
March for Humanity was sponsored by Mexican American Policy Advocacy Alliance, Pico Youth and Family Center, Homies Unidos, and Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, among others. However Daniel Alonzo, Santa Monica artist and local legend, created the march’s concept. Alonzo’s “Whale of a Mural” has furnished the Ocean Park Boulevard underpass since 1983.
“I’m a visual person. I came up with the idea. But then we all, it was a team that made this happen,” said Alonzo. “And when all this started happening, I was just very passionate that you’ve gotta do something.”
“Santa Monica, you know, the city that’s known for celebrities, beaches, tourism, well, there’s still a Mexican community. We’ve always been here and we’re still here. Just wanted to make our presence known,” said Alonzo.
Rallygoers wrapped themselves in nation flags or touted handheld signs, with imagery ranging from serious Catholicism to the Kool-Aid man bursting through the border wall. Other signs, with messages like “Proud Descendants of Immigrants,” were plastered with black-and-white photographs of immigrant ancestors.
“The immigrant is just classified as a criminal, and we wanted to bring a human side, that’s why we brought some of these pictures of immigrants. Immigrants have a story,” said Alonzo.
Born and raised in Santa Monica, Alonzo’s great-grandfather came to Santa Monica in 1902, followed by his mother in 1918 after the Mexican Revolution. Alonzo’s father immigrated from Tepatitlán in 1927.
The Mexican community thrived in the Pico neighborhood, he said, until gentrification made the area unliveable. Santa Monica’s Latino community is still alive despite the struggles, he said, and what comes with that livelihood is obligation.
“It is our responsibility as descendants of immigrants that we march for these new immigrants,” he said in a speech.
Numerous SMC students and staff members attended March for Humanity, including Patrisia Maldonado, who works in Outreach and Onboarding.
“For me, it’s about the community of Santa Monica,” said Maldonado. “I’m excited for the whole walk. I’m excited to see some of my friends and colleagues. And I think that it’s going to be fun.”
“I think this march is kind of like a statement saying that we’re all in this together and we’re not gonna be unheard as a community,” said Deanna Ramos, academic records evaluator at SMC, who noted deportation fears are particularly strenuous on families.
“Growing up here my whole life and coming to school here, you know that people have families where they’ve started from the ground up, and it’s a generational growth,” said SMC student Estefania Vasquez.
“We learn in history that this wasn’t our community to begin with,” said Vasquez. “I think knowing that history (leads to) all of us coming together and making those voices heard.”
Maldonado, who works with high school students to gameplan academic trajectory at SMC, has noticed heightened fears from mixed-status and undocumented students about applying for financial and even attending college at all. SMC, she’s found, will follow protocol, but will utilize ambiguous rules in the students’ favor.
Maldonado said, “I’ve seen people finding the smallest loopholes to help students.”
“As a staff, we talk amongst ourselves and everybody has the best interest in the students,” said Ramos. “I haven’t heard anybody on the other side of that. We just want to make sure that everybody can continue their education.”
As a DJ live-spun norteño, specked with chants of “Peace… now” ringing in disjoint, marchers began the two-mile trek downtown.
“I’m getting my steps in today,” said Vasquez.
“It’s a lengthy march because we wanted to pray with our feet,” said Oscar de la Torre, former Santa Monica city councilmember. “We're willing to make sacrifices for those families that are hardworking, that are law-abiding and that shouldn't be living in fear.”
Passing Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD) patrollers in squad cars shouted for marchers to exit the street, citing safety concerns. March for Humanity personnel in security vests told marchers to ignore the instruction and alleged they had a permit. Marchers continued to occupy both street and sidewalk.
However, up close and personal, officers smiled and waved at protesters walking by, who waved back.
Speaking to the Corsair, legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild reported no concerns of SMPD misgivings.
Yasmin Cardona, a drawing professor at Mt. San Antonio College, was relieved to find no SMPD animosity.
“So far they’ve been peaceful, they’ve been helping us. They’re stopping traffic from hurting our marchers,” said Cardona. “So I appreciate their support. They’re being righteous this time.”
“I’m grateful for the police presence,” said Alonzo. “A lot of people felt it was gonna be safe (and) so far, the march was.”
According to a 2023 study by the State of Immigrants in L.A. County (SOILA), L.A. is home to over 800,000 undocumented immigrants. On Feb. 5, SMPD released a Community Message reproaching President Donald Trump’s proposed immigration policies and upholding the California Values Act, which prohibits local police from participating in federal immigration enforcement activity.
There have not been credible reports of mass deportations in Los Angeles since Trump’s inauguration.
One week ago, Trump deported over 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador without hearings, invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The act was last utilized during World War II to establish Japanese-American internment camps and has only been used during wartime.
“My father was deported once, twice! In 1985 and 1986. He’s now a citizen. And I’m marching for him as well,” said Cardona.
“The biggest problem has been seeing families separated. In our communities, they’re doing what we are calling hit-and-runs,” said Cardona. “They’re targeting people who are working in certain locations or they’re targeting them out on the streets. So we want to show ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) that we will all come out for the community if they try to take one of us.”
At the pier, de la Torre officiated a round of speakers, including immigration-focused lawyers and activists, fulfilling Lares’s “intellectual component.”
“We’re coming to the pier because it’s close to the ocean, and the ocean is very cleansing, very powerful,” said Lares. “So that we can be focused, and create new ideas, new behaviors, new habits. A new narrative, a new identity.”
De la Torre encouraged rallygoers to keep their evidence of the march and rally.
“One day someone’s gonna say, when did that happen? And you’ll say, we broke the record. We made the largest demonstration for immigrant rights in the city’s history. It happened on March 22,” said de la Torre.
During the “people’s prayer,” organizers held a smudging ceremony, an Indigenous rite of burning sacred herbs to purify an area. Lares spread the smoke over participating individuals by waving a hawk wing. The hawk, he explained, he found by the side of the road, and repurposed it for its “ability to help cleanse our spiritual energies.”
“We’re all spiritual beings, we all have energy,” said Lares, considering the role of spirituality in the march. “It’s everything. It’s the outcome of everything we do.”
At the middle school, Lares’s auntie Xochitl Portio performed a Sun Dance, a ritual ceremony for welfare and community renewal. At Tongva, Portio led the demonstration in a Prayer of the Seven Directions, which includes the four cardinals as well as above, below and within the self.
Portio recalled rhetoric that used Indigenous people as justifications for immigration enforcement and was disgruntled.
“Do not use my name to hate,” said Portio. “Do not use my name to put borders up. The borders only exist in hearts and minds… (Immigrants) are our guests and we should be treating them as our guests.”
Portio fashioned a comparison between the ceremonies and the evident patriotism of the nation flags.
“That (nation) flag that you are all flying is a flag of pride; don’t put it down when you go home, walk with it in your heart. It’s just like the pipe that my nephew (Lares) holds here. We’re Sun Dancers, we pray with the pipe, but we don’t use it just for the Sun Dance. We don’t put it down. We walk with it every single day,” she said.