DC, the chocolate city, of protesters and counter-protesters, immigration, asian tourist
There is no doubt that DC belongs to the black americans, with all their beautiful boisteressness, block after block of colorful Ethiopian diners, well dressed motorcycle riders, and variations in African-American fashion that I haven't seen on the west coast. The Chocolate City, as the funk group Parliament dubbed it, certainly is by no means a safe city, but even if I were mugged here I think I should still like to live here for a year or two.
With so much to do, and by "do" I mean "make fun of," i could be entertained for ages. After visiting the Air & Space Museum, dodging skateboarders (who must be thankful for a city built from marble laid out in broad steps and accompanying handrails) and tour buses filled with 8th graders, Jeremy and I ran into one of the many asian tourists crawling amongst the shifting herds of people holding brochures for museums. The asian tourst man asked Jeremy a little sheepishly if he would mind taking a candid picture as he strolled in front of some building. "Ofcourse," Jeremy replied. Instead of walking along the path as he would've done had this truly been a candid shot he instead decided to walk perpendicular to the path, parallel to the building that seemed to have little importance. He would pause in mid-step looking back at the camera, one foot frozen in the air. the result was the least looking candid shot of all set-up candid shots I've witnessed. I captured the moment in all its intentionality.
he was nice enough to take a photo of Jeremy and myself.
A few days later, Jeanette, an old friend of mine (also my host in DC), took me down to the Washington Monument in search of an anti-immigration protest that we had hoped to infiltrate, and by "infiltrate" I mean "sit with and take pictures of (and with)".
this man claimed, "I like to take pictures with pretty girls." He also had a swath of sunscreen that gave his face the appearance of man from England three hundred years ago who had forgotten his powdered wig at home.
On their website, the group claimed that the date of this protest would be known as "the second independence day" in the annals of American History. We arrived at the phallic symbol representing our country's current position of world dominance and could really only see south asian Indians dressed in either sky blue or orange sarongs. They sat in groups according to the color of their dress, some of the men wearing red or blue baseball caps with hindi writing and english that explained nothing of their purpose for congregating. I imagined the anti-immigration folks rumbling up the lawn pushing cherub faced Indian babies to the side shouting general non-sensical slogans about supporting our troops and practiced epithets about whoever might be stealing america at this time. It didn't quite work out that way. Jeanette and I sat on the lawn, I ate a veggie pita. She ate a nasty looking piece of pizza.
After some time we decided to take a walk around the premises and find these anti-immigration folks. We did. Welcome to the Second Independence Day!!! As the picture clearly illustrates this was to be a monumental day in DC history, if not the world:
Atleast sixty people strong, jeanette and I might've been a little intimidated at first, but we decided that, if asked, I was a philipino american who has just gotten back into the country, interested only in seeing what I've missed in politics these last few years.
"US Senators Breds Amnesty!" among many other things!!!
They spat the usual rhetoric about how amnesty for undocumented workers would ruin america, yadda yadda, but the real fun began when the counter-protesters arrived with their signs and plastic pail. Counter-protesting at its worst.
Compared to the goliath of the anti-immigration people these folks "pailed" in comparison. Atleast five people strong, plus a bicycle, one of their brood carried a sign stating, "CHANGE YOUR NAME, YOU ARE STILL THE KKK." The black man, a sympathizer with the anti-immigration folk, was pretty happy about that statement. Way to completely over-simplify and dehumanize on both sides.
The "Patriots" remained calm and eventually got back to doing their thing after the police came and removed the counter-protesters to a safe 200 feet away. Pointless really when you only have five people.
Except for that little political instance we've been doing nothing but relaxing and eating and drinking. Crabs last night, a play at the Kennedy Center the night before, and Jumbo slice the night before that.
Its a good town for hungry folk. keep on rolling.
With so much to do, and by "do" I mean "make fun of," i could be entertained for ages. After visiting the Air & Space Museum, dodging skateboarders (who must be thankful for a city built from marble laid out in broad steps and accompanying handrails) and tour buses filled with 8th graders, Jeremy and I ran into one of the many asian tourists crawling amongst the shifting herds of people holding brochures for museums. The asian tourst man asked Jeremy a little sheepishly if he would mind taking a candid picture as he strolled in front of some building. "Ofcourse," Jeremy replied. Instead of walking along the path as he would've done had this truly been a candid shot he instead decided to walk perpendicular to the path, parallel to the building that seemed to have little importance. He would pause in mid-step looking back at the camera, one foot frozen in the air. the result was the least looking candid shot of all set-up candid shots I've witnessed. I captured the moment in all its intentionality.
he was nice enough to take a photo of Jeremy and myself.
A few days later, Jeanette, an old friend of mine (also my host in DC), took me down to the Washington Monument in search of an anti-immigration protest that we had hoped to infiltrate, and by "infiltrate" I mean "sit with and take pictures of (and with)".
this man claimed, "I like to take pictures with pretty girls." He also had a swath of sunscreen that gave his face the appearance of man from England three hundred years ago who had forgotten his powdered wig at home.
On their website, the group claimed that the date of this protest would be known as "the second independence day" in the annals of American History. We arrived at the phallic symbol representing our country's current position of world dominance and could really only see south asian Indians dressed in either sky blue or orange sarongs. They sat in groups according to the color of their dress, some of the men wearing red or blue baseball caps with hindi writing and english that explained nothing of their purpose for congregating. I imagined the anti-immigration folks rumbling up the lawn pushing cherub faced Indian babies to the side shouting general non-sensical slogans about supporting our troops and practiced epithets about whoever might be stealing america at this time. It didn't quite work out that way. Jeanette and I sat on the lawn, I ate a veggie pita. She ate a nasty looking piece of pizza.
After some time we decided to take a walk around the premises and find these anti-immigration folks. We did. Welcome to the Second Independence Day!!! As the picture clearly illustrates this was to be a monumental day in DC history, if not the world:
Atleast sixty people strong, jeanette and I might've been a little intimidated at first, but we decided that, if asked, I was a philipino american who has just gotten back into the country, interested only in seeing what I've missed in politics these last few years.
"US Senators Breds Amnesty!" among many other things!!!
They spat the usual rhetoric about how amnesty for undocumented workers would ruin america, yadda yadda, but the real fun began when the counter-protesters arrived with their signs and plastic pail. Counter-protesting at its worst.
Compared to the goliath of the anti-immigration people these folks "pailed" in comparison. Atleast five people strong, plus a bicycle, one of their brood carried a sign stating, "CHANGE YOUR NAME, YOU ARE STILL THE KKK." The black man, a sympathizer with the anti-immigration folk, was pretty happy about that statement. Way to completely over-simplify and dehumanize on both sides.
The "Patriots" remained calm and eventually got back to doing their thing after the police came and removed the counter-protesters to a safe 200 feet away. Pointless really when you only have five people.
Except for that little political instance we've been doing nothing but relaxing and eating and drinking. Crabs last night, a play at the Kennedy Center the night before, and Jumbo slice the night before that.
Its a good town for hungry folk. keep on rolling.
Labels: DC washington immigration rally politics mexican capitol united states
posted by miguella guerilla at 10:38 PM
1 comments
