Coming out with Dream Team Los Angeles

In the span of three years, Ive gone from being a barely active person to hating too much to do at once. A few years ago I was more concerned with my journalism skills and reporting than anything else. Everything took a back seat to my reporting. Nowadays, it seems that I'm less of a reporter and more and more of an activist. Hell I'll even go one step beyond that and say that I'm out right becoming a community organizer, I've had the training and I do it on a regular basis with Dream Team Los Angeles. Buy I digress from the point of this post, which is in that youtube video up top. DTLA does a little bit of everything in terms of holding big actions like our coming out rally to going to class rooms and doing presentations about how undoc kids can continue on in college and universities. DTLA is barely gonna celebrate its one year anniversary and we're already taking the steps into turning it into a non-profit org.

The rally in the heart of Downtown L.A., Pershing Square featured testimonials, people holding signs and wearing "I am undocumented" shirts. People at the rally also participated in walking around DTLA and asking people to sign the Dream Act petition and explaining what it was, while at the same time putting themselves out there, saying they're undoc. Powerful stuff right ? That's why I do what I do for this movement. It started as a selfish act of wanting to improve the quality of my life, but as more and more and more events take place and I meet more and more undoc brothers/sistas, it's become about helping everyone and those who have yet to come.

The event was part of the national "Coming Out" week of actions put on by United We Dream. Like past events, we didn't know to expect in terms of turnout because people had work and others were in school, but those who could did show up and some even took a break from work to pass by. The support was there physically and spiritually and it all went down without a hitch. We got media coverage and people gave it there all. Not to mention we all got bad ass shirts. There's a growing pressure as the movement continues on because we are all getting older and things still haven't changed. There's a growing need of urgency that is pushing the limits of what the movement does and where it goes to ge out in the public eye and to garner as much attention as needed. Still, whatever happens I'll be right there supporting and fighting. I'm in too deep now and there's no turning back.