This weekend I went to Washington DC and back again in about 25 hours. Here are some things that I learned through my trip. 1.) My Spanish isn’t as good as I thought it was 2.) Always bring a pillow and blanket for long bus rides 3.) The massive expanses of lawn in front of the capital building is called the mall 4.) Calling undocumented persons illegal immigrants is a huge faux paus 5.) You can never pack too light when out shooting a protest march
So as you may or may not have guessed my reasons for traveling to Washington DC was to photograph. I shot a March for Immigration Reform and Economic Justice. In short there were over 200,000 people, Fox News reported 500,000 trying to have immigration laws be changed. I’ve never seen so many people in one area, it was very overwhelming at first. I arrived at “the mall” around 10 am and first I noticed the rows and rows of port-a-potties that lined both sides of the mall. At this point there weren’t many people there but around 11 or 12 massive quantities of people poured in. It’s a good thing that I’m not claustrophobic because in some areas it was almost impossible to move without bumping into people. Once I got used to my surrounds I began walk around and talk to people. I was confident up to the point of where I wanted to ask more and couldn’t think of how to put it into Spanish. I could ask their name, where they were from, how old they were, then after that I hit a wall. Just blanked. Luckily most of the families had children that could speak English and that was really helpful. I couldn’t imagine having that responsibility as a child, because many of the children that translated for their parents were younger than 15. As the day progressed the energy seemed to intensify. More shouting and dancing was happening. I however was very tired and had to take some moments to take off my backpack and eat something. You almost forget how to take care of some basic things like eating when all of this excitement is happening around you. Then the march began and this was at the end of the day. I was tired, sore, and thirsty but the walk was nice, I was completely silently the whole time and just got to watch and listen, everywhere people were shouting ¡sí se puede! or ¡obama escucha! The lack of sleep wasn’t fun but I would do this again in heartbeat, here’s hoping that immigration reform will happen and that I will be able to keep shooting this kinds of events.
