I went to the protest today. It was pretty good. MoveOn organized it along with some local progressive groups. This being LA, there wasn't *too* much patriotic "this is not what America is about."

Unfortunately, child separation, detention, imprisonment, and superexploitation of labor are very much what this country has been about, and continues to be. We need to change that, to align everyone more the the idea of Human Rights, and not try and pretend that the country is always normally open to immigrants.

These myths about this country - or any country - are perpetuated by politicians, schools, and the media, in the goal of creating unity. In the connected media age, these myths don't stand up to scrutiny, because they are not true.

It doesn't mean we have to be cynical, and try to perpetuate the horrors of the past, so we can have a similar future. That's what Trump wants. We can be idealistic. Many peoples' realities are far more complex and even more diverse than our collective national mythology. We can find something in there.

At the protest, I saw a lot of #abolishICE signs. Some of the speakers chastized one of the other speakers, Mayor Eric Garcetti, for collaborating with ICE. That was a surprise, that it was allowed. They made good points.

LA just accepted 425k to work with DHS.

This was at the OccupyICE encampment at the Families Belong Together march.

People gathered on the streets to try and communicate with immigration detainees.

People gathered on the streets to try and communicate with immigration detainees.

This was a cool handmade banner.

I thought this was an encampment of unhoused people, but it was the OccupyICE encampment.

The costume was stunning.

WE WILL NOT BE SILENT.

Some signs were attached to the rail across from the OccupyICE LA encampment.

If anyone wishes to use these photos for editorial purposes on an ad-supported website, or otherwise for-profit news use, paypal per photo per website to johnk@riceball.com. Put your name and the website URLs or publication name in the comments. Terms are editorial use only, no royalty in perpetuity, attribution is "johnk/LA Indymedia", for each specified URL or publication. The event was Families Belong Together, on June 30, 2018, location was Downtown Los Angeles.

Editorial use means only in relation to a story about this specific event or protests related to the issue. Commercial use is completely prohibited, because there are no model clearances and no copyright clearances for any artwork. If you need higher resolution files, contact me.