Los Angeles Indymedia : Activist News

Using a provocative tactic, made famous by the Orangemen in N. Ireland and utilized by the KKK and neo-nazis on many occasions, the Minutemen marched directly down a thoroughfare packed with the very people they target. The Minutemen numbered about 120 while counter-protesters numbered around 200. LAPD numbered around 100. Police presence was heavy and the Minutemen, marched with a police escort.

The counter-protesters were loud and they followed the Minutemen all the way up to City Hall. At City Hall the police line was extended and counter-protesters were not allowed to get near the racist rally was taking place on the steps. Little by little various Minutemen and their supporters made their way down the hill, across the lawn toward the side where the counter-protestors had amassed. In an apparent error in planning, porta-potties were set up on the other side of the police line right next to the counter-protestors.
Full Report: A Strange March Up Broadway by Next Move
Also from the newswire: Minutemen Mini March Fizzles by jlr - builder123 | | The Minutemen in Los Angeles by Marcus | | AUDIO - Immigrant Rights Activist at counter demo | | Timeline of call-ins to LA-IMC

LOS ANGELES, 21 May 2006--In spite of the obvious provocation, protest organizers agreed in advance that non-violence was the order of the day in confronting the minutemen's march against migrant rights along the now-historic Gran Marcha route. And so it was, but the protestors' hard-bitten contempt was palpable, and the the shoppers and shopkeepers along Broadway were clear in their resentment. Full report: Provoking Violence: The Minutemen Confront Migrants and Supporters in Downtown LA by Leslie Radford

UPDATE: Two protesters, including a well known Chicano activist, were arrested in Downtown, Los Angeles during a confrontation with members of the volunteer border patrol the Minuteman Project. Activist clash with Minuteman Project by C.J.

LOS ANGELES, July 4, 2006 – Ignoring pleas from immigrants rights activists, the Mayor knowingly rode in a parade with the minuteman group. Three days of phone calls and emails to parade organizers and elected officials failed to get the permit for the minutemen revoked. Instead the spectacle of the anti-immigrant minutemen and the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles in the same parade played out. The minuteman contingent was dogged the length of the parade by immigrants rights supporters. The Minutemen were greeted with a mixture of cheers and boos from parade viewers. At the end of parade there was an incident with the minutemen that resulted in the arrest of one of the immigrants rights supporters. From the newswire: VIDEO: Mayor in parade with Minutemen
Mayor in Parade with Minutemen

The contemporary rhetorical and political tactics by the anti-immigration movement has a strong historical parallel in the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century. IMC community member Pachuco reviewed the history of early 20th cenutry American fascism, and contemporary, resurgent anti-Mexican politican forces. READ: Evolution and the Antis by Pachuco

"No matter what the rulers do, short of a general legalization, they will present our people with unbearable choices, with an unimaginable grief of separation; with the mass destruction of what is most sacred to us; our families and communities."

"Will we allow the rulers of America to deport our children, 2/3 of whom are citizens of their nation? Will we allow them to force us to leave our children behind? Will we let our children live in fear that their parents may not come home from work? That they will disappear? At what point will the grief, fear and rage become unbearable, and uncontainable? At what point must we say “¡Ya Basta!” ?"

From: The Border War Comes Home by Juan Santos