Like millions before him, my father immigrated to the United States from Chihuahua, México when he was just seven years old. The son of a bracero farmworker, he grew up attending public schools in Boyle Heights and ultimately became the first in his family to graduate college. Actively involved in the civil rights movement, my father later became a university professor for over forty years who dedicated his life to advocating for the betterment of all our communities.
Throughout this time, my father instilled in me the importance of becoming civically involved and the power of grassroots organizing. As a child, I would attend countless rallies, fundraisers, and marches with my father and learned early on the sacredness of protest. And in those moments,I too fell in love with community organizing and saw firsthand the ways that movement building could lead to concrete policy and societal change.
Protest has always been more than a political act. It is a spiritual one. It is a collective expression of grief and hope, of refusal and reimagining. Protected under the First Amendment, protest is one of the most powerful tools we have to demand change and affirm our dignity. It has forced America to confront its greatest contradictions and inspired generations to come together to build something better.