We live about six blocks from the focal point of the second L. A. rally. I left work early to pick up the kids at school because I know how to find my way around the city better than the person who usually picks up my kids from school, and street closures around my house made it tricky to get there. I got the kids home by 3:30. By four p.m. there was a slow, steady stream of cars inching along my street in both directions, and a less steady stream of people walking towards the rally. My wife didn’t even bother to come home right after work; it would have taken her two hours, so she went to her mom’s for a couple of hours and came home around eight.
After the kids and I had dinner we walked up to the rally point, where earlier the Mayor and Cardinal of L. A. had spoken to the crowd. Walking through the crowd, we were struck by how peaceful the vibe was. The kids and I took a bunch of pictures, looked around for about 20 minutes, then walked home. It was pretty cool.
Worcester, Ma. - My high school aged children said alot of kids were absent from school. Other than that nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They had a small rally downtown but I didn’t noticed anything closed.
There was a demonstration on campus very early in the day, but, otherwise, it was no different from any usual day. Classes, library, and dining halls were as crowded as usual.
Well, traffic was back to it’s usual self today. If better traffic is the only effect it’s gonna have they can protest every day. (I know others were affected, but I have talked to many people whos only effect wazs the better traffic)
I’m all for more protests as well. Traffic would have been perfect last night except for a wreck or stalled car on I-10 that had it jammed for about 10-15 minutes. After that it was smooth sailing all the way back to Glendale. Today the traffic was awful on the way in.
Not that I’d notice. I have an ongoing master-suite construction project, but work has been on-again-off-again depending on the availability of crews – it was “off again” yesterday, but there’s no way of putting any significance on one of a large number of days when nothing got done.
The only thing I noticed all day was the long line at the Taco Cabana drive-through. Now whether that was because they were short-staffed or because I was actually passing by at 12:05 pm is anybody’s guess.
As to whether or not the “boycott” was effective, the silence of the press so far is deafening.
I had to take the day off work because I am working in downtown L.A. right now and they didn’t want to deal with the demonstrations, so I lost a day’s pay.
No, unless you count the senior student nurse who was supposed to be with me all day for part of his education. He called his instructor, told her he was going to the rally and left at 0900. I wish I had had the balls to do something like that when I was a senior student. Oh, wait-never mind.
And I had to listen to a coworker who is from Puerto Rico pontificate all about how we are all immigrants etc. She stopped talking when I said that most of us were legal and spoke English…oy.
So, no-the day didn’t effect me at all financially, socially, emotionally or culturally.
was it supposed to? Or was it some great outpouring of possible political clout? Or maybe even a grandiose melodramatic gesture that proves nothing and solves nothing as well?
None of it affected me at all. My friend fired 4 Hispanic workers for not showing up to work without notice. The 5th requested the day off in advance, and he got it.
He is also getting all the overtime he wants to make up for the lack of the other people.
Mr. Rilch didn’t want me to leave the house. I told him it wasn’t the Mau Mau Uprising, for crissakes, and he should calm down. After a brief skirmish, I went down to Ralph’s anyway. We had the news on all day, but it never spiralled out of control, as he’d been fearing.
From what I read in news reports, it sounds like the worst of the boycott’s impact was felt by the Hispanic community itself.
Also, I know that many immigrants (legal or otherwise) are working to help support their families back in their native land. That group really doesn’t have any economic clout to throw around, because all their extra money is sent out of the country.
My only thought was “damn, and I didn’t even think to enjoy it”. I would have hit the mall that I typically don’t go to, but forgot. Didn’t even occur to me while I was at another mall, though I did notice that it was pretty empty; didn’t associate the two because that particular mall in in process of rebuilding. It might be dead all the time.
