Washington DC Rally

We decided to take the trip to D.C. Julian was the only one that was originally going to go along, but then Leah made her valiant effort to convince me of her potential contributions to the day and won the argument.

We printed out approximately 700 Action for Family Unity and 200 pages of front and back (Spanish and English versions) platform planks for immigration reform written by Ellin and friends. She has recently finished her documentary The Second Cooler. We also laminated her documentary’s poster to help advertise. A clip-board held a petition to end the bar of American Citizens’ spouses to be allowed back into the States with their families that Action for Family Unity has online through Change.Org that we printed it in hopes of getting written signatures from the DC Rally crowd.

We set out with the car loaded up. All of our Action for Family Unity flyers and such went into a backpack that we took turns carrying in the field. We had a camera with several batteries and memory storage - ready for anything. Our GPS was plugged in and programmed for the first DC Metro stop on the red-line called Shady Grove.

Our first stop was for gas at Sheetz, the GPS was repeating “route recalculation” and turned us around, then back in through town, around the wrong streets, etc… we drove in our home town for at least 20 minutes and I still don’t know what was wrong with that GPS, but I almost threw it out the window… Of course, if only I knew that I could punch a button to see what direction, what highway that it was aiming for, then I could have been directly on the road, however… it was borrowed and I did not know how to work it. Finally we were on the right road, headed for the TurnPike…

At the TurnPike, I did not see anyone and I do not ever take the pay toll road, so I just drove right through the booth tolls without stopping… when we arrived at the exit she asked for my ticket. I did not have a ticket! So I had to pay the full amount of maximum toll which was $25. But, whatever.

Leah was in the back seat and Julian sat up front with me. We were having the best time. I love the road. I love to drive. When I was a child my father traveled for his job (chimney and tower aviation obstruction lighting/pollution systems monitoring... in other words, changing the blinky-lights up-high on towers all over the country) and he took my mom and my sisters and I with him so we were always traveling into every contiguous state, so I feel very comfortable on the highway traveling – almost at home. We turned up the radio and put the windows down. We drove well over the speed-limit and it was totally awesome!!! (We joked at the expectations of several tickets in the mail this week following...)

There was a truck-stop that we came to in attempt to buy a hat for Julian’s long hair to be put out of his eyes in the wind, but found a Harley handkerchief instead, which was even cooler. He has always had long hair since he was little, and when we lived on the beach in Florida he used babushkas so it worked. He looks like a bad-boy, but he is as harmless as a kitten and has the maturity of most adults, (some, more so). He looked so cute!

The closer we got to DC the hotter it got. We left chilly Western PA for the 90-degree heat of the Capital. I asked Julian “is Leah sleeping?” He turned around and said, “yea, but it looks like she just got out of the shower – she is all wet” because she was sweating so much. She must not have been feeling too good from the start because she ended up getting a bit of a heat stroke at the Rally and had to take an hour rest under a tree.

At an intersection outside of DC, there was a woman dressed in the Statue of Liberty costume holding an income tax sign. Julian told her out the window that she needed to come join our rally because it was better than what she was doing! 

We finally arrived at the Metro Station outside of DC. The parking lot however was completely filled without a single spot left for us. I did not know how to program the GPS even if I would have known of another Metro Station’s address, which I didn’t, so we had to just keep driving around in circles. We spotted a woman hiking through the aisles of cars and we asked her if she was leaving, then we stalked her all of the way to her car. Other cars were starting to gather as we waited for her to go, so Julian hopped out to fend the spot on foot. We parked and assembled our things together. We had to finish our poster on the hood with our sharpie markers and it was so darn hot out!

The Metro was so confusing. The world has changed so much and everything is run by machines now and to get a person to stand in a ticket booth that you can hand money to in exchange for a ticket is a thing of the past. Now they have these machines that ask you what the heck you want when you don’t know yourself. There seems to be terminology for Metro travelers that I was not accustomed to because the words that were asked of me were foreign like if I wanted great ticket or an even greater ticket or a different ticket because the greatness of the tickets in total were then directed to asking how much I was willing to pay for that ticket… just a total menagerie with a line behind me of experienced Metro riders who were maybe going to work or something. Oh so confusing! However, the change back is given from the machines in golden colored dollars that you just cant find anywhere else - so we now have a collection of about 20 from different years... including Sacajawea. We got into the Metro and relaxed.

That is when I texted Giselle and told her we were on the metro, then we'd be off to look for food. I wrote my phone number on the kids’ arms along with Giselle’s number in case anything would happen to any of us. 

The ride took 45 minutes.

I went into deep thought in sort of a flash-back state of mind of Mexico and our life there. Riding the Metro made me remember the bus system while we lived in Mexico. I have the fondest memories of that time. I felt the memories of all of our travels back and forth from country to country as well due to the mixture of rushed pace with slight confusion and everything being foreign from our daily life. 

Our stop came and we were now in DC.

We walked through the Metro station to a restroom and then a McDonald's where we got 6 cheeseburgers but only each ate one and saved the rest for a “just in case” later.

Since we had no idea where we were going in DC we just strolled along. We began to notice signs of the rally as people were sporadically holding signs or flags up here and there. So we just went in the same direction until the obvious pedestrian traffic turned into more of a march towards a central location. Then we could hear cheering! Our feet picked up speed as we started to get excited and we rounded the sidewalk to peer down to a crowd in front of the Capital building.

Our strategy was decided at this time. First we would get out all of the flyers and then we would relax a little and go for the petition signatures. It was just so absolutely hot out and sunny and there was little shade to hide in. The three of us took up our flyers and went deep into the crowd that was tight up against the speaker in front on the Capital balcony, passing them to everyone while we squeezed through. 

Leah started to look bad, like she was going to pass out. We distributed most of the flyers by this time in roughly an hour or more. We lost Julian several times and once it took too long to find him and I almost went into a panic. When we found him he was just as casual as can be talking to people like he had no clue that Leah and I were freaking out. So we made a plan that if we do get lost for a substantial amount of time to meet in front of this big bush that was in the back of the area.

We went for shade tree shelter for thirty minutes to revive.

 Our faces were red and sweat was pouring down our foreheads. We were the only ones passing out any type of literature to read in the crowd. There was a stand selling flags and banners, but nothing like what we were doing. We figured that we were providing souvenirs for people to keep. We hope that we created the awareness for our cause as well as helped other groups with ideas for their cause. Maybe the other organizations will make flyers too now. Nothing ended up on the ground that we passed out. It all stayed in the hands of the people that took them willingly. Every time we would turn around to see where we had been, the folks that had our flyers were reading them. It was a success!

Leah finally was rejuvenated. We walked around a bit more with the few remaining flyers to pass out, took some pictures of the different organizations and groups, and just let ourselves feel the presence of this amazing spirit in the air.

The wall along the back was where Julian then walked along talking to the people sitting down to gather the signatures for the petition. Most of them were Spanish speaking. Julian speaks Spanish with native fluency, because he went through most of his elementary school years in school in Mexico. He went from person to person, explaining the petition and general chit-chat (he is a bit of a talker). He got into the third page of about 30 each on each page.

The last photo above, Julian said that the woman in the photo is from Cuba.

While Julian was working the petition, Leah was still not feeling that great so we stood and listened to the speaker in the front, and I recorded a video. I had my shades on, but underneath I started to cry at the scene that was in front of me. It was one of the most amazing experiences of patriotic enthusiasm and brotherhood in humanity that I think that I have ever seen. It was as beautiful as the birth of a baby. The flags were waving and there was a strong spirit of hope.

Then we I saw Giselle walking with a group of ladies. I said to Leah “Oh my God – I’ll be back!” I recognized her right away in the crowd in front of me, and I dodged right for her with all my thrilled excitement, hugged on and kissed her cheek like she was a long lost sister! Afterward Leah kept making fun of me, saying that I probably scared her as a woman just out of the crowd grabbing her like that with no warning, but I was so overwhelmed with happiness I did not think but to just hug her! All the years of making friends on Facebook, sharing the happiest moments and the most gut-wrenching moments – I tell you in all honesty these friendships go well beyond simple “how do you do’s” and photo sharing. Giselle is the first of my friends that I have been blessed to meet in person. It was a truly amazing meeting, confirming that she is real and is who I always pictured, very strong and very lovely.

It was time to go. The kids were tired and we still had to travel the whole way back to PA before it got too late. We headed back to the Metro while looking back at the hope and love of a group of people who need their prayers answered today.

The Metro home was difficult because we were tired. Both of the kids fell asleep. It was crowded and there were many people standing in the aisle holding onto the bars. It reminded me of the Route 20 in Mexico that rides from my old house in Tezoyuca, into Acatlipa, through Temixco, and into Cuernavaca… how many times I had to stand in the aisle on that bus… I cannot even count. How similar our countries are, but yet so entirely different. 

The ride home was strange as there was a piece of the bottom of my car that was dragging – so it was loud. I am still not sure what it is, some of it got worn away… Julian wired it up yesterday for me. The last 95 miles we had to drive in the dark in a thunderstorm, so it was slow moving. Jules sat awake with me though, and we joked and laughed about random things, talking about life stuff…

We did it for our friends and for the good of humanity, but we made yet another awesome memory for ourselves - another adventure.