Year one of the immigrant rights movement

A year ago today, half a million or more people marched up Broadway in downtown Los Angeles and surrounded City Hall in a vast sea of humanity. Dressed in white, the multitude held aloft flags, banners and placards protesting a bill in the House that would have criminalized illegal immigrants and anyone who aids them. It was a massive, historic, astonishing event. Eddie "El Piolin" Sotelo, whose nationally syndicated radio program was credited with mobilizing his audience to hit the streets, proudly roared to the crowds from a podium at City Hall that their march constituted the "start of a new era."

By Daniel Hernandez

March 25, 2007