ManilaMailDC.Net - CA Pinoys join migrants rally

SAN FRANCISCO - Thousands of minority workers and labor activists, including about 200 Filipinos, took to the streets of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose Sept. 4 to rally for immigration law reform in the first major demonstrations on the issue since May, and the first to take advantage of a new alliance between labor groups and Latino immigrants. By far the largest rally was in San Jose, as about 25,000 people, at times taking up 10 blocks of Santa Clara Avenue, marched about 3 1/2 miles to City Hall.

Several thousand people marched nearly 4 miles in Oakland, from the Fruitvale district of East Oakland to the federal building downtown. The crowd, estimated at 6,000 by organizers and half that size by police, waved U.S. flags and carried signs calling for better treatment of illegal-immigrant workers. good workers." About 200 of the members of the Filipino Community Center who waved multicolored banners as they walked along Market Street. “We have 2 million to 3 million documented immigrants and another 1 million undocumented,” said Terrence Valen, organizational director at the community center. “We’re out here because we have to remind people that the immigration rights movement isn’t going away. We can come up with a better solution.”