I’m at Peninsula Park in North Portland today for Latinos for Black Lives, an event bringing together Portland’s Latino community in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

About ~150 people are gathered in the grass listening to Mexican singer/songwriter Edna Vazquez:

Earlier, I spoke with the event organizer Romeo Sosa:

“Today is about Latinos for Black Lives. We want to bring the music, poetry and speakers to talk about the movement. And we need the voice of Latinos in this movement because it’s our struggle too.”

“Black people have done a lot of work to fight for justice and for us — for all people who are immigrants to this country. We wanted to bring a different style instead of marches, to bring our music and our musicians’s songs about social justice, and bring it to the community.”

“It’s not easy asking people to be here in the middle of the pandemia, and also the immigration enforcement going on right now. There’s a lot of fear. Police brutality, state violence and immigration are against our community and need to be resolved.”

A band performs “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” which translates to “The people united will never be defeated!”

Several children dance and spin in the grass in front of the gazebo to the music.

Earlier, the crowd heard from Andrea Cid, a founder of People Vs. ICE:

“The Latinx community here stands with the Black Lives Matter movement because we recognize the mistreatment against BIPOC communities and individuals from the United States government.” (1/4)

“We say ‘defund the police and abolish ICE’ because they have proven time and time again that they have not rejected their racist roots. Every single night, protesters and bystanders, especially the BIPOC ones, are targeted, harassed, and met with violence...” (2/4)

“... from the feds and the police. BIPOC individuals are ruthlessly murdered and it doesn’t matter the horrible excuse the police and feds come up with, because they have funding for training.” (3/4)

“And if they are not being properly trained, then we, the city of Portland, demand their weapons and funding be taken away.” (4/4)

Cid founded People Vs. ICE during Portland’s Occupy ICE movement of 2018. Here is Cid speaking to a crowd at an Abolish ICE march and rally she organized at Jamison Square Park on July 31: https://twitter.com/catalinagaitan_/status/1289383492174807040

A band performs an anthem honoring women who have disappeared:

Poet Alberto Moreno, El Llanero Inmigrante, reads one of his pieces for the crowd:

“Someone asked me – they asked, ‘how does the death of George Floyd make you feel?’ Could I identify my feelings? Give them pretty names? And the truth is, I couldn’t.” (1/5)

“Because what I wanted to say – what I imagine Black and brown folks want to say – is that we are fed up to the gills with injustice as the only thing on the menu for us. We are sick and tired of being made sick and tired by our dehumanization.” (2/5)

“By our criminalization. By our marginalization. We are sick and tired of feeding the great machines of injustice. Of working our bodies. Of working our bodies to the bone for a dollar. We are sick and tired of tendering our sisters’s tender bodies to your white privilege.” (3/5)

“‘How do we feel,’ you ask? We are starving for justice. We are famished for fairness. We are hungering, hungering to be seen under the same grace as our white brothers and sisters.” (4/5)

“We are tired of receiving hand-me-down fairness. We are tired of being subservient to whiteness. Tired of being justice’s stepchild.” (5/5)

Before performing, musician Samuel Davila spoke about the recent ICE protest in Bend, Oregon on Aug. 12:

"It started with a woman standing in front of an unmarked bus. And then a few more people joined in. Then there were a couple dozen. By midnight, there were hundreds." (1/10)

"Inside the unmarked van were Marco Rios and Josue Sanchez, both fathers. A standoff that lasted 12 hours left them hungry and wanting to hug their children. During the time that they were in the bus, the wives and the children of the men stood outside the bus." (2/10)

"They stood in tears, communicating with Marco and Josue by pressing themselves against the metal sides and shouting through the windows. Advocates for the community, they pleaded with ICE – that they provide the men with food water and access to legal council." (3/10)

"When the press finally arrived, ICE made sure that they made clear that both Marco and Josue needed to be arrested to keep the community safe; that they were ‘criminal aliens.’ See? This is how ICE dehumanizes immigrants." (4/10)

"Labeling people 'criminal aliens' is one way that ICE perpetuates the monstrosity of the US immigration detention system. It’s the largest in the world." (5/10)

"The term “criminal alien” has become an important cover for legal violence that justifies and legalizes ICE’s expansion and intensifies their enforcement and regime." (6/10)

"They justify their actions as part of an effort to make the community safer by raiding them of these ‘aliens.’ Of these ‘criminals.’ But what ICE’s narrative fails to acknowledge is that the people that they detain are caught up in a broken criminal legal system." (7/10)

"It fails to acknowledge how the US maintains the largest incarceration system in the world. Because, by the over-policing of Black and brown communities, it fails to acknowledge the racist police practices of stop and frisk." (8/10)

"And it fails to acknowledge that the people caught in the dragnet of immigration enforcement are often from these same communities that have a long history of being over-policed and -prosecuted." (9/10)

"Marco and Josue should be with their parents, with their children and their wives and their communities. Instead, they’re in a detention center." (10/10)

Today’s event, Latinos for Black Lives, has wrapped. Here, Edna Vazquez leads the crowd in chanting “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” and “Black lives matter!”

“Together. Together, united. Estamos unidos. Estamos unidos!”