¡Ningún ser humano es ilegal!

Back in 2016, I was going through quite a political situation at work. To give you the run down, human resources got involved. And when the situation was resolved, the HR director called me on the phone and asked me how I emotionally managed everything.

He said that he’d been dealing with his own nasty political situation in his department, and was having a difficult time navigating. This is to set the scene for what I’m about to say.

When Trump was elected president, I cried for two whole days.

I am a bleeding heart empath and feel the pain of those with less power in society. So when the man who campaigned on a platform of hate was elected to be the leader of my country, I broke.

Maybe my undoing was compounded by my work situation. It probably was.

So, that last few weeks of 2016, I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to spend much longer in my crap job. I was going to leave, somehow. I also wasn’t going to leave without taking all my vacation days.

I also knew that the week that Trump was inaugurated, I didn’t know what kind of protests were going to happen in D.C. But I knew that there would be protests. And whatever they were, I wanted to be there.

So, yes, I spent 8 hours walking in the Women’s March. But the more meaningful event was the day before when all the bleeding hearts in D.C. paraded through the streets surrounding the mall during Trump’s inauguration.

This day I made photos of a man walking with a lama, women walking on stilts, and a full band of musicians walking with us.

It is the message in this photo that gets to my core. Why do we say that anyone is illegal? Isn’t it anyone’s right to exist?

Until the 1990’s the term “illegal alien” didn’t become widely used in the U.S. Now thanks to the political climate, too many people don’t see what is insensitive about it.

I personally have lived in Mexico and Italy. I also spent close to a year living in Brazil. I never faced such hostility in any of those countries. I shudder to think of the discrimination some people may face when the live in my country.

Originally published at https://dogdays.photography on August 14, 2021.