For years, a contingent of LGBT demonstrators participated in the big May Day march and rally downtown organized annually by the Los Angeles May Day Coalition, lead by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). And while the LGBT participants were happy to come out with rainbow flags and signs calling for immigration reform, some felt overshadowed, marginalized and even disrespected—feelings that finally came to the forefront last year. After all, undocumented trans and queer immigrants must not only deal with being torn from their families—but they also face the prospect of punishment, stigma and even death if deported back to a homophobic and transphobic country because of US immigration policies.
This year, the May Day Trans Queer Contingent, which has advocated for LGBTQ immigration reform since 2008, decided to do their own rally on the Matthew Shepard Human Rights Triangle in West Hollywood at 5:00pm. The Contingent wants to use their rally at the historic site on Santa Monica Blvd and Crescent Heights to educate the LGBT community and the City of West Hollywood to support immigration justice and LGBTQ immigrants.
“We stand in solidarity with the May Day rallies’ message calling for a $15 wage and with the Black Lives Matter movement and the protest in Baltimore,” says community activist Freddy Lee. “But we want to bring visibility to LGBTQ immigrant workers and youth issues. We want to bring light to the painful and unjust experience that we face in coming to this country seeking asylum and protection.”
Last year, for instance, Yordy Cancino, a GSA Network Youth Leader, sought asylum and was held in a private detention center for three months, where he endured solitary confinement and harassed by the officers for being gay. “I’m still trying to mentally recover from all this criminalization while fighting my asylum case,” says Cancino. “No LGBTQ youth should go through what I am going through.”
“We wanted to separate ourselves from the main contingency because we want to be included in immigration policies and we want to make sure we do what we need to do for our communities,” longtime trans advocate Bamby Salcedo, director of TransLatin@ Coaliton, told me. “Since the immigration movement started, LGBTQ issues have not really been included or taken into account. So we want to make sure we do what we need to do for our people.”
“The LGBT movement has accomplished so much in the last decade,” Eileen Ma, Executive Director of API-Equality LA, said in a press release. “We’ve struck down Proposition 8 and DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) and DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell), and improved work conditions and employment opportunities for LGBTQ people. We could do so much if the LGBTQ movement invested the same energy and resources in fighting for immigration justice for LGBTQ people as we have for marriage equality.”
“The reason we’re doing this rally in the City of West Hollywood is to bring awareness about the issue and the situation that continues to happen to LGBTQ individuals in detention centers – the inhumane treatment that they receive – and for us to stop the deportation of our people and request the liberation of our people,” Salcedo said. “We want to bring it to West Hollywood because it’s important that the LGBTQ community at large understands that immigration is an issue that effects us all in many different ways.
But the Contingent has an even greater call to action. “We want the City of West Hollywood to be a sanctuary for LGBTQ immigrants,” says Salcedo.
This is no small matter, as Salcedo and others pointed out when they disrupted the Creating Change conference earlier this year protesting that #TransLivesMatter.
“At least nine Trans women of color have been murdered in the US in 2015, four in Southern California,” says Salcedo,.“The immigrant Trans community also faces high rates of unemployment and low paying jobs: many immigrants working in restaurants make less than $10 hour, they work long hours and are afraid to ask for more because they are undocumented.”
There is precedent for West Hollywood serving as a sanctuary city. In the early 1980s, then-liberal, Spanish-speaking Cardinal Roger Mahoney and other faith leaders wanted the City of Los Angeles to serve as a sanctuary city for refugees fleeing violence in El Salvador and Guatemala. In the early 1990s, the Methodist Church on the corner of Fairfax and Fountain under the directorship of Pastor Scott Imler was a sanctuary for users of medical marijuana.
“West Hollywood has always been a sanctuary for outsiders and the disenfranchised. We have been a respite for almost 100 years for many individuals who have been persecuted for their beliefs including communists, socialists, beatniks, hippies, homosexuals, protestors and blacklisted writers,” says out Latino West Hollywood City Councilmember John Duran. “A sanctuary city for LGBT immigrants is consistent with our values and traditions.”
Duran says he will introduce a resolution at the May 18 council meeting.
This is the list of groups participating in the coalition:
API Equality-LA, Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team (APAIT), Asian American/Pacific
Islander Transgender/Queer Activists-(AQWA), Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los
Angeles, Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON), Bienestar, Chinese
Rainbow Association, Equal Action, Equality California, Eviction Defense Network,
Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, Gender Justice LA, GSA Network Southern
California, Human Rights Campaign, Immigrant Youth Coalition, IDEAS-Claremont
Colleges, Immigration Equality, Inland Empire – Immigrant Youth Coalition, LA LGBT
Center, Latino Equality Alliance, Latino Queer Art & Film Festival 2015, Los Angeles
Queer, May Day Trans Queer Contingent, Mujeres de Maiz, National LGBT Task Force,
Proyecto Orgullo, Queer Resource Center – Claremont Colleges, Radical Women – Los
Angeles, Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles, Satrang SoCal, Somos
Familia Valle, The Wall Las Memorias Project, Trans Student Education Resources,
TransLatin@ Coalition, Tuesday Night Project, UFCW Local 770 Outreach, Viet
Rainbow of Orange County (VROC).