"Families Belong Together" Rally in San Jose, California

On a sweltering sunny summer afternoon on this last day of June 2018, when we could have been at the shore relaxing and watching the waves of the Pacific roll in, about 1,000 of us gathered in the plaza in front of City Hall in downtown San Jose to protest Trump Administration's inhuman practice of separating children from their parents at the border and caging them like animals. We were joining millions of our fellow-Americans in 750 cities across the nation in telling the Trump administration in loud and clear voices that "Families Belong Together."

"Whose Children?" asked the man with mike. "Our children," we responded. 

"A People United Can Never be Divided," we thundered. Cars honked, and drivers raised their fists in support.

"This is what Democracy Looks Like!" declared one of the organizers from the podium. "Yes," we echoed, "This is what Democracy Looks Like."

Nothing will change, said one of the speakers, unless we vote. "Will you vote," she asked? "Yes, yes, we will vote," we said in unison. 

"Zero-tolerance for Trump's 'Zero-Tolerance' policy," we asserted. Children brought cages to dramatize the cruel policy of ICE snatching babies away from their nursing mother's arms. "Amber Alert: ICE kidnapping children," shouted an activist from the stage.

The posters captured our spirit and passion as powerfully as the speeches by ordinary folks, activists, immigrants and politicians opposed to Trump's policies.

Here are some photographs I took of this passionate event in downtown San Jose today, June 30, 2018, that I hope will give you an idea of how we Americans around the nation are seeking to save the soul of our nation being relentlessly destroyed by Trump and his sycophants.