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Rosa Lozano
On August 15th, youth organizer Rosa Lozano and several other activists disrupted the Nationals baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Rosa, who works with CASA de Maryland, and fellow activist Mackenzie Baris, who works with DC Jobs With Justice, ran onto the field with a sign that read “Boycott Racism.” Standing not far from the D.C. Superior Court following her conviction and sentence for her act of civil disobedience, Lozano explained the sign’s significance, “This was a message in reference to the anti-immigrant law in Arizona, SB 1070.”
SB 1070 turns police into immigration officials and pushes immigrants further into the shadows of society. Lozano said, “Essentially what we’re seeing is that we’re creating circumstances that are very similar to camps – like when the Japanese were interned in camps… but the situation is different in that we’re not forcing people into camps, we’re basically creating an atmosphere in the public eye that targets particular people. And the people that we’re seeing are targeted are Latino communities, regardless of immigration status. We’re seeing a general attack on Latino communities…
“You’re basically creating prisons, but that are self-imposed, because people are so scared to come out to the streets because they could be stopped for any reason: it could be a traffic violation, could be jaywalking, could be littering. And for that they risk the real chance of being deported back to their country.”