Aiming pepper spray at a crowd exposes people to a chemical implicated in at least 25 deaths in California alone. Pepper spray causes temporary blindness and panic in a crowd. Pepper spray is by nature indiscriminate. No police officer can tell who has cardiac or pulmonary issues.

The mayor has no understanding of the awful defeat the loss of People’s Park would be. No comprehension of the cost in lives and the sacrifices people have made for the Park’s ideals. So many still find it a refuge in a country needing a political and spiritual overhaul.

Elisa Guevara leads protests over rent hikes and high rates for undrinkable water “We’re a forgotten community. We’re invisible,” she said. “There’s hardly any housing for farmworkers, so park operators can rent us dilapidated trailers. Workers go without electricity and a sewer system, or live with contaminated water.”

A farmworker’s death in Washington prompted his fellow braceros to put their livelihoods in jeopardy by going on strike and risking deportation. The death pushed the workers into an action unprecedented in farm labor history. When they were fired for protesting, they joined the new union for farmworkers.