International Women's Day, Los Angeles

March Towards Our Collective Vision of Liberation! | AF3IRM Los Angeles’s 2016 International Women’s Day Statement

For Immediate Release
Kyrie Salazar, AF3IRM Los Angeles, [email protected]
Barbra Ramos, AF3IRM National Communications Director, [email protected], 323-813-4272

LOS ANGELES–International Women’s Day, also known as International Working Women’s Day, is a global day to celebrate women’s resistance, a day to honor women’s stories, and a day to remember those who have been taken from this world too soon due to rampant gendered violence. Today on Sunday, March 6th, 2016, AF3IRM Los Angeles along with other women of color and all of our beautiful allies take to the streets of Los Angeles as we demand for an end to all forms of violence against women and the genocide of womankind. For far too long women-identifying people have endured intersecting systems of oppression such as heteropatriarchy, racism, classism, ableism, transmisogyny, capitalism, and imperialism. As we see crises of migration from Syria to Central America, a destabilizing climate, and unlivable wages paired with gentrification of our communities, now more than ever we know it is the time for the women of the world to stand up and raise our voices. We in AF3IRM recognize that as transnational women of color we must do more than just survive, we must fight back, and in doing so, put forth our own collective vision of liberation.

For the past 25 years AF3IRM has worked tirelessly to dismantle the systems of oppression which have historically and continue to silence us. As transnational feminists of color we recognize that our struggles here at the local level are very much connected to other women’s struggles across the globe. Our feminism must move across nations, land, and borders in order to be truly intersectional and purposeful.

Today’s action is a manifestation of our collective vision. Created with intention and love, we have carved out these spaces for ourselves and other marginalized folks. Contingents have formed around different issues because all of our struggles are interconnected. Today’s march feeds our hunger for justice as we advocate for our genuine liberation.

All of today’s stops are strategic as they represent the different ways in which women’s lives are being targeted and annihilated. Our route begins at LAPD Headquarters to highlight police brutality, police sexual assault, and the policing of women’s bodies and communities of color. Too many of our sisters suffer at the hands of law enforcement, therefore, we start here as we envision a world where people in uniform are no longer needed. How different would our communities be if we could heal with restorative justice instead of punitive justice? We then continue to the Federal Building and the Metropolitan Detention Center as we connect the United States’ damaging foreign policies, the world’s refugee migration crisis, and the destruction of immigrant families due to ICE raids. Our next stop is Union Station, the main railway station in LA, but also a hub for human trafficking. Right now women and girls are being trafficked, their destinations unknown. Let us envision a world where no woman or girl will ever be subjected to the horrors of human trafficking ever again. Our end rally on Cesar Chavez Bridge will bring us all together – with poetry, music, and speeches as well as food and resource tables. But more importantly it will be a chance for all to share our ideas of liberation with each other and to continue to build for our collective futures. Let us raise our voices and demand for change, dignity, respect, freedom, and love. Let us manifest our visions into life.

AF3IRM’s vision of liberation is one filled with love–love for our selves, for our sisters, for our families, and for our communities. Our liberation means that we have the freedom to make choices without sacrificing something else. Our freedom includes the ability to be activists, mothers, sisters, daughters, workers, students, and so much more while living a dignified life. We seek a sisterhood of women and women-identified folks that dismantles systems of oppression while working towards creating our alternative reality. Today we build a new world. Today we fill the streets with our bodies, our music, our voices, our dances, and our art of resistance. Today we occupy this public space but also create space for ourselves. The work does not end here, it is only the beginning. Join us as our vision comes to life today and every day.

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WHAT: International Women’s Day March and Rally
WHEN: Sunday, March 6, 2016
TIME: 12:00 noon
WHERE: Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters 100 W. 1st Street, Los Angeles 90012 (Between Main and Springs Sts)
CONTACT: [email protected]

Follow hashtag #IWDLA2016, as well as AF3IRM accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Official Media Sponsor: Feminist Magazine KPFK

Official Photography Sponsor: Las Fotos Project

Current list of endorsers:

  • #YoSoy132 Los Angeles & Coordinadora Independencia
  • ACCESS Women’s Health Justice
  • AllCare Alliance
  • Alliance-Philippines
  • American Muslims for Palestine
  • amigas who run
  • ANSWER/WORD
  • Antena Los Ángeles
  • Anti-Mall: people b4 profit
  • API Equality-LA
  • ARTivist Entertainment
  • Asian pacific American labor alliance Los Angeles (APALA LA)
  • BDS-LA for Justice in Palestine
  • Bikesanas del Valle
  • California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (CIYJA)
  • California OneCare
  • Chicana M(other)work Collective
  • CODEPINK: Women for Peace
  • Communtiy Education for Social Action (CESA)
  • Corazon Del Pueblo
  • corriente obrera
  • CSULA FMLA
  • East LA Brown Berets
  • East Side Cafe Son Jarocho Collective
  • Eastside Mujeres Network
  • EC Classifieds
  • El Centro Cultural de Mexico & Son del Centro
  • El hormiguero
  • ELACC
  • Empty Cages LA
  • Equal Means Equal
  • Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project
  • Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement
  • Feminist Magazine KPFK Radio
  • FMLA
  • Fullerton Dream Team
  • Girasoles En Marcha
  • Girasoles En Marcha
  • Global Women’s Strike/LA
  • HEAL California
  • Health Care for All – California
  • Heart of Art
  • Hollywood NOW
  • HOODsisters
  • IDEPSCA
  • Immigrant Youth Coalition
  • Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California
  • Isabel si se puede
  • IWW-LAGMB (Industrial Workers of the World LA General Membership Branch)
  • Justice for my Sister
  • Kappa Psi Epsilon
  • KmB Pro-People Youth
  • A. Zine Fest
  • La Flor De La Resistencia
  • La Raza Student Association
  • La Raza Student Association-CSULB
  • Latinas for Reproductive Justice
  • Latinic Societas Unitas (Latin sorority from UCR)
  • Los Angeles County HIV Drug & Alcohol Task Force
  • Los Angeles LGBT Center
  • Los Angeles Poet Society
  • MEChA Roosevelt High School
  • Medical Students for Choice
  • Mujeres de Maiz
  • Multicultural Communities for Mobility
  • National Organization of API Ending Sexual Violence
  • Navarasa Dance Theater LA
  • Omega Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. Phi Chapter
  • Ovarian Psycos Cycles
  • People’s Education Movement
  • Peoples Yoga
  • Physicians for a National Health Program – California
  • Progress for Science
  • Radical Women
  • Red Guards – Los Angeles
  • Sisters of South LA
  • Social Work Society
  • Socialist Alternative LA
  • Socialist Party Los Angeles Local
  • Sociology Student Association CSULB
  • Solidarity House of the South/Casa Solidaria del Sur
  • Student Association of Macro Practice
  • The Tiyya Foundation
  • The TransLatin@ Coalition
  • The Women’s Advocacy Club
  • Ticicalli Yahualli
  • Todo Verde
  • Tuesday Night Project
  • UCSB Women of Color Circle
  • UNITED AGAINST POLICE TERROR SD
  • USC Students for Justice in Palestine
  • USC Women’s Student Assembly
  • VeganMoni/#eastsidecancerproject
  • Women Manifest
  • Womyn of Color Conference CSULA