Excerpt from the Book ANTIFASCIST: A Memoir of the Portland Uprising

Luis Enrique Marquez new book is available now and this is just a short passage from its pages.

Luis Enrique Marquez

As the march came to an intersection, I was in a group about two blocks ahead of the main pack. Our job was to stop traffic until the bigger group caught up to us, then others would relieve us, and we would go on to the next spot.

“This is why Trump was elected!” the White driver of a minivan yelled at me as I signaled him to stop.

I chuckled and said, “OK, sir. We will be moving soon. Thank you for your patience.”

“Why you wearing a mask?” he asked me.

“So I am not targeted by the state or the rightwing for exercising my rights to protest our government.”

“You look like a terrorist. You better let me through.”

“Not going to happen. And the true terrorist is the man who killed a 17-year-old boy. So sit tight and we will be out of your hair,” I told him.

“Fuck you, you big-lipped fuck!” he yelled.

How did he know I had big lips? Did they push out from the bandana? “Damn are they that big?” I asked the comrades who were with me.

My comrades laughed. The man in the car didn’t think it was funny. He turned on his car and inched forward.

“Hey! Fuck off man! Stop your car!” Zach, a member of the Portland’s Resistance street team, yelled.

“Fuck you! Get out of the way!” He laid into his horn. We didn’t move and more activists joined us.

“Hey, stop!” someone yelled.

“Stop!” I yelled.

“You are going to run over people!” someone screamed at him.

“What are you doing?” another person yelled.

He kept coming forward, and I jumped on the hood of the minivan. Other people were banging on the vehicle. Someone took off his side mirror, and then he gunned the car. I fell off and people scattered out of the way. I heard glass break.

“Are you OK?” someone asked me.

“Oh my God!”

“He ran through the crowd!”

I saw feet and legs all around me. I got up and brushed myself off.

“You good, bro?” a young Black man asked me.

“Yeah, all good,” I told him.

People were milling on the corner. I walked up to Greg. He looked at me and smiled.

“You good, bro?” he asked. “You trying to be the Brown Jackie Chan?”

“Yeah, it’s no big deal. I roll and I bounce, bro. You know me, Super Wetback.”

“You crazy, but we gotta get this group moving before the pigs come,” he said.

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