Legalize LA

I’m sure the majority of us have seen the American Apparel t-shirts with the slogan “Legalize LA Immigration Reform Now!” the latter part of the sentence is in smaller writing, you may be forgiven for assuming legalize LA was in regards to the legalisation of homosexual marriage rights, as I did when I first saw them. I wanted to know what message this trendoid clothing company was attempting to spread.



America “land of the free” is a very promising prospect for millions of Hispanic nationals. Los Angeles is one of the closest large cities to the Mexico/USA border, proving to be a popular access point for illegal immigrants. Like most first world countries America relies upon these immigrants to continue to uphold the hierarchal systems implemented by the CEO’s and managing directors of the companies that in reality have a lot to do with running the country.

So what is American Apparel doing about this? Their “Legalize LA” t-shirts are sold all over the world, in an attempt to alter the perception of the general public or at least provide them with an alternative perspective. Fashion and clothing are often viewed as an art form in some contexts, art like fashion is often utilised in order to propagate a message to a wider audience, in this way American Apparel has succeeded, they’ve managed to enliven the message of immigration reform throughout all western countries in the world, obviously because this is where American Apparel have their stores.



Publix Theatre Caravan’s ideas of no borders is really fascinating to me, I have lived in Australia my entire life, as one of the most isolated countries in the world, the idea of boarders and boundaries is foreign to me, the only instance in our white Australian history of a realistic “invasion” was World War 2, when Darwin was bombed by Japan. Currently the raging debate of “boat people” and “queue jumpers” continues, the threat of people seeking asylum from warring countries is our biggest issue when it come to immigration. In reality 1% of illegal immigrants enter the country via boats and the majority of visa over stayers are British and American nationals, who most probably like the beach.
Immigration reform is a extremely pertinent issue facing everyone in this day and age, where we are more than happy to break down borders through technology and globalisation, yet there are still (according to UNHCR figures) 10.5 million refugees in the world, I think we should all runaway and join Publix Theatre Caravan, it’s brilliant and so incredibly needed at this time.