Two Cerritos College students joined musicians Ben Harper and Tom Morello, Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), California State Senator Richard Alarcon D-San Fernando Valley and more than 300 Los Angelinos in civil disobedience by volunteering to be arrested, Thursday evening.
During a choreographed protest for unionization at 13 airport-area hotels and for immigrant right's, Marlen Rios-Hernandez, music major, and Gredma Casasola, bio-chemistry major, were arrested for blocking the street in front of the Westin Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport.
Rios-Hernandez and Casasola, both FMLA members, and several other area students, workers, clergymen, professors and politicians sat back to back in front of the Hilton and Westin hotels on Century Boulevard, while approximately 3,000 people joined in marching from Archibald Avenue to the two hotels.
"It's not wanting to get arrested, it's the cause of what it represents," Casasola said, before her and the rest of the protestors were booked for civil disobedience.
She and Rios-Hernandez heard about this protest and signed up at a speech labor activist Dolores Huerta gave at El Camino College. Huerta encouraged them to sign up.
The local chapter of the hotel and restaurant employees union Unite Here has been trying to unionize the more than 3,000 airport hotel workers, most of whom are from Latin America, for some time. Untie Here is looking for fairer wages for the workers.
According to the union these employees earn about 20 percent less than similar workers make elsewhere in the city.
A large part of the well-planned protest was organized by We Are America, the immigrant rights group that helped organize the "Day without an Immigrant" march that drew more than 4,000 protestors to downtown Los Angeles on May 1.
Before the protest police were expecting around 2,000 people, according to Lt. Dennis Kato of the LAPD.
Due to the well-organized nature of the event Kato expected it to be "very peaceful."
"We worked with the (We are America Coalition) and they have been very cooperative."
The peace maintained despite a counter protest by the vigilante group known as the Minuetmen Project, which looks to eliminate illegal immigration in the U.S.
At approximately 6:30 p.m. hundreds of policemen were bused in to formally arrest the volunteers and even shot their mug shots on the spot.
Before the staged sit-in, the group of protestors gathered in front of the Radisson hotel on Archibald were Harper and Morello gave well-received performances. Both riled up the crowd with protest songs.
Morello sang part of his song in Spanish and even joined in the chants of "Si se puede!"- "Yes we can!"
The former Rage Against the Machine guitarist, currently of Audioslave, finished his set by yelling that he was willing to be dragged by the police.
For over 20 years, Isabel “Segunda” Brentner has worked at the LAX Hilton, keeping her focus on her family and her job. “My priorities [were] to help my family,” says Brentner, who, along with raising her own children, cared for both her father and grandmother when they were ill. 
Enedina Alvarez, a 54-year-old single parent, says she must be both mother and father to her teenage children. Yet, with two jobs, she has barely enough money to house, feed and clothe them—and precious little time to spend with them. Although she receives health insurance through her job, she cannot afford to insure her children. Alvarez says, “I pray to God that my kids do not get sick because I cannot pay the medical bills.” 
Nearly all hotel housekeepers are women. The majority are women of color and immigrants.
