On May 1, 2011, I went to downtown San Jose, California to participate in a march for immigrant rights. It is an important issue for me as the child of Filipino immigrants to support the rights of Latino immigrants, especially since many of these immigrants have been exploited for their cheap labor while being denied many rights to redress injustices inflicted upon them. It's something that other immigrant groups from past have suffered through as well, from the Chinese and Irish immigrants of the nineteenth century to the Filipino, Japanese and Mexican immigrants of the twentieth century. I only began attending public demonstrations about two years ago, when I first attended a vigil for health care reform, and I've learned a lot from walking with activists and listening to their stories.

In American history, there is a proud tradition of grassroots activism, of the early abolitionists, women suffragists, labor organizers, civil rights protesters, antiwar activists, and feminists. I think the people who participated in the immigrants rights march are in the spirit of the early Founding Fathers who wanted an involved and active citizenry willing to petition for their rights.

When I heard that Osama Bin Laden was killed, I had many mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was relieved that this man was no longer around to mastermind terrorist acts that would kill more innocent people. I hope Bin Laden's death put closure for the family and friends of all the people that Bin Laden had a hand in killing. On the other hand, I felt uncomfortable celebrating the killing of a human being, no matter how evil that person has been. In many ways, the way people are acting now is probably similar to the way previous generations reacted to the death of Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin.

Osama Bin Laden represents to me the type of extremism that is at the heart of so much terrorism. Because of Bin Laden, Al Queda and the Iranian revolution, most Americans tend to associate religious extremism with Islam, but all religions are plagued with examples of extremism. The three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam have had sad episodes of religious extremism where its partisans have used their religion to harass and kill those who do not hold their religious tenets.