On June 14, while Trump celebrated another year of division, 200,000 people flooded the streets of Downtown Los Angeles. From the moment I got there, I saw a massive crowd marching with a giant baby Trump balloon floating above them. There were flags, banners, drums, chants, and a movement that I was proud to be a part of. And just like listening to your favorite song at home versus live at a concert, it just hits different. It’s difficult to explain.

I started walking with the crowd, documenting everything I could. Other photographers I know were there too, not for clout or clicks, but to document truth. To fight back against the media spin that reduces movements like this to soundbites and fear tactics. We were there to see it firsthand because we’re tired of watching our movement twisted to fit someone else’s narrative.

The name of the protest, No Kings, might sound like satire to people who don’t get it. But there’s nothing funny about it. Trump literally posted AI-generated images of himself. His followers act like they want a monarch, not a president. They want someone above the law, above facts, above democracy. That’s not leadership. That’s dictatorship. That’s why we were out there. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp.

Ozomatli canceled a concert to be at the march. Tom Morello grabbed a mic and said what needed to be said: “Fuck Trump. Fuck fascism.” Simple. Clear. Straight to the point. This land isn’t his. It’s ours. The people of LA made that clear, as did the rest of the country.

This country is exhausted. Not annoyed. Not confused. Exhausted. Families are being ripped apart. ICE is still kidnapping people off sidewalks, and it feels very Orwellian. And we’re supposed to accept this as normal? Trump and his loyalists want to rebrand cruelty as strength, but we know better. We’ve seen the playbook before. We know our history.

What makes it worse are the people pretending immigrants are the problem. Let’s be real. Immigrants are the backbone of this country. We build it, cook for it, clean it, teach its kids, grow its food, and keep it running. The same people yelling “go back to your country” wouldn’t last a day doing what we do. This wasn’t a protest against America. It was a protest for it. We’re demanding it live up to the values it preaches in the Pledge of Allegiance, The Preamble, The 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and the pledge of the Statue of Liberty.

There were signs comparing Trump to dictators. Piñatas mocking him. He was painted as a devil. As a diaper-wearing baby. One man held a sign quoting Leviticus 19:33, the verse about welcoming the stranger. And yet, many of the so-called Christians who support Trump back policies that rip children from their mothers.

There was a massive version of the Constitution stretched across the crowd. People were signing it and waiting to take photos.

Flags were everywhere. Not just American flags, why? For years, it’s been used as a symbol of hate by the same people who scream “go back to your country” while waving it.

Still, not every flag was being waved for the right reasons. I saw non-Latinos waving the Mexican flag to act like fools for attention. I saw a couple of brown Trump supporters trying to provoke protestors. They don’t represent us. Just as you see after Super Bowl wins, people showed up after dark to do wheelies and burnouts around 6 or 7. That shit always pisses me off. They think they’re adding to the movement, but they’re just noise. The kind of noise media loves to amplify while ignoring the actual message. Those clowns don’t represent the 200,000 of us who showed up with purpose.

I spent the entire day in DTLA. I walked next to people from every background imaginable. Brown, Black, Asian, White. I saw people in wheelchairs, families, couples. One moment that stuck with me: a woman beating on a drum, eyes filled with rage. That kind of anger doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s the weight of years being pushed down, overlooked, treated like a problem instead of a person. People’s rights are being ripped away, families torn apart, and people aren’t going to sit this out and stay silent.

And yet, people online still ask, “What’s the point?” They scroll past a protest and shrug. That’s privilege talking. That’s someone who’s never had to fight to be heard. Protests are why we have the rights we do. We march because we care. Because silence is complicity.

Being American doesn’t mean staying quiet. It means standing up when it matters. It means raising your voice when others are being silenced. It means pushing this country to be what it says it is, not just what it has settled for. That’s what this was about.

This wasn’t about Trump’s birthday. It was about saying, loud enough for the world to hear, that we don’t accept fascism. We don’t accept racism. We don’t accept tyrants. We don’t bow to kings. Americans. Real Americans. We were loud. We were present. And we were impossible to ignore.

This land is not his. This land is ours.