Circulating a petition

Usually when a march blazes past Samantha Diaz’s downtown Los Angeles bridal shop on Broadway, she has sold water or flags like a true entrepreneur. But not this time.

This year, Diaz, a 37-year-old immigrant from Guadalajara, Mexico, who’s fed up with seeing marches that have little or no effect on politicians, closed her store and instead circulated a petition asking for amnesty for all immigrants currently in the United States.

"I just got tired of marches and marches and more marches and not seeing any result, and I wanted to do something for my people," said Diaz, who as a former illegal immigrant benefited from the last amnesty granted in 1991.

Diaz was swarmed by people wanting to sign one of the roughly 5,000 copies of the petition she was passing out. She said she intended to send it to the president, but the petitions were addressed to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

-Evelyn Larrubia