Guatemala! Maybe I could find someone from the group whose fliers Cathy Vega had been squirreling in her bedroom. My car sped up, making a right around the dogleg of Olvera Street, past La Placita Church toward Spring.

A noisy crowd was gathered outside the Federal Building. Besides the usual silent nuns, there were men and women in business suits, some college students and a few old people. They were in an elongated circle stretching the length of the entrance to the building, marching, shouting and carrying signs. There were at least a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred people. I scanned rapidly, looking for posters about Guatemala, but I was still too far away to be able to read them. I parked in the underground and hurried back to see what was happening. This was larger than the usual weekly vigils.

I crossed the street to get closer. A placard reading “Our Taxes Are Death for Central America” was hoisted aloft by an old woman in a black dress. Many of the demonstrators carried single red roses and wore black armbands. I felt excited. It had been a long time since I’d been at a demo. The last one was before I opened my office. “Apoyamos la lucha del pueblo salvadoreño,” read another placard. “U.S. out of Honduras.” I moved quickly through a crowd of bystanders and county employees on their way to lunch. That’s when I saw the sign about Guatemala. I fished in my purse for the leaflet from Cathy Vega’s apartment. Both had the same symbol of a circle with two red lines drawn through it. “Partido de Libertad, “ it said in red letters. This sign was carried by a white guy about my age with red hair. Several more of these signs were carried around the circle.

A loud contingent of latino counterdemonstrators stood at the edge of the sidewalk shouting in an effort to drown out the chants of the protesters. If I hadn’t been running for my own life, I would have joined in.

“El pueblo unido...”

“Communists...”

“Jamás será vencido.”

“Communist bastards...”

The counterdemonstrators surged forward. An older man wearing heavy glasses with green-tinted lenses tried to grab the arm of a young man with a sign reading, “Nicaragua—No Contra Aid—Stop the Killing.” The young man stumbled slightly as he was pulled off balance; he gripped his sign more tightly. Another man standing by the old man took the old man by the arm, speaking to him rapidly in Spanish and pulling him away from the demonstration. A brief argument punctuated by arm waving ensued between the two counterdemonstrators.

“Gusanos. Gusanos,” shouted the demonstrators.

“What’s that mean?” I asked a woman wearing a “No Intervention” button standing near me.

“Worms. Gusanos means ‘worms.’ These are the Cubans. The anti-Castro fanatics.”

“Gusanos.” I joined in. “Gusanos.”