Over a dozen groups representing Asian-Pacific Americans from all over the country assembled on the National Mall in Washington yesterday in an attempt to get in a say with President Obama and Congress on the issue of immigration reform.

The protesters demanded that Obama make good on his electoral promises and called on all immigrants living in the United States to "flood" Congress with phone calls and faxes.

While marching to the Mall, the 500 Asian Americans joined other protesters waving banners calling for immigration reform, shouting slogans, and beating drums. Passing drivers added their car horns to the riotous cacophony.

George Wu, executive director of the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), said that in addition to its D.C. and Virginia branches OCA has chapters in New York, Georgia, and Chicago. Wu said that his organization is urging the Obama administration to pass comprehensive immigration reform, one of his electoral promises. Wu said he recognizes that health care reform is currently the administration's priority, but that the goal of this protest is cooperate with other groups, including blacks and Hispanics, to remind Obama of his promises and to tell immigrant communities that "other people may not be thinking about immigration reform, but there is no reason we cannot dream."

Song Huiyi, a member of the Georgia chapter of OCA, who brought her two year-old daughter on the bus to Washington the night before, said that she made the trip in the hopes that the United States would not see a re-emergence of the anti-Chinese acts of the nineteenth century. Song said she supports the Dream Act.

Rebecca Yemin Shi, community organizer for Chicago's Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community, arrived in Washington with a busload of about 40 members at 4:30 in the afternoon. One of them, a Ms. Yuan, said that during the Chinese civil war her husband remained in mainland China with his parents, after that his parents applied for him to immigrate to the United States, but the process took 14 years. When their family immigrated to the States in 2005, their daughter was forced to stay in China because she was overage, causing their family great distress. Yuan said that she believes U.S. immigration law should not impose a limit on her daughter because of her age.

Christopher Kui of Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) said that a total of 200 buses carried protesters from New York to Washington, and that the morning of the protest the AAFE had sent a busload of Chinese from Flushing and Manhattan's Chinatown. Almost every family in the Chinese community has had a member affected by immigration law, Kui said.

A number of young Chinese Americans from Philadelphia joined the protest, carrying banners reading "Reunite Families." They said they hope to fight for fair immigration law through protest.

The rally organizers said that in addition to bombarding Congress with phone calls and faxes, they hope that many members of the public will take part in "local actions" held across the country from April 10th to May 1st.