Purple Ticket Nightmare

How do I begin? I am all at once exhilarated, emotional, inspired, disappointed, angry, and exhausted.

We woke up at 6am, got on the Metro, and exited the Judiciary Square stop at 7:30am. When we exited, we asked a cop to direct us to the purple ticket line. According to our map, it was nearby. He waved in a general direction and said, "Here." We jumped into the mass of humanity only to realize we had to walk three blocks. Once we got to 1st street between D and E, we found ourselves at the end of a three-block mass of humanity, with everyone confirming that yes, this was the purple ticket line. So we took a breath, ate snacks, and waited patiently with the happy, excited crowd. And waited. And waited. Then everyone started getting agitated when we realized it was already 9:30 and the line hadn't moved.

It was a crazy, disorganized, dangerous mess that grew worse by the minute as the crowds grew and patience thinned. There were no cops, no volunteers, no one telling us what to do or where to go, no Porta-Potties, and no security. About 10:30am people started to panic. By then we were cheek to jowl, with no movement in three hours, and rumors started to fly and people started to push. A cozy crowd became suffocating. People were shoving their way back from the front, and brought with them stories of what was happening. That a kid was hit by a car at the gate, so they closed it. A security breached caused the gate to close. That purple tickets were over-distributed. We were skeptical. People advised us to give up and go watch it somewhere else. Mass confusion reigned. Luckily, a riot didn't break out. People were being surprisingly patient and kind. Being five feet tall, I was pretty much beaten up by everyone's elbows.


Suddenly, the bottleneck eased at 11am and we ran towards the gate excitedly, only to find it closed, with chaos reigning again and no direction. Hundreds of people began pushing and shoving left and right. We learned from someone standing on a barricade that there was a gate finally opened for us, and we saw people being let into a security gate at a trickle. We tried to move towards that gate but 10,000 other people were trying to do the same. We screamed through the gate at the cops, thousands of us waving our purple tickets and begging to be let in. They turned their backs to us. We were shocked and angered. Everyone started chanting: PURPLE GATE. LET US IN. WE HAVE TICKETS.


About 11:50pm, I started calling my aunts at home, asking for status reports. Aretha was singing and they were running late. Sigh of relief. 10,000 people were moving an inch a minute, but we still kept hope alive. By noon, Yo-Yo Ma was playing. A little after noon, I was resigned that we wouldn't get in. I called my Auntie Virg and she put the cell phone to the TV, and I heard the oath of office. The ground shook with the booming 21-gun salute.

Purple ticket holders huddled around cell phones and radios, listening to President Obama's address. This was probably the most moving part -- everyone trying to be a part of the moment in any way we could. People comforted one another, wept, and bent towards tinny speakers, hoping to catch some small snippet. Luckily, I heard the whole thing, because Auntie Virg kept the phone to the speaker. Then I listened to his address through my cell phone, leaned up against the locked gate, with tears streaming down my face, moved by his lines about those who came from distant lands and sacrificed for us so we could have this moment, breathing in the enormity of the moment with the millions of people gathered all around the Capitol.

I found out later that there were thousands of people, a line four blocks long, trapped in a tunnel also waiting to get into the purple section, with no information, just like our line, but a block over. From the posts online, I learned that many people who had purple tickets were campaign volunteers who put in hundreds of hours for the campaign and were bitterly and sadly disappointed.

Read about it here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/20/AR2009012003362.html?hpid=topnews

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/inauguration-watch/2009/01/many_express_outrage_over_tick.html

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090120/NEWS01/901209974/-1/RSS02

and here:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iT-VvLJveBygENvamHcJ5Sm9PNBQD95R63NG0

There's even a Facebook group I just joined: Purple Tunnel of Doom. The media and the DC police are saying that it was a few hundred of us, up to 5,000. That's incorrect. There were at least 10,000 who couldn't get in. The sea of humanity was insanely huge in our line, and there was another one four blocks long as well. I don't know how many of us actually ended up getting in, but it was only a handful, I bet. Thousands of blue and silver ticketholders were also prevented from their seats. An AP photographer behind me with a purple ticket was laughing sardonically about how she was assigned to sit with the masses and catch the "real" reactions. She never made it in either.

After having lunch, crashing for a long nap, and watching the address on Donna's DVR, I realized that I can't be completely disappointed. We had an incredible time at the inaugural kickoff concert. This whole weekend has been an incredible experience. Going to the receptions, parties, and the Asian American ball reminded me how many individuals came together to make this happen, through their grassroots work, fundraising, and organizing. What was most important was that we were with millions of other people here this weekend, experiencing this transition, this renewal, this promise and new hope for real change. No one in the District wore a frown this weekend.

That's all I can really say right now. At the end of the day, the best thing in the world still happened, whether or not I was on the right side of that security gate. So I didn't get in, and I didn't get that pic with the jumbotron or the Capitol in the background.

But Barack Hussein Obama II is our 44th president.

So Happy Inauguration Day, everyone. We witnessed history. Better yet, we CHANGED history. Today, we stood on the shoulders of all who have ever sacrificed and struggled against unjustice so that we could live our dreams. As a Pinay, a woman of color, daughter and granddaughter of immigrants, as an historian...this was such a moving moment for me that I can scarcely put it into words.

We have a new president, and that's the most wonderful thing ever.


Still processing the address. I'm irritated and shocked that Chief Justice Roberts messed up the oath. Obama laughed because he realized that Roberts said it wrong -- you can see him thinking, "This fool doesn't even know the words!" Of course Obama knows the words. It's a short little oath, not the Gettysburg Address, for God's sake. You know he's been saying it in the shower since September.