After the election results determined former president Donald Trump as the winner, immigrant communities from all over East Side San José gathered to protest against war and anti-immigrant rhetoric on Nov. 6 at the Mexican Heritage Plaza.
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) — a national organization focused on promoting socialism and liberation of marginalized people, according to their website, hosted the protest in collaboration with several anti-war and immigration organizations, as listed on its Nov. 7 social media flyer.
John Duroyan, president of the San José State’s chapter of Students for Democratic Society and a graduate student in history, shared their thoughts on why protesting is important.
“I'm here to protest Trump … he's a racist and reactionary,” Duroyan said. “He represents many of the ills of the far-right in this country. We know that his previous presidency was disastrous for everyone, queer people, minorities, workers, really everyone except for the rich.”
Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 allowed corporations to receive larger tax cuts than before but did not necessarily benefit the middle and lower classes, according to a preliminary analysis by The Brookings Institution, an organization that conducts independent research on policy.
“In order to stop what's going on, like we always have, we organize, we gather our community, we build support,” Duroyan said. “It's where we've been doing under Biden and it's what we're going to keep doing, no matter who's in office.”
At the protest, attendees gathered at Plaza de Coatlique while the organizations handed out signs for protesters to use. Protesters rallied in a large circle shouting chants including, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.”
In the first part of the protest, Uriel Magdaleno, a member of Silicon Valley Immigration Committee, talked about Trump's border policies and their demands as an organization.
“Despite the Trump victory, and his racist rhetoric and policies towards undocumented immigrants, we are still here to stand up, fight back,” said Magdaleno. “We are still going to demand legalization for all undocumented immigrants who are the backbone of East Side San José's working class. We demand that their rights are expanded regardless of their citizenship status. “
During the first four years of Trump's presidency, there were a reported 1.5 million deportations in the U.S. carried out while former President Trump was in office, according to a June 27 article from the Migration Policy Institute.
“The Trump campaign has vilified Haitian immigrants spreading baseless lies, leading to hateful sentiment. If there is blame on this, it's the United States that has directly intervened in Haiti and causing its destabilization,” Magdaleno said.
Trump sparked controversy with his statements during ABC’s presidential debate.
“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs,” Trump said according to a Sept. 15 article from BBC. “The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating — they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Trump said he would revoke Temporary Protected Status for Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio and deport them, according to a Oct. 3 article from CNN.
Drusie Kazanova, a member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, said their mission with involvement in the protest is to have solidarity with all oppressed peoples and see the correlation between Trump’s border policies and the genocide in Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, launched strikes and attacks on Hamas in Palestine ever since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel resulting in over 40,000 Palestinians killed at the time when the conflict began, according to an Oct. 7, New York Times article.
“It's Israeli companies and their building of the apartheid wall in Gaza that inspired the Trump administration to build the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico,” Kaznova said. “So we recognize these issues are intertwined and we demand dignity and human rights for all people everywhere.”
The entire walk went from South King Road to the Mexican Heritage Plaza lasting about half an hour and leaders of the protest gave conclusive speeches.
Nickolas Saba, a local activist from Los Gatos, rallied protesters for the liberation of Palestine and advocated for third-party candidates like Jill Stein towards the end of the protest in the Mexican Heritage Plaza.
“The Zionists can take our lives, they can steal our land. They can murder our leaders and slander our names, but they can't erase the Palestinian people from this earth. They can't shake our faith,” Saba said.
