The protest was held on Main Street in Whitewater on Saturday afternoon. Dozens of people lined up to chant and protest current administration's recent decisions.
The protest was held on Main Street in Whitewater on Saturday afternoon. Dozens of people lined up to chant and protest current administration's recent decisions.
WHITEWATER — Calls of “this is what democracy look like,” and “the people united will never be defeated,” rang out Saturday afternoon on Main Street in Whitewater, near Cravath Lakefront Park.
More than 50 people gathered for a rally hosted by Whitewater Unites Lives, a local organization. Participants showed up carrying signs, wearing T-shirts and with spirit, voicing deep concern about the direction the Trump Administration is taking the country.
It was part of a Saturday marked yet again by protests coast to coast, just two weeks after similar nationwide demonstrations.
Jorge Isla Martinez, gave a speech about how immigrants are scared right now and instead on building walls, people should be building bridges.
KYLIE BALK-YAATENEN
kylie.balkyaatenen@apg-sw.com
Opponents of President Donald Trump’s administration took to the streets of communities large and small across the U.S. on Saturday, decrying what they see as threats to the nation’s democratic ideals.
The disparate events ranged from a march through midtown Manhattan and a rally in front of the White House to a demonstration at a Massachusetts commemoration of “the shot heard ’round the world” on April 19, 1775, marking the start of the Revolutionary War 250 years ago.
More than 50 people gathered for a rally hosted by Whitewater Unites Lives, a local organization. Participants showed up carrying signs, wearing T-shirts and with spirit, voicing deep concern about the direction the Trump Administration is taking the country.
Thomas Bassford was among the demonstrators at the reenactment of the Battles of Lexington and Concord outside Boston. The 80-year-old retired mason from Maine said he believes Americans are under attack from their own government and need to stand up against it.
“This is a very perilous time in America for liberty,” said Bassford, who was with his partner, daughter and two grandsons. “I wanted the boys to learn about the origins of this country and that sometimes we have to fight for freedom.”
Whitewater protest
Most people had signs at the protest Saturday afternoon. These people held that say “hands off our democracy.”
KYLIE BALK-YAATENEN
kylie.balkyaatenen@apg-sw.com
In Whitewater on Saturday, motorists honked their horns in support of demonstrators gathered in a small greenspace.
Marjorie Stoneman, of Whitewater Unites Lives, said the group put out a call for local demonstrators on Thursday and were pleased with the turnout on Saturday.
“We are made up of people who care,” Stoneman said, noting that Whitewater Unites Lives is a nonpartisan group founded in 2016, whose core mission is to connect community residents to learn from and support one another.
“We felt that it was important to come together and talk about things that are impacting people in Whitewater,” Stoneman said.
Jorge Islas Martinez, who started local adult English as a second language classes in cooperation with the Whitewater school district, said in an address to the crowd that he’s an immigrant who loves the United States. He said people in the Whitewater community are scared of the current administration’s view on Hispanic immigrants.
“We are a nation built by immigrants,” Martinez said. Immigrants “came here not for handouts, but for opportunity — for freedom, for a chance to contribute, to raise families and build communities,” he added.
His address touched on the growing fear among many immigrant families of the threat of deportation and separation. He noted the emotional toll on children who go to school each day uncertain if their parents will be home when they return.
“This is not who we are,” Martinez said. “We are better than this.”
Martinez urged local officials and Whitewater police not to participate in a controversial federal initiative in which local law enforcement collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on immigration enforcement.
“We ask our local police department to protect us, not to tear our families apart,” Martinez said. “Let’s keep Whitewater a united and safe place for everyone who calls it home.”
In his message that was a call for justice, Martinez also emphasized the positive economic impact immigrants have on the country. From starting businesses to working in critical sectors like healthcare, education, agriculture, and construction, he said immigrants are an essential contributor to the nation’s strength and resilience.
“Because in the end, our greatness as a nation is not measured by the walls we build, but by the bridges we create,” he said. Neither is it “defined by who is kept or who we keep out, but by how many lives we lift up,” he said. “Let’s stand together. Let’s stand for immigrants, and let’s stand for the future, for where no one is left behind.”
The message resonated with the crowd.
Whitewater resident John Wilberding gave out polished rocks to rally attendees, saying they were “courage and resistance rocks” and that he just wanted to do something.
Rally attendee Robert Heussner, a resident of Fort Atkinson born in 1945, said and the world has greatly changed since then.
“I remember the days when there was happiness,” he said. “It seemed like not everybody was so stressed out and so worried about the problems of the government and the administration and what they’re doing.”
Heussner enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve in the Vietnam War and while he has always been pretty patriotic , he feels that the country has now taken a turn for the worse.
He held a flag that read “Veterans for Peace,” which has hosted national protests against war, and for peace.
He said protests keep people energized and keep them standing up for what they believe in.
Tina Axell, a Whitewater resident, said she is concerned the current administration is becoming too restrictive.
She particularly worries about potential cuts to funding for libraries and Social Security, and about potential mass deportations.
She said she hopes protests like the ones held Saturday move the Republican Party to “wake up” to the damage Trump is causing.
Nationwide demonstrationsIn Denver, hundreds of protesters gathered at the Colorado State Capitol with banners expressing solidarity with immigrants and telling the Trump administration: “Hands Off!” People waved U.S. flags, some of them held upside down to signal distress.
Thousands of people also marched through downtown Portland, Oregon, while in San Francisco, hundreds spelled out the words “Impeach & Remove” on a sandy beach along the Pacific Ocean, also with an inverted U.S. flag. People walked through downtown Anchorage, Alaska, with handmade signs listing reasons why they were demonstrating, including one that one that read: “No sign is BIG enough to list ALL of the reasons I’m here!”
Elsewhere protests were planned outside Tesla car dealerships against billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk and his role in downsizing the federal government. Others organized more community service-oriented events such as food drives, teach-ins and volunteering at local shelters.
Organizers say they oppose what they call Trump’s civil rights violations and constitutional violations, including efforts to deport scores of immigrants and to scale back the federal government by firing thousands of government workers and effectively shuttering entire agencies.
Some of the events drew on the spirit of the Revolutionary War, calling for “no kings” and resistance to tyranny.
Amber Hill poses with her dog Saturday afternoon at the protest. She is holding a sign that reads “my dog would be a better president.”
In Anchorage, a colonial reenactor in colonial garb held up a “No Kings” sign while the person next to him hoisted cardboard that read in part: “The Feudal Age is OVER.”
Boston resident George Bryant, who was among those at the Concord protest, said he is concerned that the president is creating a “police state.” He held a sign saying, “Trump fascist regime must go now!”
“He’s defying the courts. He’s kidnapping students. He’s eviscerating the checks and balances,” Bryant said. “This is fascism.”
In Washington, Bob Fasick, a 76-year-old retired federal employee from Springfield, Virginia, said he came out to the rally near the White House out of concern over threats to constitutionally protected due process rights, Social Security and other federal safety-net programs.
The Trump administration, among other things, has moved to shutter Social Security Administration field offices, cut funding for government health programs and scale back protections for transgender people.
“I cannot sit still knowing that if I don’t do anything and everybody doesn’t do something to change this, that the world that we collectively are leaving for the little children, for our neighbors is simply not one that I would want to live,” Fasick said.
In Columbia, South Carolina, several hundred people protested at the statehouse holding signs with slogans such as “Fight Fiercely, Harvard, Fight.”
And in Manhattan, protesters rallied against continued deportations of immigrants as they marched from the New York Public Library north toward Central Park and past Trump Tower.
“No fear, no hate, no ICE in our state,” they chanted to a steady drumbeat, referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Marshall Green said he is most concerned that Trump invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 by claiming the country is at war with Venezuelan gangs linked to the South American nation’s government, even though a recent U.S. intelligence assessment found no coordination between them.
“Congress should be stepping up and saying no, we are not at war. You cannot use that,” said the 61-year-old from Morristown, New Jersey. “You cannot deport people without due process, and everyone in this country has the right to due process no matter what.”
Meanwhile Melinda Charles, of Connecticut, said she worries about “executive overreach,” citing clashes with the federal courts, Harvard University and other elite colleges.
“We’re supposed to have three equal branches of government,” she said, “and to have the executive branch become so strong, I mean it’s just unbelievable.”
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