‘No Kings’ protest spotlights CALC, TALC

Presenter: Organizers estimated that 10,000 people marched through downtown Eugene June 14 to tell the Trump administration: ‘No Kings.’ The organizers hoped to convert protesters to activists, and to support two community organizations, TALC and CALC. At the protest rally from the Activist Coalition of Eugene Springfield, Stan Taylor:

Stan Taylor (ACES): This movement is dedicated to being built on racial, social, environmental, economic justice, and is being accomplished by building alliances and networks. That’s what we need to do, build alliances and networks. What we recognize is that we are stronger when we come together than we are in our individual organizations. (Yes!)

[00:00:47] There are things we can do in coalition that we cannot do alone. So what I would like you to do today is to become an activist, to go to the tables that are here, pick an organization that you’re interested in, sign up and get active in that organization.

[00:01:17] The time for sitting on the sidelines is past. We need to begin to support the groups in our community that need our help. And one of the things we’re doing here today, besides having a rally and march, is we are seeking to support two important groups in our community.

[00:01:42] The Trans Alliance of Lane County: You may have read the news, how the Trans Alliance of Lane County got the county commissioners to recommit to being a sanctuary county for immigrants and trans people.

[00:02:07] And I imagine all of you know the Community Alliance of Lane County, CALC. This is their 60th year in Eugene.

[00:02:20] They have programs related to peace and justice, to immigrant justice. They work on youth education on decolonization. This is an important group in our community. They need your support.

[00:02:33] Presenter: For CALC, Kuitlahuak Lopez Rojas:

[00:02:35] Kuitlahuak Lopez Rojas (CALC): My name is Kuitlahauk. I am the youth program director for the youth program at CALC, Community Alliance of Lane County. I would like to thank the ACES group for trying to help TALC and CALC survive these tumultuous times. We are two organizations who do nothing but humanitarian work.

[00:02:55] We step in where social services do not, and we help out our community at all times and in all ways. When people ask us what it is that we do, we tell people: What is it that you need?

[00:03:07] CALC for the last 60 years has been working for the liberation of our most marginalized groups in our community. Right now, a lot of nonprofits are having struggling to survive this regime, this fascism.

[00:03:22] So I beg and I implore you to dig into your pockets and to give and donate and to save these two organizations so we can continue to do our humanitarian work. Thank you so much.

[00:03:37] I would like to quickly report what’s happening to the immigrant community in our local community.

[00:03:42] First, I’ll start off with Lane County. Lane County leadership has demonstrated commitment to keep all Oregonians safe. In this political moment, it is important for the safety of all Lane County residents that Lane County publicly reaffirms its commitment to being a welcoming community for all people, including people from immigrant backgrounds and trans and LGBTQ alike.

[00:04:06] We encourage the Lane County Board of Commissioners to make public statements reiterating their commitment to Oregon state sanctuary laws. We encourage the county to make other educational and public engagement oversight for law enforcement. We recommend the activation of a public accountability advisory board and ask that the county take steps towards initiating this.

[00:04:27] So we have a local ICE Eugene Field Office. For a lot of you that don’t know, it’s right over here on 7th. Not many folks know that it’s right there and we demand access to the ICE Eugene Field Office. This is essential to safety for our whole community. Prior to the pandemic, attorneys and allies could accompany community members to their ICE check-ins.

[00:04:52] The access has been restricted and must be granted in order to support community members as they show up for required appointments with ICE locally.

[00:05:03] Local elected officials may have some oversight power here. We recommend reaching out to your local electives and speaking up.

[00:05:09] Ultimately, it is a procedural decision that seems to be made by the Department of Homeland Security, but worth raising for the safety of our whole community.

[00:05:18] It’s important that people understand that sensitive locations for ICE has opened up. ICE can now enter schools, places of worship, hospitals, protests, weddings, and funerals in all state and city locations. I would ask those of you that have the heart that brought you here today, those of you that have entitlement and privilege, use it for civil disobedience when you come across these illegal altercations. I would ask that you use your privilege like a shield to defend those that are most marginalized in our community.

[00:06:06] Right now, Congress is considering a bill, HR 32, No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act, the Defund Our Communities Act, a dangerous bill that will cut critical federal funding to communities in more than two dozen states, including Oregon, simply for upholding Oregon values and refusing to comply with Trump’s mass deportation and detention agenda.

[00:06:32] The last thing I’m going to be speaking about is going to be detention centers. We do not want to perpetuate modern-day slavery.

[00:06:43] So, detention center is a business and is a practice of terror. Immigrants taken into custody here will be transported to Northwest Immigration Detention Center in Tacoma. It’s already at capacity for the last two months. We need to make sure that we get around fighting for the detention rights of all the people that are there.

[00:07:06] So please check out the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. They are directly fighting for the rights of all these people, having dehumanization experiences in the detention center and those that volunteer to work can work to do laundry, manual labor, all for a dollar a day. So for eight hours they only get a dollar.

[00:07:26] At the end of that week, they can buy a commissary ramen, but it will take them five days to buy that one commissary ramen. We do not need to perpetuate this kind of slavery.

[00:07:43] Last thing, I work for Community Alliance of Lane County. I beg and I implore you to stand up and help us survive this summer. We are doing everything we can do to survive. Please allow people like me to continue to do humanitarian work without my community’s involvement, we will perish. Please help us help you. Thank you.

[00:08:12] Presenter: From TALC, Elliott Harwell:

[00:08:14] Elliott Harwell (TALC): Hello, my name is Elliot Harwell. I’m a spokeswoman for the Trans Alliance of Lane County. I’m really glad to see you all here today. If you’re anything like me, you’re here for two reasons.

[00:08:29] And the first is, is that you’re very deeply angry. I wake up every morning and there’s this fury inside of my chest and it claws up into my fingers. And I want to strangle the beast that my government has become.

[00:08:52] We’ve watched for months as President Trump has torn away every single part of what our tax dollars pay for in the federal government. Institutions that exist to keep you safer, to keep you healthier, to protect your rights are gone now because President Trump decided that they needed to go away, and no one has been stopping him. It continues to take and take and take and take.

[00:09:22] And then we’ve watched, we’ve watched as, as men like Stephen Miller supercharge ICE into a goddamn gestapo. They are coming into our towns and our cities, and they are grabbing your neighbors off of the streets and making them disappear. It doesn’t matter what documentation they have, it doesn’t matter what they believe.

[00:09:43] All that ICE cares about is the color of your goddamn skin. And then they make your brown neighbors go away, and at the same time, they’re making certainly your queer neighbors, your trans neighbors are denied access to health care, have their rights stripped away.

[00:10:00] The thing is, the thing is, is that no man is an island. And the things that are happening to your brown neighbors and to your trans neighbors and to your Muslim neighbors and to your immigrant neighbors, all of that is happening to Americans. It is happening to people who live here in this country and call it home. And it’s going to be happening to you soon.

[00:10:22] It’s already happening. The things that we have taken for granted for decades in this country are gone, and the things that we have to do now is that we have to fight for this.

[00:10:34] And that’s the second reason you are here and I am here. Is it just that you’re angry? It’s that you’re doing something about it!

[00:10:51] (Chanting) No Kings!

[00:10:57] The Community Alliance of Lane County has fought for our rights for 60 years. The Trans Alliance of Lane County has existed only for nine months, even less. We have come together, whether it be decades ago or be it this year, to fight the same fight that we all want to be fighting.

[00:11:16] And that is to create a world and a culture and a town where our rights are protected and where people can live the lives they deserve to be able to live, with the rights that they deserve to have, to dress how they want to live, how they want to believe, how they want.

[00:11:37] Yes. We have to protect our neighbors. Every one of us is a neighbor to someone else. The only way that any of us are getting out of this is, is if we do it together.

[00:11:49] And the thing is, the thing is, that the people in power, the federal government, Trump, Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, they want you to feel powerless.

[00:12:00] They want you to feel as if you are completely alone. They want you to feel that anger inside of yourself and then to feel despair. And for that anger to not motivate you and to drive you to do great things.

[00:12:13] And now it’s time we tell them no: No Kings! We take back the rights and we take back the government that we are owed and that we deserve.

[00:12:29] The Trans Alliance of Lane County, the Community Alliance of Lane County worked for months to convince the county commissioners to pass a new commitment to our sanctuary laws. Oregon has had sanctuary laws since 1987. Those sanctuary laws are as old as I am. They are part of who we are in Oregon.

[00:12:54] They keep our neighbors safe. They allow our undocumented neighbors to work and live without fear. We also ask the county to expand those protections to cover trans and queer people because I don’t know about you, but I don’t like seeing in the news a van pulling up and unmarked masked men hopping out of it and grabbing someone off the street.

[00:13:21] And if they can, and they can do that to anyone at any time. And it is terrible. Together, we worked to have our county commissioners reaffirm its commitment to those laws and to expand and protect your other neighbors. But the fact of the matter is, is that it’s a great accomplishment, but it is also paper.

[00:13:46] It is words on paper, and the only way that we are able to have those words have strength is through you, through all of us working together, talking to your local representatives, talking to your local government, showing up, not letting them allow ICE to operate in this town and in this county.

[00:14:10] What we are facing is a cancer of fascism that has taken over every arm of our government, and it is taking from us the lives and the rights and the peace that we deserve. And in this moment we have to keep fighting and sometimes those fights are big and sometimes those fights are small.

[00:14:30] Together, we have to be committed to protecting each other. We have to be committed to raising our voices. We have to be committed to expressing and using the rights that we are guaranteed under the Constitution, and we cannot allow our elected representatives to take those away.

[00:14:47] And so we might not be in Salem. We might not be in Washington, D.C., but we’re here in Eugene, and together we need to keep ICE out of here. We need to protect our neighbors, and we need to help each other.

[00:15:06] My name’s Elliot Harwell, and I’m a member of the Trans Alliance of Lane County, but I’m also just a resident here in Lane County. I live here. This is my home, and I’m very, very glad to have you all as neighbors because I’m just one person. I can’t protect myself. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t do the things that need to be done to make my life a safer and better thing, but together we can make each other safer.

[00:15:28] Thank you. (Chanting) No Kings! Thank you.

[00:15:45] Presenter: The No Kings rally and march looks to build the movement by creating new activists who will form networks and coalitions to support one another. On Saturday, the new Activists Coalition of Eugene Springfield (ACES) asked for support for the Trans Alliance of Lane County (TALC), and the Community Alliance of Lane County (CALC).

For more information about how you can help, see their websites.

Field recordings by Todd Boyle for Whole Community News on KEPW 97.3, Eugene’s PeaceWorks Community Radio. Watch the entire rally on Todd Boyle’s YouTube channel.