Thumbnail photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews; video by Bryce Evans, Gavin Van Alstine and Ethan Caudill-DeRego
Hilda Yepes Contreras fought back tears as she described how anti-immigration rhetoric during the first Trump administration reached her family.
“My grandson, he was 8 and he was in school and kids went up to him and said that he needed to go back to Mexico,” she said. “And he said, ‘But I don’t live there. I live here.’ And they said, ‘Well, you need to go back or you’re going to get your head cut off.’”
Speaking to more than 100 people at the Crescent City Cultural Center on Saturday — ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration — Yepes Contreras said her family wasn’t alone in enduring the racist rhetoric that was the norm the last time Trump was in the White House.
Yepes Contreras, who came to Smith River at age 6 from Mexico and remembers hiding from border patrol raids as a girl, called on her fellow Del Norters to stand against a president who has promised mass deportations on Day One.
“If mass deportations were to happen, our small communities would crumble,” she said. “We need reform based on fact not racist rhetoric. We need reform that’s fair to everyone and recognizes the humanity in every person.”
Though thousands of people in Washington D.C. had to brave frigid temperatures to demonstrate near the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, the sun shone bright on the People’s March in Crescent City. The local march sought to highlight the rights and freedoms that “may be at risk with the new federal administration,” according to promotional information from the Del Norte County Democratic Party, which sponsored the event.
On Saturday speakers urged each other to stand united and safeguard the vulnerable in the community.
According to Kevin Hendrick, chair of the local Democratic Central Committee, who was one of the speakers, though the march was non-partisan, the local Democrats help Del Norters understand how Trump’s policy decisions will affect them.
Photo by Bryce Evans
Hendricks pointed to sign-in sheets that were at the front of the Cultural Center, the march’s starting point.
“We’re collecting names of people who will show up when we do another action,” he told Redwood Voice Community News.
Lupe Gutierrez, vice chair of the Democratic Central Committee, who spoke on education, said they also want to get more youth involved. This is easier said than done, she said, but they’ll continue to try.
Elizabeth Hasman drew on her 35-year career as a public health nurse to address how important it is for everyone to access safe and affordable healthcare. Hasman mentioned Project 2025, the political initiative published by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation that, among several proposals, calls for cutting funding to Medicaid, denying gender-affirming care to transgender people and eliminating insurance coverage for the morning-after pill.
Millions of Americans could have their benefits severely diminished if Project 2025 comes to pass, Hasman said. Childhood diseases could return if immunizations are no longer easily accessible, and women could lose access to reproductive healthcare, she said.
“As Maya Angelou says, ‘when someone shows you who they are, believe them,’” Hasman said. “When they say that they are cutting our benefits, I believe them. These rollbacks would be devastating to our healthcare infrastructure and, I believe, would cause undue misery, suffering and hardship, including increased financial hardship.”
Gutierrez, who is a retired teacher and school administrator, also referred to Project 2025, specifically as it relates to public education. Local schools rely on Title I and federal grant dollars to fund their programs, she said.
If the Trump administration dismantles the U.S. Department of Education and turns the money over to individual states, Gutierrez wondered if each state will be funded equally.
During her address, Gutierrez pointed out that parents rely on a variety of supports at a student’s school to help their child, from classroom aides and speech therapists to school resource officers, probation officers and social workers.
The proposals coming from the Trump administration, Gutierrez said, threaten those services, as well as educator autonomy.
“They disguise their intent by naming it the parents bill of rights, making it sound like it’s a benefit,” she said. “Frankly, I’m tired of misrepresentation and hyperbolic promises made by politicians. Reforming education is inevitable, but what we need is to be part of that change.”
Before issuing a safety message for folks participating in the march down U.S. 101 to the Del Norte County Fairgrounds and back, Hendrick read a statement from Troy Lea. Lea was set to speak on civil rights, including safeguarding members of the LGBTQ+ community, but was unable to attend due to a family emergency, Hendrick said.
“This is his admonition to us,” Hendrick said. “‘Let us be on the right side of history. For our people, our nation and future generations whose lives will be shaped by the work we do here today. I come before you with gratefulness and confidence that no matter how long the road ahead, we will travel it successfully together.’”
