“This morning I saw my family watching the inauguration and I know some of them voted for Trump,” said Erika Cardema, a fourth-year film and digital media major. “I’m glad that I came to this space just to listen to what other people are saying, knowing that we’re still on the same side — that we still haven’t lost hope [and are] reminding ourselves that we still have power and the power to make a change.”

The day of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, many were feeling grief, exhaustion and fear for the country’s future. In response to this uncertainty, the Student Union Assembly (SUA) and Mobilizing Our Vote for Elections (M.O.V.E.), a campus civic engagement cohort, held an event the evening of Jan. 20 titled “Not My President: Resistance, Advocacy, & Mobilization on Inauguration Day.” 

Nearly 30 people attended the event, which served as a safe space to work through fears and discuss organizing in light of the new administration. Some students came to meet like-minded people who shared their beliefs about persistence. Others felt they needed to do something productive instead of spending the day in bed. 

This year, the presidential inauguration fell on Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Day, a national holiday in remembrance of the civil rights activist’s legacy and work towards racial equity. For Wumi Ogunlade, SUA vice president of diversity and inclusion and the event’s facilitator, honoring Dr. King’s legacy meant reciting one of his sermons, spoken the day after “Bloody Sunday,” when state troopers brutally assaulted civil rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.

“Dr. King’s words remind us that, when we refuse to stand up for justice, we diminish our own spirit, but we are here to honor our spirits by standing together,” Ogunlade said. “We are going to stand up right here in Santa Cruz … We are going to stand up right here in Cervantes and Velazquez, together in community, against any sort of harm that comes to our community in Santa Cruz!” 

SUA vice president of diversity and inclusion, Wumi Ogunlade, facilitated the event.

After her speech, Ogunlade asked attendees to list all the spaces they belonged to, which revealed that 47 organizations were represented. Ogunlade then asked the room to consider what resistance meant to them, what power they have as college students and how they could create community.

“Resistance can just be loving each other,” one participant said. “[The Trump administration] is inherently negative, it is inherently filled with hate. And that is what they’re banking on … that we’re going to turn against each other. A simple ‘hello,’ a simple ‘how are you’ and genuinely wanting to help somebody is the way you can make change without any position of power.”

Attendee Logan Wells comments on one of the sharebacks.

As many noted that night, the Trump administration’s policy intentions like mass deportations will affect their communities, families, friends and classmates. Nareh Hamo, SUA vice president of internal affairs, urged the room to stand up for their peers by building relationships and practicing empathy. 

“One thing to emphasize is trust, and trust in each other,” Hamo said. “Adapting your space to help other communities, that’s how we collectively organize. I think that means looking at our struggles as interconnected … A lot of things in America wouldn’t operate today without our immigrant communities and seeing those communities at risk, we have to stand up [against] that. You may not see them as your people, but they are your people.” 

C. Josephine Hunt, another attendee, sympathized with students’ fear of being attacked for their identities. 

“I never want people to be scared,” Hunt said. “I want people to be happy and feel safe.” 

Hunt also emphasized the need to remain in community with one another and to turn toward each other in times of uncertainty. 

“On another level, it is good that they’re scared because, unfortunately, we do know that bad things are going to happen to our communities,” Hunt said. “If we have fear, then we at least have a basis on which to build.”

To end the event, Ogunlade asked attendees to write one action they would take to resist the new administration. Some promised to do more reading and writing, some to run for office, but all showed that hope and love begins with sharing struggles, joys and experiences.

Feedback on the “Action Wall,” where attendees wrote ways they would resist structural and systemic adversity.

“My action item was talking to different communities, sharing those experiences, [and] sharing our struggles — because just one thing does not affect just one community. It takes a toll on everyone,” said attendee Aly King, a second-year environmental studies and sociology major minoring in sustainability. “Sharing those burdens, sharing that love, that’s what’s able to make us heal.”

Additional reporting by Keith Gelderloos.