Perhaps the strongest reaction in Santa Barbara County to Donald Trump’s stunning victory Tuesday night in the presidential election came from UC Santa Barbara and Isla Vista.
Less than 12 hours after a late-night protest walk through the campus and community, UCSB students gathered on campus below Storke Tower on Wednesday afternoon for a solidarity rally, during which students and faculty shared their thoughts on the controversial Republican candidate’s victory.
“I think we all went to sleep last night with heavy hearts,” one student told the crowd of about 300.
Speakers said that Trump’s rhetoric and offensive comments about women, Latinos, African Americans, Muslims and other minorities posed a threat to their futures and well-being.
“There are a bunch of different groups being affected here today,” said another student, who didn’t introduce himself to the crowd. “I can say I’m up here speaking for black people, but it’s not just for black people — it’s not just our problem.
“There are undocumented people. There are the LGBTQ people. There are the white people here who also support what’s going on now (at the rally),” he said. “There’s no color to this, there’s no orientation to this. … Now it’s up to us, our generation, to do something about it.”
Students, alumni, faculty and staff took turns speaking, and called on their peers to meet the election outcome with love, perseverance and action.
“I have many friends in the community who are going to be affected very, very negatively by this person,” one student said. “And I am willing to stay here — I’m not looking to go to Canada, I’m not looking to emmigrate, I’m not getting my passport so I can leave. I’m staying and I’m going to fight.”
Ronny Castellanos, who said he was a queer, undocumented student, argued that he and his peers should not stop chasing progress on the rights of undocumented and LGBT people, and should do so with love, despite Trump’s hardline immigration stances.
“We’ve come too far — we’re not going to go back,” Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval, an associate professor with UCSB’s Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, said of the United States’ treatment of undocumented immigrants.
At about 1 a.m. Wednesday, some 1,000 students marched through campus and Isla Vista protesting Trump’s win over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The march began near on-campus residence halls, looped through I.V., and ended at Storke Plaza, said Andrea Estrada, UCSB’s director of news and media relations.
The protest was peaceful and went off with no issues, she said.
UCSB’s The Bottom Line reported that one verbal altercation broke out after a handful of Trump supporters joined the protest at Storke Tower to exchange words with demonstrators.
UCSB wasn’t the only school with students protesting the election outcome Wednesday.
Santa Barbara High School students held a walkout and march to the Courthouse’s Sunken Gardens, San Marcos High School students assembled at their football field, and Dos Pueblos High School students held a lunchtime rally on campus, before many of them walked to Storke Plaza to join UCSB’s rally.
“The presidential election has generated a great deal of discussion, and many of our students are concerned about the election outcome,” district Superintendent Cary Matsuoka said in a statement. “Students organized a protest to call attention to their concerns following the results of yesterday’s election.
“We understand their desire to express their opinions, a foundational value of our society,” Matsuoka said. “School and district administrators took steps to monitor the noon protests so that our students were safe and able to express their opinions.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
