After attending a recent Indivisible Santa Barbara protest, a group of UC Santa Barbara roommates left feeling inspired to bring a similar movement to Isla Vista.  

Second-year students Tallula Borman, Juju Johnson and Kira Valles-Knoll banded together to launch Indivisible Isla Vista after brainstorming ways to get more university students to participate in Indivisible Santa Barbara demonstrations. 

The trio recognize that the UCSB campus is no stranger to a protest — the latest a protest against U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement held on Wednesday — but they say there hasn’t been much student participation off campus.

“It is hard for students to get to Santa Barbara if they don’t get a car, and so even if you want to get involved, it’s not super accessible,” Valles-Knoll said. 

Borman and Valles-Knoll attended an Indivisible Santa Barbara demonstration last month to protest recent ICE actions. While they both left feeling inspired, they said they also felt somewhat disappointed in the turnout. 

“We were a little saddened that it seemed that it was the older demographic that showed up to this thing,” Borman said. “We realized that there was a piece missing where young people didn’t have the involvement that we should, considering it is our future.”

The Indivisible Santa Barbara group is just one chapter of many within the nationwide Indivisible movement. 

Most recently, it has been organizing protests against the Trump administration and vigils for Alex Pretti and Renee Good, both killed by federal agents.

The UCSB trio hope the college town chapter will mirror some characteristics of Indivisible Santa Barbara while also shaping it to be uniquely Isla Vista. 

They plan to host protests, similar to Indivisible Santa Barbara, with Indivisible Isla Vista’s first demonstration planned at Anisq’oyo Park at noon on Saturday. 

Unlike Indivisible Santa Barbara, the organizers aren’t sure yet how regular their group’s protests might be. 

Indivisible Santa Barbara plans to host two weekly protests on Thursday and Saturday. The Thursday demonstrations are planned for Anacapa and Anapamu streets from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The Saturday ones are scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon at State Street and Hitchcock Way.

Borman said she remembers coming home after attending the Indivisible Santa Barbara protest buzzing with motivation to emulate something similar. Her nine roommates agreed, jumping on board and bouncing ideas off of one another, she said. 

“We need more young women organizing and diverse groups of people being a part of this,” Johnson said. 

Indivisible Santa Barbara staff has been supporting the founders’ ambitions, Indivisible President Keith Carlson said.

He and Borman first met to discuss how to get more college students involved with the Santa Barbara chapter. 

“Not long after, it became obvious that the best path was to have an Indivisible chapter in Isla Vista,” he said in an email. 

He said the Indivisible Santa Barbara staff has helped start other chapters in Santa Barbara County, including Lompoc, Santa Maria and Santa Ynez Valley.

To make the chapter truly representative of Isla Vista, the founders aim to host local band shows or artist fairs to raise money and awareness for local activist groups.

“We want people to mix their passions for other things with their passion for human rights and social justice,” Borman said.  

However, money quickly became an issue. 

“We had our first meeting and had all of these ambitions of having a concert in the park, having people rally around the issue, protests and give people resources,” Johnson said. “And then we were like, wait a second, we are broke.”

The group is fundraising through a GoFundMe page to pay for canvassing materials such as flyers while they grow the member count. 

“Any other leftover money we want to give back into our community with mutual aid organizations and other campus organizations,” Valles-Knoll said.

The branch is also still working through logistical things such as being recognized as a political nonprofit organization, like Indivisible Santa Barbara. 

“I think this shows that we’re more than the school community. We are our own community, and it speaks for itself, not just with Goleta or Santa Barbara,” Valles-Knoll said.