Grand Junction community members and Colorado Mesa University students and professors gathered on Sept. 16 at 4 p.m. at the CMU plaza to hold a demonstration in support of Colorado’s dreamers. The event was organized by Western Colorado Congress, Organizing for Action, Hispanic Affairs Project (HAP) and Western Colorado Days of Action, a coalition of more than thirty mostly non-profit groups.
The demonstration was designed to raise awareness of the struggles dreamers continue to face and correct misconceptions regarding dreamers using statistics, which were presented on flyers and written in chalk around the plaza. However, one of the main goals of the event was to encourage citizens to take further action to help dreamers, especially by calling Representative Scott Tipton and urging him to support the 2017 Dream Act. State Senators Michael Bennett and Cory Gardner have already lent their support to this act.
Postcards reading “support our dreamers” were available for citizens to fill out and turn back in to the organizations, who would mail them to Tipton. Organizers also handed out flyers with Tipton’s contact information and a brief script from which citizens could read if they called and asked the representative to support the Dream Act.
One of the main goals of this demonstration was encouraging political action.
“We didn’t want to hold another march, we didn’t want to hold another rally, because while that gets a lot of media attention and it’s really bright and flashy, it doesn’t necessarily have an ‘ask’ at the end, and people walk away. And that’s not what we need for this particular issue. We need action,” said Jeriel Brammeier, a community organizer with Western Colorado Congress.
The speaking portion of the event was introduced by Angel Lopez, the coordinator for CMU’s Latino Student Alliance. Next, Estrella Ruiz with HAP discussed how since almost every citizen of the United States is the descendant of an immigrant from somewhere in the world, everyone should work to support those affected by the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. Brammeier discussed the Dream Act specifically, and how it differs from DACA.
Since the Trump Administration decided to end DACA, speakers at the event focused on upcoming legislation, rather than solely criticizing the decision to end the Obama-era policy.
One of the main portions of the demonstration was community organizers reading dreamers’ stories, CMU students and local high school students. Readers wore butterfly masks to demonstrate how people might not know who in their communities could be affected by the repeal of DACA. Rick Baer of Organizing for Action began the reading.
Some of the CMU students who read stories were Sam Moreno, Angel Lopez and Sloan Tucker.
Moreno, last year’s president of College Democrats, volunteered to read a story when Brammeier contacted him. Moreno knew Brammeier through his work with the club last year, a group he hopes he can get started again this school year. As a student originally from Grand Junction, Moreno said he came to support dreamers simply as a private citizen, since he understands the impact the termination of DACA will have on the local community.
CMU Spanish professor and HAP volunteer Tom Acker also read one of the stories. Acker has been with HAP since it began in 2002. Though the organization was originally Catholic-based and inspired by Liberation Theology, the group is now ecumenical and helps with many social causes not always aligned with the Catholic church.
Acker said he was not directly involved with bringing the event to campus, since students usually have a greater ability to get approval for campus events. Instead, he worked with LSA to bring the demonstration to campus, which he felt was a good place for the demonstration, since it affects so many young people.
“I feel as an academic, as a faculty member here, that it’s important for us to bring this information to other students so that they can be supportive of their fellows,” Acker said.
According to Acker, one of the most important things that students can do is to be informed regarding social and political issues, as well as with what is going on in their local community. Since the repeal of DACA has largely affected the Hispanic population of Grand Junction, Acker believes it is important for students to become more aware of that part of the valley’s community.
“I would really like students to become informed, and recognize and become engaged with the Hispanic culture in our own communities,” Acker said.
Associated Student Government President Ben Linzey and Vice President Gabby Gile were also in attendance, along with four senators. One of these senators, Jeff Vela, was the writer and presenter of the resolution in support of dreamers that ASG passed last Wednesday during their regular meeting.
Despite the unanimous resolution, just six representatives from the student government attended the event. Linzey and Gile, however, stated that though they wished for a better turnout from their organization, they were confident that the sentiments behind the resolution were meaningful to the senators.
“Whoever shows up is supporting those students,” Gile said. “Having any ASG representative here is better than none, but I think that it’s making steps forward. In the past, there may have been one person here from ASG, maybe none.”
CMU President Tim Foster, out of town this week, was unable to attend the demonstration but did attend an LSA meeting last week.
“I think it’s really important that he [Foster] actually has verbalized that, and written it, and documented it, to know the administration’s stance here,” Acker said.
Vice President of Student Services John Marshall gave the approval to hold the event but was also not present. Linzey felt that since the administration allowed the event on campus, it demonstrates that they do care about dreamers.
Both event organizers and student attendees were satisfied with the turnout for the event. After the event, Brammeier commented that she hoped citizens would continue to take action even when the initial anger over the DACA repeal fades.
“We’re really reactive people, it’s only when something is being threatened or taken away that we really take a stance, and we really need to push […] even when it’s not a hot topic issue,” Brammeier said.
Students who would like to support dreamers or act to raise awareness for other social issues in the Grand Valley are encouraged to contact groups on campus, such as LSA, or local organizations, such as the ones who organized this event.
