Learning How to Protest, or Maybe Not
Students protesting Thomas Homan at Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania
I took this class, Activism Beyond the Classroom, to push myself. I’ve always been a rule follower. Protesting and other forms of civil disobedience inspire me. They also terrify me. I know that it is important to sit with discomfort, and I firmly believe that protests are important. I would like to have the grit to become a powerful and effective protester. It is also a privileged stance to take, to choose to sit out of a protest. But when it comes to community engagement, I’ve always preferred to take action out of the public eye, helping in almost any other way.
This is not a blog post where I tell a story about my journey of transformation. Instead, this post details how I tried—and failed—to engage in civil disobedience, and how this failure has begun to help me figure out what kind of activism beyond the classroom most inspires me, instead.
It all began when the Perry World House invited the former director of ICE, Thomas Homan, to speak. Like many of my peers, I was angry. I was angry that a campus organization that claims to serve and represent all students, like Perry World House, would invite someone whose direct leadership devastated the lives of countless immigrants. I was angry that Perry World House would give him such a powerful platform to speak. I was angry that no immigrants or representatives from immigrant communities were included on the panel. Would anyone on the panel challenge his ideas or hold him accountable? When news spread that students were organizing a protest, I quickly agreed.
When the day of the protest arrived, I was anxious. I thought of every reason I could not to show up—to say, “Sorry, I’ll support you all from afar!” I was scheduled to work shortly after the protest would start, anyway, so if I needed an out, I had one. I arrived to the protest after it had already begun and was overwhelmed by the chants of my peers. I was impressed by their force, their stamina, their will. I also, as expeted, was terrified. After ten minutes of standing in the back, nervously shouting along with my peers, I left.
I was proud when I learned that my peers had shut down the event with their protests. I was also disappointed with myself. When news of a second event, organized by HIAS Pennsylvania and CARE, came my way, I eagerly signed up, hoping to find a different way I could offer my support. Billed as an event to advocate for immigrants and refugees, I hoped to learn other avenues to support the Philadelphia immigrant community. The event was billed as an opportunity to learn how to be better advocate for immigrants and how to support Philadelphia as a sanctuary city. I was excited to learn about new tools, events, and organizing action, and I was ready to determine how else I could get involved with organizing, but perhaps out of the spotlight.
In reality, the event fell flat. Each group, HIAS and CARE, gave a quick plug for the project they were working on now: Driving PA Forward, a movement to get everyone, documented or not, drivers’ licenses, and the SAFE from the Start Act, proposed legislation to end gender-based violence in humanitarian camps. This was then followed by a panel supposed to give tips for how to advocate for immigrants and refugees. While I was excited to support both efforts discussed early on in the session, the event felt more like an information session and less like an advocacy session. After both HIAS and CARE presented the work they were doing, the conversation ended, with little opportunity to engage with the presenters and learn more about the various avenues of support. The panel focused exclusively on how to communicate with public officials. Although some tactics were useful, there was little information beyond how best to make a phone call to your local official. Advocacy, apparently, only means writing postcards to state senators. Important, but isn’t there more we can do? More efforts we can learn to support? Passing laws against gender-based violence and getting drivers’ licenses are essential, but they do not address the root of the problem: Our country needs to fundamentally change the way it conceives of immigration and legality, who belongs and who does not. While I was happy to contact my senator to generate change, I also wanted to learn how I could write op-eds or participate in programming that might begin to not just cover up problems in the structure, but change the structure of immigration in this country, itself.
Around the same time that I attended the HIAS and CARE event, however, was the Penn Law Town Hall on immigration. Held shortly before the DACA case came before the Supreme Court, students, representatives, and professors all spoke, giving information about what was at stake with this case, and providing practical information about how to support DACA students at Penn. With impassioned determination, undergraduate and DACAmented student Erik Vargas spoke, speaking not only of how we can support immigrant communities in Philadelphia, but pushing us to think beyond Philadelphia. He reminded us of the colonial imperialist forces that have sparked the more recent wave of immigration and migration from Central America, forcing us to confront the history at the root of immigration. The United States helped create the instability that is now forcing people away from their homes. Isn’t it time for the United States to take responsibility for its actions?
The Town Hall reminded me of the importance of knowledge and history. Equipped with a powerful knowledge of history, Erik Vargas made a room full of diverse members of the Penn community pause and reflect on a history with which many of us may find ourselves complicit. Yet it is a history that few of us are ever forced to confront and consider.
A major aim of this class is to make our work public, to create for the community, not the academy. This class, too, believes that knowledge is power, and that by making knowledge public, that power spreads beyond elite institutions into the hands of the community. As I figure out how I will best engage as an activist moving forward, I hope to explore more avenues to continue making knowledge to serve communities. I also promise to get over myself and learn how to protest.