Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired from the American Friends Service Committee since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements. You can reach him at arnie.alpert@indepthnh.org.
By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists
In most ways the demonstration felt familiar. Dozens of people, mostly white haired, gathered in a park with signs denouncing ICE, fascism, and Donald Trump. But their attire was a bit different from what you would find in Portsmouth on a Civil Rights Sunday in January. This was Oaxaca, a medium-sized city in southern Mexico. It was about 75 degrees with the sun shining and a light breeze.
David Shallenberger, the local chapter chair for Democrats Abroad, got the group’s attention a little after 11 a.m. “We have permission from the city as long as we don’t block traffic. We’re peaceful. We can go ahead and shout, we can sing, but we can’t block traffic. Okay?”
Members of the gathering crowd nodded their okays.
Under Article 33 of the Mexican constitution, foreigners can’t meddle in Mexican politics, but they otherwise are entitled to human rights, including freedom of expression. Democrats Abroad has held sidewalk protests and rallies before.
“So we’ll just walk around the perimeter of the park a couple times,” Shallenberger said. “We have handouts here to our Mexican neighbors, in Spanish, about what we’re about. And as part of that handout, you’ll see QR codes at the bottom.”
Natasha Lavine, the leader of Oaxaca’s newly formed Indivisible chapter, passed out the leaflets, stating, “No al odio. No al racismo. No a las redadas crueles y violentas, y no a las deportaciones masivas en EEUU. ¡Unidos para luchar contra el fascismo!” In English, that’s “No to hate. No to racism. No to the cruel and violent raids. No to mass deportation in the USA. United in the struggle against fascism!”
There were markers and poster board for sign-making. Some signs were in Spanish, some in English. ICE=Fascism. No Gestapo tactics. Join the resistance. No Hate No Trump. Make Good Trouble. No to Imperialism. Vote mid-term. No Tyrants.
Signs in hand, the group slowly put itself in order for a counter-clockwise procession around the outside of Llano Park, a plaza occupying a large city block on the north side of the city center. It’s a popular spot for local families, exercise and dance classes, roller skating, and buying snacks.
Janet Waterston carried a sign that said, in Spanish, “Stand up! Speak strongly and march!” Waterston told me she and her sister, Jude, are native New Yorkers but spend six months of the year in Oaxaca. “Next year we’ll spend seven, because as soon as Trump got elected, we wanted to get as far away as we could from that country, our country.” It was her first demonstration in Mexico.
I asked what got her to the street today. “You know, watching Trump be like Hitler requires that we take whatever action we can. We’ve done some things like the five calls, where you call your different representatives, but it doesn’t feel like enough. And frankly, being in Mexico, I feel safer demonstrating than I do in the United States at this point. I think what’s happened in Minnesota has been a, I don’t know, I would say a tipping point, but everything has been a tipping point.”
Standing on the south side of the park, I counted 101 marchers.
Rounding the corner to the east side of the park, I spotted a heavyset man watching the march go by. Guessing he was American, I asked what he thought. “Tremendous!” he said. “People are showing their feelings, their thoughts, and what the United States really represents now on the other side. What I have to say about Trump? My mother always taught me, if you can’t say anything good about somebody, don’t say a damn thing, and I can’t say a damn thing for you.”
The man told me that he’s from Chicago and is in Oaxaca for two and half months, but he was reluctant to give me his name. How about a first name, I asked. He said I could call him Frederico, Frederico from Chicago.
Cathy, from Seattle, likewise didn’t want her full name in print. But she did offer a song, adapted from one she had learned in the civil rights movement. “We won’t let nobody take our friends, take our friends, take our friends. We won’t let nobody take our friends, we’re gonna keep on walking, keep on talking, ‘til ICE has melted away.” I was happy to sing along.
Carla moved here in June from Arkansas. Conditions in the USA are horrendous, scary, and sad. “I don’t want to be there,” she said. She’s worried about her dark-skinned daughter, but she’s glad to be in Oaxaca.
Oaxaca is the capital city of the state of Oaxaca, the second southernmost state in the United States of Mexico. Its rural population is largely poor and indigenous with an economy that was disrupted by NAFTA four decades ago. As a result, many Oaxacans have left for other parts of Mexico or crossed the border to the United States in search of work.
The capital city is a different story. Situated in a high mountain valley, the city has great cultural and historical significance and remains a center for arts of all kinds. Home of many schools and universities, Oaxaca has a well-educated middle class. With a favorable climate most of the year, it’s grown in popularity with tourists, many from other parts of Mexico, but also with Americans, Canadians, and Europeans. Shallenberger estimates that there are a couple thousand Americans who have made Oaxaca their year-round home. The number of “snowbirds” is harder to estimate, but let’s say that in my own Oaxaca snowbirding I’ve met plenty of people from Maine, Boston, New York, Wisconsin, and Seattle, as well as lots of people from Toronto and Vancouver soaking up some sun as well as Oaxacan culture.
Laurie Kellogg, from Brooklyn, arrived just a few days ago for a two-week stay, and picked me out of the crowd. We went to college together and hadn’t seen each other in fifty years. “I’ve been worried for the last ten years about the direction of our country, but it’s intensified recently with the horrible attacks by ICE and the perversion of our justice system by the President. So it feels good to be in community. I’m so happy to, even on my vacation, find like-minded people who keep my spirits up when we act together. It makes it possible to move forward with some optimism,” she said.
Shallenberger says only ten percent of overseas citizens vote, and that the main job of Democrats Abroad is to encourage absentee voting for expats. “If you live here and have not requested your ballot yet, come see me. We have information for you. You’ve got to do it right away, because primaries are coming up and they’re already sending out primary ballots in some states,” he told the crowd.
He said the group also organizes monthly sidewalk rallies followed by brunch at a nearby restaurant. Sunday’s turnout was better than he expected. Coming up, they are also planning a discussion about water scarcity, a perpetual problem in this arid region where climate change has worsened seasonal droughts.
The Sunday rally was already scheduled when Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Shallenberger said, but that incident no doubt increased the turnout. He thinks about half of those who showed up were year-round residents, the rest vacationers and snowbirds.
If the administration continues its assaults against American cities and threats against other countries, more demonstrations are to be expected.