#SomosPortland

I am writing this on Tuesday morning because I had about 300 photos to process Monday night, as the activity of people in Portland, speaking out against the tide of hatred in our country, is intense right now. #SomosPortland was a warm, peaceful gathering of about fifty people who surrounded City Hall with their bodies, holding hands, some displaying at their feet signs that read: “Hate has no business here. We stand with our LGBTQ community members. We stand with Muslims, refugees, and immigrants in our community. All are welcome here.” 

Portland is already unofficially a “Sanctuary City,” but the definition of that term is vague. The next President of the USA has promised to cut Federal funding to cities that offer sanctuary to people he is targeting for detention and deportation.The demonstration, organized by Latinx organizations in defiance of that threat, asks our incoming mayor and the Portland City Council to declare Portland officially a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants and to specify that city agencies, including the Portland Police Department, not participate in future mass deportations. 

An hour later, over a thousand people gathered for a program entitled, “What Now?” It offered three powerful speakers, inspiring us to defend those targeted by the new President and to join one of fifty or more organizations that had tables set up with sign-up lists and information about the work they do: for social justice, in health care for those without insurance, for the environment, and for the arts. 


While that event was being held, a large group of high school students staged an anti-Trump march downtown, and police met that march with violence. I was not there, but those who wrote about it on social media said that with no provocation at all, police arrested the two young people I featured here and were so brutal in their treatment of the young woman that she required hospitalization when she was released from custody.