Thanks to efforts by CSWA, 5C students attended the October 4. We The People Are Rising protest in Los Angeles. Courtesy: Claremont Student Worker Alliance
On Oct. 4, the Claremont Student Worker Alliance (CSWA) shuttled a group of 5C students to Los Angeles to participate in the We The People Are Rising march and rally. The protest was jointly organized by regional labor unions and immigrant support networks, namely Unite Here! Local 11 and The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).
The demonstration was a response to President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which added $170 million to ICE’s budget, and the recent Supreme Court decision loosening ICE regulations to allow for racial profiling in immigration stops.
Students and workers from across southern California marched 1.5 miles from the 6th Street Bridge to the Japanese American National Museum to show support for affected Angelenos and take a stand against these recent actions.
“We’re here to uplift, we’re here to say no to the raids, no to the hate and attacks on people of color,” Pedro Trujillo, director of organizing at CHIRLA, said. “What we’ve noticed is that the majority of the time it’s brown people who are being pulled over, and it’s racial profiling because you’re speaking Spanish or because you’re working at a Home Depot or a car wash.”
Trujillo underscored the significance of student attendance at this rally and wider participation in the fight against the increasing pervasiveness of ICE.
“Every social movement that has been successful has been intergenerational,” he said. “It requires the leadership of young people. It requires the creativity of young people. The power of the youth block has grown so much that if it’s unutilized, unorganized, we’re just doing a favor to the opposition.”
“ The power of the youth block has grown so much that if it’s unutilized, unorganized, we’re just doing a favor to the opposition
”
CSWA has a long tradition of collaboration with the Unite Here! Local 11 union, which represents Pomona and Pitzer dining hall workers and Pitzer grounds keepers. Vanessa Kusel PZ ’27, CSWA steering leader, said that 5C students supporting Unite Here! specifically is crucial, especially in the more geographically isolated community of Claremont.
“This protest is in LA, where there’s a lot of union density,” Kusel said. “But out here, in the Inland Empire, there aren’t as many unions. So it’s really important that these unions have student support because there aren’t a lot of unions around them to support them.”
At the rally, attending students were uniformed in red “Unite Here! Local 11” T-shirts and mingled within the pack of union members. Organization leaders shared concerns that the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will put immigrants at greater risk of deportation, and outlined their efforts to hold the city accountable. The Los Angeles Alliance for A New Economy (LAANE), in collaboration with Unite Here!, distributed clipboards with QR codes to 5C students; the code directed people to sign up to send emails to the 2028 Olympics planning committee, “essentially telling them that they need to guarantee that the Olympics will not put immigrants at more risk.”
“We were walking around getting people to sign on to demonstrate to the Olympics planning committee that they need to take into account their impact on the community and defend the people who are going to actually support and have been supporting the city,” Kai Chen PO ’26, CSWA member and rally attendee, said.
Chen said that it was “really cool” to have the opportunity to play a key role in the union’s efforts and be at the forefront of tangible social change.
“That’s just what happens when you go out into a place and you start engaging in it,” they said. “The first thing you have to do is just get out there.”
Interest in attending Saturday’s event reached CSWA members and the general 5C student body alike. Will Polin SC ’29 heard about the rally through social media and jumped at the chance to get free transportation down to LA with an official student group.
“I’m really motivated to get involved, but as a student, it’s hard to find ways to do that through class schedules,” Polin said. “The opportunities just feel kind of limited.”
Kusel said she finds new student interest in CSWA initiatives promising, echoing the sentiment that while “a lot of people care about immigration rights,” they often “just don’t know what they can do about it.”
The rally on Saturday was one way to give students an “outlet” where they can express their frustrations with current immigration policies in a “healthy and productive way,” according to Kusel.
Oliver Spaulding HM ’29 attended the rally because he wants college to be a place where he can explore political activism.
“I wanted to go and show up for protests, not just be knowledgeable about issues that are going on, but actually be trying to make a difference and make the world better,” Spaulding said.
Kusel emphasized how, while ignorance may be bliss, the privilege to turn a blind eye to greater social issues is fleeting.
“As 5C students, we have the privilege to not be aware, but there are people, thousands of people, all around our city and our county who are staying in their house because they’re afraid of being kidnapped,” Kusel said. “With this new influx of money that ICE is getting, we know these kidnappings are only going to ramp up. So it’s better for us all to be aware now, because it could start to affect our [Claremont] community more.”
Related