March Forth EC

Dolores Flores

March 9, 2016

30

I arrived in front of the free speech area at around 12:20 where I noticed a long row of tables with several organizations. One end of the tables had elderly women dressed in Kentucky Derby hats and kitchen aprons along with a dog that looked like a pitbull but had way too short legs. On the other side of the tables were people making signs, attaching them to wood posts and adding them to the huge pile of signs. I had never been involved in anything close to a protest. In high school I was involved in leadership where the signs were just posters  When Kubal said there would be sign making I had envisioned simple posters like in high school and us holding them up. I was wrong. There were posters with glitter and different types of paints and markers and what intrigued me the most was the wooden posts. Again, I had never been involved in any event like this. I had only seen protests in movies so to see the legit signs and people explaining to others what their passion was really amazed me. But  I was meeting a girl from my class so I had walked past all of the tables and continued walking in the direction of the library. I was immediately approached by a somewhat tall man of about 20 years old. I was not sure if he was a student advocating or a person from one of the ten organizations set up. He then pulled out a flier and asked me if I was familiar with the Fresno Scorecard Organization and began talking about Timothy Kubal. Once I realized he was a part of the protest movement I told him how I was also here to join Kubal's march but I needed to go meet my friend so he let me go.

My friend came at around 12:30 and we were unsure of whether or not we were able to go right into the supplies and began making a sign so instead we spotted Kubal and asked where we could began. We were told to look around at a couple of the tables and get information about the different groups. The old ladies turned out to be the Raging Grannies and were going to perform for us in a bit. As well as learning about the different topics that were there and getting these cute old women to perform for us,  we were told we could either make a sign or pick one from the pile and that the march would start shortly after the Raging Grannies performance.

My friend and I began to walk around and look at the different tables. We were able to look at about four different tables which were SNARL, FAB, a gender equality group, and a group supporting the faculty strike. We went to the first group called SNARL which stood for Spay/Neuter, Adopt/Rescue, and Love. The students at the booth were very enthusiastic and outspoken which created a positive light mood for us participating. There was a lady who was from the animal shelter in Selma who spoke to us about the many animals that get put down due to overcrowded shelters and how breeders do not treat the purebreed puppies correctly therefore abandoning them if they weren't bought. They specifically pointed out the picture of a pile of dead cats euthanized on their poster board and told us how thousands of cats are murdered every day. Later on they introduced their dog which ended up being a female pitbull mixed with another type of breed which explained the very short legs. I did not pet the dog due to the fact that pit bulls scare me but I did notice that it was extremely friendly towards everyone. What I liked most about their flyer is that they provided lists of places to adopt and get our animals neutered for cheap. After learning about SNARL we were kindly offered snacks and chocolates and my friend and I moved onto the next table.

The next table we looked at was the FAB table. FAB stood for Free All Bodies and seemed to be ran  by an all women group. Their objective was to put an end towards human trafficking. There group was not as open as the SNARL representatives but one of the girls was able to give us a lot of information. She explained how immigrants were some of the major victims of slavery because people use them as workers supposedly in exchange for their green card. But most of the immigrants never receive their green cards and become stuck working for the people forever. One of the things she had said was that the police had recently shut down a massage business in Coalinga for having their masseuses do sexual acts instead of just massages. That seemed crazy to me, I would have never thought that that would happen in a small town like Coalinga.

The third table we went to was the gender equality table that had free pizza and water bottles. These two students served us free pizza and right away both men began explaining their topic. One of them had a super cheerful attitude and was always smiling and at some point seemed a little flustered but in the end he got his point across. He was also very funny and threw in some jokes which made the talk interesting. The last table we went to was the table supporting the faculty strike. They informed us that the strike was to be held in April and gave us several flyers and red button pins that said, "I stand with faculty" with a black fist in the bottom. I believe this might have been my favorite organization out of all the ones I visited. The two girls seemed very passionate and both of them told us a lot of information about the strike. Before I had gone to the table  I had only heard about the strike happening. I did not know why or how it would work or what would take place in April. But after speaking to the girls I really absorbed all the information and felt like I should support the faculty. They were not flooding me with information and I did not feel forced to pin the button onto my backpack; I felt proud of people sticking up for themselves and not being afraid of others. The girls told me that they wanted to be the ones not going to class and participating in the strike because it meant that much to them. I liked the fact that they pointed out that this strike was going to be one of the largest one in the upper education CSU system which seemed crazy that I could be apart of it.

After going to these booths my friend and I grabbed posters and sat down to watch the Raging Grannies perform. They took their place on stage and began singing about political stories. One of them included a lawmaker who made a joke about his wife's uterus and instead of getting in trouble for a sexist comment he had gotten in trouble for saying uterus with young people around. So towards the end of the song their lyrics consisted of, "UTERUS, UTERUS, UTERUS, UTERUUUUUUS" and ended with, "VAGINA!". They songs were hilarious and I am glad I was able to experience that. I think having them perform before the march was perfect  timing because it sort of pumped us up for the march.

When the Raging Grannies were done performing Kubal had gotten everyone together and the march began. Everyone got together and we started walking towards the Joyal Building shouting out all the different things we had believed in. As we were walking there were many different facial expressions from other people walking by. Some seemed surprised and happy while others rolled their eyes. People recorded us, laughed at us, smiled at us, and some shook their heads. We all kept shouting or holding up our signs letting people read what we stood for. We walked down Shaw where a lot of cars honked for us. I'm not sure they were good honks or bad honks but any publicity is good publicity. There was one car which I believed was a Corvette if I remember correctly that peeled out and made a lot of smoke that smelled horrible and came right in our direction. I do not know whether or not it was to look cool or throw smoke in our faces or maybe he just really disliked one of the signs. The same car ended up at a red light awkwardly waiting next to us so they rolled up their window which I thought that was pretty funny. After walking down Shaw we walked through dorms and ironically that is when we got the loudest even though we were not supposed to disrupt anyone. Once we got back from the march the event ended and we were able to leave. I am very happy that I was able to be a part of this and it has honestly left a pretty large impact because doing it made me feel so involved with my school. At the booths I went to I was able to sign up for emails and one of them was related to the faculty strike so I am hoping I will eventually get more information on how to be more involved with the movement. Some changes I think could be made were to get more people involved. I think a lot of people would enjoy hearing about the different groups that this class supported the way I did.