Demonstrators prepare to hit Santa Fe streets
Hundreds indicate on social media they’ll participate in Women’s March on Sunday
Conscious of the powerful effect one’s words can have, Nathana Bird was brainstorming Friday about what sort of rallying cry she would put on the sign she planned to carry in the Santa Fe Women’s March.
Bird, the mother of a 5-year-old girl and a member of the Ohkay Owingeh tribe who teaches language and culture classes at Northern New Mexico College, wanted to convey a message of compassion and avoid a phrase that might be read as violent or demeaning to someone.
She also was searching for a way to express that “we’re still here,” Bird said, referring to Native American women.
Sunday’s noon march from the state Capitol to a rally at the Santa Fe Plaza will be her first, she said as she prepared to gather with some three dozen women at the college in Española for a postermaking party.
Her daughter will march alongside her Sunday, Bird said, adding that she hopes the event will help the girl “recognize she is valid.”
A year after the inaugural Women’s March on Washington drew nearly half a million people to the nation’s capital and millions more to sister demonstrations worldwide, including thousands of people in Santa Fe, anniversary events are scheduled Saturday and Sunday in hundreds of U.S. cities and sites around the globe — from Japan to Guam to New Zealand, Zambia to Nigeria, Greece to Norway, Argentina to Ecuador to Mexico and all across Canada.
While the January 2017 marches were largely a show of resistance against newly inaugurated President Donald Trump, whose campaign rhetoric was considered by many to be hostile toward women, minorities and other groups, this year’s collective demonstration in the U.S. is a Power to the Polls movement centered in Las Vegas, Nev., where a rally is planned Sunday.
Planning for the march in Santa Fe, with a similar get-out-the-vote theme, got a late, slow start but gained momentum this week. Hundreds of people had indicated by Friday evening on social media that they planned to participate, and several have held poster parties like the one Bird attended Friday at Northern New Mexico College.
Another such gathering is planned from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the headquarters for the Democratic Party of Santa Fe County, 1420 Cerrillos Road.
Sales of T-shirts and hats featuring the Women’s March logo have picked up at Roadrunner Screen Printers, 1235 Siler Road, which is donating a portion of the proceeds to the march. Employee Debbie Burns was hesitant to give a number of items sold — she guessed at least a few hundred — but said the store saw an uptick this week in customers requesting march-related merchandise.
Meanwhile, a GoFundMe account to help cover rally costs had collected nearly $6,000 as of Friday evening, and many donors had left messages of support to the three Santa Fe women who organized the event: Nancy McDonald, Karen Cain and Margaret Romero. “See you at the march!” Rose Hume wrote.
Some prospective marchers posted concerns on Facebook that the Santa Fe march will take place Sunday rather than Saturday, when marchers in many cities will take to the streets.
Others raised the possibility that the Trump administration would plant supporters of the president, posing as protesters, among the Women’s March crowds in various cities over the weekend to incite violence.
Most, however, predicted a peaceful Santa Fe event. Last year’s crowd, between 11,000 and 15,000 strong, showed no signs of animosity.
Santa Fe Police Department spokesman Greg Gurulé said city officers will escort marchers and provide security throughout the rally on the Plaza, which will include an hourslong lineup of speakers — former CIA agent and author Valerie Plame Wilson among them — and musical entertainment.
During the march, Gurulé said in an email, “we’ll have some temporary ‘rolling’ [road] closures with our escort from the Capitol Building to the plaza as the march moves along.”
For Patricia Trujillo, director of equity and diversity at Northern New Mexico College, the Santa Fe Women’s March is more than a once-a-year opportunity for women to raise their voices. Rather, it’s the start of a larger effort to improve policies and find funding and resources for improved services for women in places like Rio Arriba County — which, she said, lacks even a sexual assault nurse examiner to care for a patient who has been assaulted and prepare forensic evidence for a criminal case.
“If a woman gets raped or sexually assaulted,” Trujillo said, exasperated, “they have to drive to Santa Fe or Taos.”
But she has hope: “I think last year’s march really started something.”
Trujillo pointed to the #MeToo movement, in which a wave of women have come forward on social media about the sexual harassment and sexual assault they have experienced. It’s not just an online trend, Trujillo said. “Women are standing up in places of work, in our homes, in our communities.”
She is looking forward to marching Sunday in a crowd full of passionate women and supportive men, Trujillo said. “I’m hoping that we have an even bigger showing than we did last year.”