Frontera NorteSur<\/a>,\u00a0a U.S.-Mexico border news service run by the Center for Latin American and Border Studies at New Mexico State University.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\nLike other places in the United States, Albuquerque has experienced reports of hate crimes since the Nov.\u00a08 election. In addition to the Muslim student who had her hijab snatched from her and a second student of the same faith who reportedly suffered an attack, swastikas were found spray painted on the UNM campus. Separately, FNS heard a story in which an African-American woman was verbally accosted with the N-word in a commercial parking lot in the Albuquerque suburb of Rio Rancho and told that people like herself would now have to leave.<\/p>\n
Nationally, the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported 701 hate crimes between Nov. 9 and 16, most within two days of the election. The SPLC classified the incidents as follows: Anti-immigrant (206), anti-Black (151), anti-LGBT (80), swastika vandalism (60), anti-Muslim (51), and anti-woman (36). The scenes of aggression included: K-12 schools (149), businesses (129), universities and colleges (114), streets (82), private property (72), and while driving (42).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are keeping track of anti-Trump incidents as well, which rose from our last report from 20 to 27,\u201d the Alabama-based civil rights advocate group stated.<\/p>\n
A flash of the rancor that swept over the land was briefly captured at the Nov.\u00a018 Albuquerque speak-out when a young man on a bicycle began yelling at rally goers and spit at a group. Outraged, several people in attendance chased the man away before the confrontation worsened. The local police, who were quick to stand down a Nov.\u00a09 anti-Trump demonstration with the deployment of a riot squad, were nowhere in sight. At UNM and in Albuquerque, mobilizations are mounting against racism and in defense of immigrants.<\/p>\n
On Nov.\u00a016, hundreds of students organized by the Black Student Union, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana\/o de Aztlan and other groups staged a walk-out against racism and hate crimes, in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), and in support of declaring UNM a sanctuary for undocumented students — a demand that\u2019s gathering momentum on more than 100 other U.S. college campuses nationwide, according to assorted media reports.<\/p>\n
An estimated 200 high school students from Albuquerque Academy also staged a walk-out around similar issues, chanting \u201cNot my president.\u201d In his weekly message posted that day, UNM Provost Chaouki Abdallah addressed the charged events on campus and off, noting he is an immigrant who came to the U.S. 35 years ago from a polarized country where citizens \u201cstopped talking to each other, and soon, discussions that used to take place in cafes, churches and mosques, were replaced by gun fights and bombings.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to the on-campus surge of hate crimes, Abdallah said an attack on one was an attack against all. \u201cThey fly in the face of every American value that I was taught when I immigrated. We cannot become numb to the warning signs of closed-mindedness, and of mindless hatred,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
The university official called on the campus community to display its better instincts, assuring that \u201cNo one should be made to feel unwelcome or unsafe because of who they are, what they think or how they vote.\u201d Besides reminding readers of UNM counseling and departmental resources available to people feeling \u201cthreatened, despondent, angry and alone,\u201d Abdallah said the university will sponsor a big teach-in in early December aimed at deciphering the implications and dimensions of the Nov.\u00a08 election.<\/p>\n
UNM faculty members delivered a letter to UNM President Robert Frank on Nov. 18, signed by at least 995 people, that condemned \u201cdiscrimination, marginalization and, violence against any community member.\u201d Posted by Albuquerque media outlet KOB, the letter called for protecting undocumented students who attend New Mexico\u2019s largest institute of higher education.<\/p>\n
On the same evening, a diverse crowd of Muslims and Christians, Sikhs and Jews, Asians and Native Americans, Blacks and Whites, Chicanos and Mexicans, young and old, and students and non-students, spoke out about the past, present and future. A man decked out in a spotless suit and wearing Anonymous\u2019 trademark Guy Fawkes mask walked around passing out red roses, while signs held above the crowd proclaimed, \u201cThank you for being part of our community\u201d and \u201cResist Islamophobia.\u201d At one point, people hugged each other at the urging of the MC,\u00a0Shakir. \u201cWe can\u2019t let hate separate us anymore,\u201d he intoned.<\/p>\n
Cesar Gonzalez, an Albuquerque South Valley youth worker, described the fearful and angry emotions of young people he works with in the wake of the election. \u201cThe majority of Albuquerque is full of barrios, where people speak Spanish, for many generations or they just came here,\u201d Gonzalez said. He implored the public not to stereotype immigrants or residents of low-income, hardscrabble communities like the \u201cDeep West Side.\u201d<\/p>\n
UNM student Isis Lopez said she turned 18 last year and just voted in her first election. Expressing a feeling of \u201closs\u201d at the outcome, Lopez nevertheless said it\u2019s important to make a difference at the local level because \u201cchange doesn\u2019t come from the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peter Simonson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, read a statement his group published in the Albuquerque Journal that called on the president-elect to reverse course on his pledges to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. and institute \u201caggressive surveillance programs targeting them,\u201d deport undocumented residents, restrict a woman\u2019s right to abortion services, reinstate waterboarding, change libel laws, and restrict freedom of expression.<\/p>\n
Pledging the \u201cfull firepower\u201d of the ACLU, Simonson vowed, \u201cWe all stand ready to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mariana Cena Mendez of Albuquerque\u2019s El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos spoke about the post-election mood in the local immigrant community, which is busy developing strategies in defense of the undocumented. \u201cI\u2019m so proud for New Mexico, because we didn\u2019t vote for Trump. This is truly what democracy looks like. I\u2019m so proud of you all,\u201d Cena said.<\/p>\n
As the first real hints of winter descended on the Duke City, the nighttime rally proceeded in the pedestrian walkway outside the UNM bookstore, which is built on a section of old Yale Park, a popular hangout of the late \u201860s and early \u201870s youth counterculture. In recent weeks, the space has been reinvented as a free speech plaza of sorts, witnessing multiple demonstrations on issues ranging from the November election to Standing Rock, North Dakota, where the indigenous Lakota people and their allies are attempting to halt an oil pipeline under construction by Energy Transfer Partners.<\/p>\n
Following the Nov.\u00a09 election protest, demonstrators left placards across from the bookstore scrawled with messages like \u201cAbolish the Electoral College\u201d as well as quotes from historical figures and thinkers such as Frederick Douglass and Kahlil Gibran. Many a passerby paused to ponder the words.<\/p>\n
Hope Alvarado, member of the UNM Kiva Club and the Red Nation, is a young Native American activist who\u2019s been involved\u00a0in the pro-Standing Rock movement and other causes. Though the U.S. government recognizes a degree of Native American sovereignty, Alvarado contended that colonialism still holds sway after 500 years, as evidenced by \u201cFBI handcuffs,\u201d fracking, planned pipelines, and presidential power over the tribes. The UNM activist led the crowd assembled on Nov.\u00a018 in a chant that has become the anthem of the fight against the DAPL: \u201cWater is life! Water is life! Water is life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alvarado\u2019s definition of the Standing Rock struggle as essentially one of \u201chuman rights\u201d was dramatically played out the evening of Nov.\u00a020 as police moved against anti-DAPL water protectors attempting to remove a barricade put up by authorities that the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) said restricts access to residents. The police reportedly used water cannons, rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and concussion grenades.<\/p>\n
In reports posted Nov.\u00a021 and 22 on Censored News, the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council said 300 injuries were the \u201cdirect result of excessive force by police over the course of 10 hours.\u201d Twenty-six people were injured so seriously they had to be evacuated to area hospitals, the Council said. The unleashing of water cannons in sub-freezing temperature caused \u201chypothermia in the majority of patients,\u201d the health workers added. A 21-year-old woman named Sophia Wilansky could lose an arm and hand after being hit by a concussion grenade, according to the latest report.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Morton County Sheriff\u2019s Department, the North Dakota State Patrol and the Governor of North Dakota are committing crimes against humanity. They are accomplices with the Dakota Access Pipeline LLC and its parent company Energy Transfer Partners,” the IEN said in a statement. \u201c…If President Obama does nothing to stop this inhumane treatment of this country\u2019s original inhabitants, he will become an accomplice. And there is no doubt that President Elect Donald Trump is already an accomplice as he is invested in DAPL.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with immigration and border issues, Standing Rock looms as among the big contested arenas where the course of the nation — and world — will be defined in the coming year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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