photos from the edge 09
FORT BRAGG FAMILIES MARCH TO PROTEST TRUMP DEPORTATION THREATS
Photographs by David Bacon
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums/72177720323721022/
Young people and their families in Fort Bragg CA joined thousands of others who went into the streets this past week, protesting the effort by the Trump administration to terrorize them with the threat of immigration raids and deportations.
Fort Bragg is a former lumber mill town on the California coast a few hours north of San Francisco. When the mill finally closed in 2002, it was long after the time when the lumber industry employed thousands in California forests and mills.
Mexicans began coming to Fort Bragg, many from the Yucatan, to work in the seafood plants in the Noyo River harbor. For a few years, the demand in Japan for sea urchins, or uni, provided lots of work. But the shellfish were rapidly exhausted, and Mexican workers moved into jobs in the tourism industry or picking wine grapes in nearby vinyards, which replaced both the mill and the sea urchins as Fort Bragg's economic lifeline.
Today small Mexican markets and restaurants are part of many town neighborhoods. The community is growing, and students from immigrant families make up a majority in the city's schools. But being part of Fort Bragg has not been easy. The first immigration raid took place in 1988. When Trump threatened new raids and mass deportations, young people knew what he was intending from their own family histories.
It is a testimony to the courage of these young people of Fort Bragg and their families that fear of deportation did not paralyze them, or make them cower behind closed doors in fear. And as they took to the streets, passing cars honked and waved their support of the message carried by the handmade signs and flags.
