Massachusetts residents, labor groups and businesses are getting ready for another weekend of protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The events are organized in solidarity with calls from groups in Minnesota, who are calling for a day of “no work, no school, no shopping.”
Rallygoers in Minnesota have been taking to the streets for weeks, and last Friday hundreds of businesses also shut down amid a general strike to protest the thousands of ICE agents in Minnesota.
The latest actions in Massachusetts come after last weekend’s killing of protester Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis and how the federal government handled his death.
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Copley Square Friday afternoon for a “no business as usual” rally, organized by labor and progressive groups. A protest is also planned Saturday on Boston Common.
Some rally attendees said they don’t usually get involved in political protests but felt compelled — like Jupiter Serra, who is Brazilian.
“I’ve always wanted to come to protest, but the thing is that I’m really terrified for me and my people,” Serra said outside the Boston Public Library.
Some attendees had called out of work to attend the rally, including Tori Gellman, a librarian from Jamaica Plain.
“We’re here to protest the current conditions in the United States,” she said. “It just feels like the least we can do right now.”
Mandy Zhang, a junior at Harvard University and chair of the College Democrat of Massachusetts, spoke with GBH News ahead of the protest Friday. She planned to attend with a group of students, saying she was appalled by the way the Trump administration responded to Pretti’s killing.
“It’s going to continue to happen to other states,” she said.
A video calling for Friday’s walkout on campuses and schools has generated hundreds of comments from high school and college students, who have been walking out of class in groups and individually.
“I study authoritarian regimes at Harvard. And we learned that nonviolent protesting is the way to go,” she said. “And what we’re doing now, even if it seems small, even if you organize a little protest in your little old town ... it will make a difference because people in your town will see it.”
While some local small businesses said they planned to stay open Friday, some have decided to participate in the general strike.
Just Book-ish in Dorchester closed in “solidarity” with Minnesota. Cafe Zingin Someville said it would stay open as a community gathering space but not for transactions. Brookline Booksmith said it would stay open for people to stop by on the way to the protest, and that “we support all of our customers who choose not to spend their money today.”
Deciding to stay open or close is not a “light” decision for small business owners, said Christina Pascucci-Ciampa, founder and owner of All She Wrote Books in Somerville. She decided to keep her shop open, as a gathering place for people to stay warm and make posters, and encouraged anyone buying books to pay in cash. All profits Friday will be donated to LUCE Immigrant Justice Network Massachusetts.
“East Somerville has a beautiful array of immigrant-owned businesses who have been rocked by ICE,” she said. “If I’m staying silent and not doing anything, that’s not okay. ... So the point of the matter is ... that we’re here for our neighbors. And we’re here to make sure that our neighbors are safe. And how we do that is through these strikes.”
Pascucci-Ciampa encouraged people to stay engaged, even if it is difficult to participate in protests, rallies and strikes.
“I hope when you go to a protest like today that’s going on in Copley Square, what I hope it does, it gives you the energy to keep going,” she said. “That’s the hope that I have, is that people continue to take this energy with them and continue to [do] small acts of protest every single or every other day, or at least once a week. It’s better than nothing, right?”
