On Wednesday morning, students from Great Barrington’s Monument Mountain Regional High School walked out of school and took to Route 7 with signs and chants for passing traffic: “We want justice, we want peace, we want ICE off our streets!”
For student organizer Adriana Roman Gutierrez, a sophomore, the protest of the second Trump administration’s immigration policies was deeply personal.
“As a daughter of immigrant parents coming here for me and my brother to have a better life, to have success in life, to know what careers we want- They wanted our options open to the world," she told WAMC. "They want us to be free of everything, and they just want us to not live with a stressful environment against everything that's going on wherever.”
Last spring, more than 10 community members were detained during raids across Berkshire County by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The detentions have continued in the months since, leaving people like Roman Gutierrez constantly worried.
ROMAN GUTIERREZ: For me it was kind of scary. It's very- It’s a hard topic, because I once got scared because I heard that ICE was where my dad was working, and I was so, so worried about how my dad was doing.
WAMC: Take your time, it's okay.
ROMAN GUTIERREZ: It's, it's very hard, it's very hard, but I know that what I'm doing is going to impact people, so.
Lotus Cohen, a senior at Monument Mountain, says the demonstration reflected how deeply the trauma of ICE raids is felt in a tight-knit community.
“We're all so close, we've all known each other for so long, we're all like a family here, and to have this happening, it's like we're it's breaking up the family," she said. "And we're all family here, everybody is welcome, and having ICE here and having these sorts of situations, it really disrupts the community."
Roman Gutierrez’s parents are now considering moving back to Mexico after almost 30 years in the United States. She doesn’t believe anything about Trump’s immigration policies is making America safer or more lawful.
“They are tearing families apart, they are breaking their hearts, and they are making sure that they will never have a chance to see them again," she said. "So, I want them to know that what is what they're doing is absolutely wrong, and it's, it's shameful. It's really shameful.”
She says the solidarity she felt along Route 7 on Wednesday was critical.
“It makes me feel like the hole in my heart has been filled," Roman Gutierrez told WAMC. "It's a wonderful feeling that I get to feel every minute of this day, and I'm just so glad that everybody here can just enjoy a glimpse of how one community can just get together and have like fun protesting.”
A day after the protest, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey issued new guidance to schools, houses of worship, child day cares, and hospitals aimed at limiting ICE operations on their grounds.
Nearby, students at Mount Everett Regional School in Sheffield held a walkout of their own to protest layoffs. As in Great Barrington, the demonstration happened with the backing of both school staff and the Railroad Street Youth Project, a local nonprofit aimed at empowering young people.
“Save our teachers!" chanted the students. "Save our teachers!”
This month, news broke that over 20 educators in the Southern Berkshire Regional School District had been issued layoff notices amid an ongoing funding gap in next year’s budget. For students like senior Jade Brown, the situation was untenable and demanded action.
“We're trying to state that we care a lot about our teachers, and that we care a lot about our departments, especially because art is really being affected with this, with theater and Shakespeare, and there's a very big strong art community at our school that is definitely being hindered by this, such as the kids in choir and the elementary school students that are losing an art teacher right now," said Brown. "It's just to show that not just the core classes matter to us, and that they all matter.”
Junior Emeline Grace Krauz believes the layoffs reflect adult leadership failing to keep students at the center of decision making.
“Today has been all about defending not only ourselves, not only our teachers, but our academic integrity and our integrity as individuals," she told WAMC. "This is not only a problem of simply our education, but the ethics of the situation- Completely out of whack.”
Krauz said she was concerned about how the cuts will affect students like her younger sister, who has another six years left in the district.
“Education is a right, not a privilege," she said. "We should be able to have our teachers, have our programs, and be able to learn, because that is what we're passionate about and that is what we want to do, and they're trying to take it away from us without us having any say whatsoever, and that is not okay, and we will not stand for that, and we will stand actively against it.”
She said the turnout on Wednesday far exceeded her expectations.
“For our meetings, we've been only having about, like -- I say ‘only’ even though we're very small school -- about 30 people in attendance, but look at it- We've almost doubled numbers, because the word-of-mouth things have spread. We have Instagram accounts, we have people constantly reposting, people who have never talked to each other are now coming together for a single cause, and it is a beautiful, beautiful thing.”
