Thousands of New Mexicans gathered Saturday in downtown Albuquerque to oppose the Trump Administration. The event was one of about a dozen in New Mexico and many more nationwide.
People braved icy winds to fan out across Civic Plaza as part of more than 1,300 protests around the country by the Hands Off movement. The organizers included civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans, and election activists.
Protestors waved signs calling out cuts by the Trump Administration to federal programs, including health care, and actions by Elon Musk’s DOGE team.
Adriana Rivas Williams was holding up a puppet familiar to many New Mexicans.
“Well, this is Old Man Gloom. And this is Old Man Gloom Trump,” she said. “As you can see, it says, ‘Make America gloom again,’ because today is a very gloomy day for a lot of people, and we have to fight back, and we have to stand for human rights before the money. He goes to sleep tonight while other people are worrying about their IRAs. Nice of him.”
She said she wanted to incorporate New Mexican traditions to the protest to represent those who live here.
“Being a native and my DNA, being here to the 1600’s and being very proud to be a New Mexican, and understanding that this land that I'm on is my land,” she said. “And we have a lot of natives here, Native Americans, lots of Hispanics, Latinos. Wake up, Trump. Coffee is here, brown is here to stay.”
Brooke Greenland is an elementary school teacher in Albuquerque who said she’s worried about early childhood education being cut.
“I'm personally taking a pay cut next year to keep doing my same job, just because I feel like I don't want to stop doing what I'm doing,” she said. “And it's worthwhile, but it feels disrespectful to pay teachers less.”
She said she’s worried kids will not come to school if they're worried that their parents are going to be deported.
“I personally know someone whose father was deported, and I can't imagine what it would be like to be in that family,” she said.
Greenland has been bringing her daughter to protests since the girl was 6.
“And now she's 14, and she's still protesting eight years later,” she said. “I think that it's important for her to feel like she has power. She keeps saying that she wishes she could vote. When they were asking, you know, ‘Are you a voter?’ She was like, ‘I wish I could.’ And so I think that it's important to train kids early, that they will vote, and they can make a difference, and that they are smart enough to understand a lot of issues.”
Paul Apodaca identifies as queer and said the canceling of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) that was created by President George W. Bush was a bad choice.
“I did lose a lot of friends to AIDS,” he said. “So we're gonna go back to that. That's hat's kind of scary for me. It's like, we gotta fight. Being Latino, gay, it's like, you know, two strikes against me. They don't care.”
Apodaca is originally from El Paso and said he’s really glad he lives in New Mexico.
“Having come from Texas, is a whole different situation,” he said. “I grew up eight blocks away from Juarez, so I understand the immigration of what bull**** it is…There is no easy solution. I grew up in that.”
Speakers included Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Attorney General Raúl Torrez, Mayor Tim Keller, and longtime civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, who got a serenade from the crowd for her 95th birthday.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
