On Friday, January 16th, students from Crescent Valley, Corvallis High, Linus Pauling, Cheldelin, Franklin, and OSU took to the streets of downtown Corvallis to protest against ICE. Specifically, the walkout was in protest to the prevalence of ICE on the OSU campus, as well as the abuses that ICE has committed around the nation. Speakers mentioned Renee Good, a Minneapolis woman recently killed by ICE agents, among many others.
While ICE may not be nearly as active in Corvallis as in Portland, it has still taken a toll on our communities, particularly the Hispanic community. The violent actions of ICE agents around the country have instilled fear into the daily lives of immigrants and people of color. Many speakers attributed the targeted surveillance and raids from ICE to a system of racial profiling. Hispanic people, no matter their immigration status, have been increasingly worried about their safety, as shown by one speaker who repeated the phrase during her poem recitation, “Being Brown is not a crime.”
The walkout featured multiple speakers from Crescent Valley, including Gwen Kelly as the bass player in her band, and Penelope Seldera-Bahnson and Cecilia Cox performing their respective poems. Each of their performances were powerful and seemed to resonate with the crowd…