Hundreds of protesters ranging from schoolchildren and college students to retirees and legislators gathered in front of the state Capitol on Friday to voice their opposition to President Donald Trump, who is visiting Honolulu on his way to Asia.
Demonstrators carried signs of all shapes, sizes and colors, protesting everything from the president’s immigration policies and cuts to Medicaid to discrimination and the unrest in Syria.
Gaye Chan, a member of the anti-Trump group Hawaii J20+, which helped organize the event, said Hawaii was a fitting place for a demonstration given the state’s multiple legal challenges to Trump’s bans prohibiting travel from majority-Muslim countries. (“J20” refers to Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, which the group says marked the start of its resistance movement.)
“We’re here because we cannot remain silent, because everything that is important to us is under threat by Trump and his Cabinet of billionaires,” said Chan, a professor in the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Department of Art and Art History. “His kind of scapegoating of the most vulnerable people around the globe — refugees, oppressed people with so little rights already — to fuel this racist sentiment, that kind of brutality is not OK.”
State Rep. Kaniela Ing joined protesters with a sign that said, “Aloha Means Goodbye.”
“While I was raised to have aloha for everyone and we are a welcoming place, we need to draw the line at leaders who absolutely divide our communities and make whole groups of people feel unwelcome in society,” said Ing (D, South Maui).
Seventh-grader Isabella Alohilani and several of her classmates marched through the crowd. “I just feel like it’s really cool because you get to fight for your rights,” she said of the event. “I don’t like Trump. I’m not trying to be rude. I just feel like he needs to get out.”
Ray Markey, a retired librarian, said he’s been protesting the president for the past six months at weekly demonstrations at the Trump International Hotel Waikiki. “I think he’s a sexual predator. I think he’s a money launderer. I think he’s a racist. I think he likes Nazis and members of the KKK, calls them nice people,” Markey said.
Attorney Andrew Stewart, holding a green “Dump Trump Now!” sign, said he also participates in the weekly Waikiki protests. “In 10 years, when my kids are old enough to understand what’s going on and the state of the country, they’re going to ask me what did I do when Trump was president. And I can at least tell them I protested.”
Victor Voth, a social worker from Kaneohe, said, “I don’t feel like many of us have any aloha for him.” He added that he plans to participate in a protest march today from Ala Moana Beach Park to Thomas Square.
There were a handful of Trump supporters among the estimated 300 demonstrators. A small group of men identified themselves as part of the Proud Boys — a “pro-West fraternal organization,” according to its Facebook page.
Trump supporter Edward Odquina made his way between the crowds with a “Make America Great Again” sign. Odquina, a production assistant and property manager, said he wanted to show the president that he does have supporters on the island.
“As an ex-Navy guy, I decided to show him support and let him know that there are real Americans, real patriots here, who support him,” he said.
