On Monday morning, as the presidential inauguration coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, hundreds congregated in Point Reyes Station, Tomales, the San Geronimo Valley and Bolinas to call for unity and action amid fears of mass deportation and anti-immigrant sentiment. 

West Marin residents, organizers and community leaders channeled their disquieted anticipation of a second Trump presidency into peaceful chants and impassioned speeches—all without so much as a single utterance of the 47th president’s name. 

Rallying around causes like immigration, civil rights and racial justice, speakers in Point Reyes Station evoked a nation that has wrestled since its founding to reconcile lofty ideals of liberty and equality with enduring divisions over race and ethnicity. They called for a paradigm shift and tangible, structural change rather than all-too-familiar handwringing and consternation. 

“We could focus on what’s happening in Washington, D.C., and all the hate that is being spewed,” Ámate Perez, one of the event organizers, said to a crowd gathered at Toby’s Feed Barn. “But instead of focusing on that, we are here to build solidarity and the connections we need—not just to survive, but to build the world we want.”

For many in West Marin’s Latino community, today’s anxieties are double-edged: the looming threat of stricter federal immigration policies and an affordable housing crisis ratcheted by the announcement of 12 ranch closures in the Point Reyes National Seashore, which could displace dozens of Latino ranch workers and their families.

About a quarter of West Marin residents are Latino, according to local school and health clinic data, and many live below the poverty line, often relying on limited affordable housing scattered across ranchlands.

At Monday’s gathering in Point Reyes Station, “I stand with Ranch Workers” stickers were handed out and petitions were signed as the bilingual rally began with a slate of speakers. Among them were Alma Sanchez and Socorro Romo of West Marin Community Services, followed by Rosa Rodriguez, who shared her harrowing journey crossing the U.S.–Mexico border to find work in a small Central Valley town, where she picked grapes for just $56 a day. Each harvest was punishing, but so was the sting of watching her son, suffering from a medical condition, endure cruel bullying. 

After her husband lost his job, she feared uprooting her family yet again, but they eventually found their way to Point Reyes. Here they secured housing on a ranch—and a sense of belonging for herself and her son.

“Thanks to God and thanks to the people that are here, he was well-accepted, he was not criticized, and he was loved by the people,” she said. “Now, his biggest concern is that we have to move from this area, because it’s the first time it feels like family.” 

Representatives from the Coast Miwok Tribal Council of Marin joined the lineup, as did Theresa Harlan, a descendant of the last Indigenous family to live along the west shore of Tomales Bay. Ms. Harlan reminded the crowd that dispossession in this country is an old story, one her family knows all too well.

A child holds a sign of solidarity outside Toby’s Feed Barn on Monday. (George Alfaro / Point Reyes Light)

“Our families—including my mother, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles—were laborers on the ranches,” she said. “They were indispensable, but they were moved out. I’m standing here because I feel a connection to that last-minute…consideration of the workers.” Her remarks were translated into Spanish. 

In a reminder of just how relevant the civil rights icon’s precepts remain, John Eleby, an enforcement ranger in the Point Reyes National Seashore, read an excerpt of Dr. King’s 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

“I see his letter as a call to action, because we would be naïve to think the work is done, that segregation does not exist,” he said. “It does exist, even here in Marin. Maybe especially in Marin.” 

A short while later, as news came that Indigenous rights activist Leonard Peltier’s sentence had been commuted by Joe Biden in his waning minutes of presidential power, cheers erupted throughout the crowd. 

“To honor Dr. King and Caesar Chavez and Leonard Peltier—and all the leaders that have come before us—let’s build deep solidarity and a movement committed to advancing the rights of all of us,” Ms. Perez said. “All of us who have been affected by colonization, racism and economic exploitation.” 

Holiday traffic halted briefly as the mostly-white demonstrators made their silent procession from Toby’s Feed Barn to the Giacomini Wetlands, carrying hand-painted signs that read “Protect Immigrant Families—Our Friends and Neighbors,” “Las Familias Merecen Estar Unidas” and “Solidaridad!” Placards with the unifying slogan, “Standing Together/Una Comunidad Unida,” dotted the crowd. 

Organizers from West Marin Community Services, who also led a silent walk on Inauguration Day in 2017, have revived a hotline launched during that era, where callers can confidentially report the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Dispatchers then mobilize a team of volunteers to verify its validity and, if an incident is confirmed, an immediate response group is activated to provide critical support to the affected family.

In the wetlands, the crunch of gravel underfoot gave way to the hush of grass as more than 100 people formed a circle in an open field, standing shoulder to shoulder under a scorching January sun. 

Led by Carlos Porrata and Claire Peaslee, they passed around an eagle feather as a talking stick, each participant sharing the things they cherish and want to protect: “Biodiversity on planet earth;” “imagination, possibility and creative problem-solving;” “truth and love;” “these wetlands;” “un corazón, una familia, y una comunidad;” “recognition for my people;” “Land Back and reduce the wealth gap;” “intact families;” “no one is free until we are all free;” “realization that we are all relatives;” “recognition that we are all one with the creator;” “connection beyond today;” “children, cubs, saplings, sprouts, fledglings;” “comunidad unida nunca puede ser destruida.” 

Meanwhile, nearly 3,000 miles away in the Capitol rotunda, President Trump made some decidedly un-MLK-like remarks while delivering a forbidding 29-minute inaugural address laced with the same nativist rhetoric that defined his campaign.