Young Iowans too young to vote, but not too young to march

IOWA CITY - On the morning of Nov. 9, 12-year-old Liam Clarke woke to his brother jumping on his bed, yelling that Donald Trump would be president.

'He's probably joking,” Liam thought.

After hearing Trump's campaign rhetoric - which his mother, Jodi Tate, said often sounded disrespectful and immature - the middle school student was shocked that adults would make such a choice.

He joined hundreds of people, many of them children too young to vote, in a march last week through downtown Iowa City. The gathering Tuesday was meant as a show against discrimination and hatred.

Leading the march was a group of high school students - some wearing Converse sneakers and headscarves, others who said they identified as gay or transgender - walking arm-in-arm.

'We are the kids of change,” they chanted.

They joined scores of students who have staged marches, class walkouts and sit-ins across the country in the days since Trump's win.

In Iowa, students in Des Moines and at City High in Iowa City walked out of class. West High students duct-taped their mouths shut during a sit-in. In Cedar Rapids, dozens of students walked out of class Thursday at Kennedy High.

Children long have been involved in political protests, said Landon Storrs, a University of Iowa history professor, including in labor protests of the 1910s and anti-war protests of the 1960s and 70s.

'I think children had something of a political advantage in that they didn't have jobs to lose, they didn't have children to take care of,” Storrs said. 'Sometimes younger people have been willing to take risks and have been more optimistic at the ability to crack an oppressive system.”

While movements driven by young people are 'usually idealistic and for change to a more progressive, inclusive model,” she said, students also have protested decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended legal segregation of schools.

In response to the recent demonstrations, critics have characterized protesters across the country, including adults, as childish.

After a protest briefly stopped traffic last week on Interstate 80 in Iowa City, Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, a Republican whose district borders Iowa City, announced plans to introduce a 'suck it up, buttercup” bill in the Iowa Legislature. The Des Moines Register reported the bill would prevent state universities from using public funds to provide additional grief counseling postelection.

'In some ways, (people) are right when they say the world is going to hell in a handbasket because no one listen to their elders anymore,” Storrs said. 'But if you turn that around, when students see adults misbehaving … there can be moments at which authority figures command less respect, and maybe deserve less respect.”

Political action taken by young people often comes when a decision 'hits them right at home,” she added.

Many parents at the Iowa City march said the election results left their children feeling scared and uncertain - and that pushed some to take part in a march for the first time.

Lisa Lavadie-Gomez said her 8-year-old son responded to the election with immediacy, telling her 'we have to move.”

'I thought we might not be safe,” said her son, Joaquin Gomez, fiddling with a yellow 'Love Trumps Hate” button on his sweater. 'Because I heard Donald Trump was a bad person.”

Merfat Mohamad brought her 6-year-old daughter to the march after Trump's election brought the girl to tears.

'I try to keep her calm and tell her everything will be OK,” Mohamad said. 'But I don't personally know if everything is going to be OK.”

Kelly Smith - whose daughters, 5 and 7, carried 'don't be mean” and 'boys can be friends with girls” signs - said she's now 'just insisting that it's not normal” for a president to say things Trump has said.

Over the course of his campaign, Trump called for a ban on Muslim immigrants and made generalizations about Mexican undocumented immigrants and African-Americans. He has also made disparaging comments about women, bragging about grabbing them by the genitals without consent in a 2005 video that surfaced during the campaign.

Smith said she's also 'modeling democracy” for her children by contacting elected officials to voice dissent, and by participating in protests like the Iowa City march.

As the protesters reached the Pentacrest on the University of Iowa campus, they encircled the high school student organizers as they led chants and shared personal stories.

Reading from a poem she wrote, Ala Mohamad, 17, addressed the crowd of parents, children and her classmates.

'I will rise,” she said. 'And you will watch me.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8330; molly.duffy@thegazette.com