On April 22nd, 2017, I went down to the city with my friend Maya to join the SF March for Science. It was quite an incredible experience, being a part of a collective action that was bigger than myself. It was my first time taking part in a march of this scale, first time experiencing something that I had only known before through the one-sided nature of media. Before, I had thought that there’d be more triggered college students at the march, since the Bay Area has so many renowned research instutitions where the repurcussions of these public research cuts would be more than apparent. But no, me and Maya were the few young faces in a sea of elderly, peaceful marchers in SF that day.
A little backstory of how we ended up deciding to come all the way from Santa Cruz to join these folks at the SF March. The original intent was to participate in the SF People’s Climate March on 4/29; however, the march ended up getting canceled because the organizers didn’t want want 2 giant marches in SF on two consecutive weekends. Also, there were more mobilizing efforts focused on environmental justice in Oakland, in addition to it being organized by non-profits led by prodominantly people of color. So, what ended happening was that the People’s Climate march got moved to Oakland as a family-friendly community rally. It wasn’t what Maya and I had wanted because we were looking for something that was more direct and upfront, so we ended up deciding to go to the March for Science event instead since science encompasses climate change anyway.
