No King’s Protest In Guam Demands Protection Of Democracy And Equal Rights

Tuesday, 17 June 2025, 8:32 pm
Article: RNZ

Naina Rao, RNZ Pacific Guam Correspondent

Chanting under the midday sun and holding signs that read 'No Kings in America' and 'In Solidarity with Los Angeles,' more than a dozen residents and visitors gathered in northern Guam on Saturday to join a national day of protest opposing what organisers describe as authoritarian overreach by President Donald Trump's administration.

The rally is part of a broader grassroots mobilisation across the United States, marking the first 'No Kings' protest held in a US territory.

"We've seen hundreds of new events on the No Kings Day map since the weekend," said Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, one of the groups behind the "day of defiance" to the Guardian.

"We've seen hundreds of thousands of people register for those events."

A website for the protest cites Trump's defying of the courts, mass deportations, attacks on civil rights, and slashing of services as reasons for protest.

Demonstrators in Guam, where American citizens lack federal voting rights, used the opportunity to call attention to both local concerns and nationwide threats to democratic institutions.

"We're on the front lines trying to save our democracy," said Diane Thurber, an assistant professor at University of Maryland Global Campus, Guam. "And everything that happens in America, happens to Guam first."

"If we don't stand up and speak out, who's going to stand up for us?" said Guam Public Auditor, BJ Cruz, adding that Guam is still fighting for many rights that citizens in the continental U.S. already have.

"I learned that the Big Beautiful Bill - a big ugly Bill - did not include our request for RECA compensation. And we were downwind. So, we've got to stand up and tell everybody we're here."

The demonstration also drew teachers, visitors, and local union leaders who expressed alarm over Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint championed by Trump allies and supporters to consolidate executive power and dismantle federal agencies. It was published by The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, ahead of Trump's 2024 election victory.

Critics say the project threatens fundamental civil liberties, including the right to protest, birthright citizenship, and public education.

Sophia Underwood, a US history teacher on island, said it's become increasingly difficult to teach students about constitutional principles while witnessing what she described as the erosion of democratic norms.

"He's probably the most, I would say, anti-constitutional president we've had," she said.

Underwood said a lot of her students rely on TRIO programs and Pell grants to pursue a college education. "And seeing that [President Trump] is defunding higher education, those are the things that really bind all of us with the people that are in the continental US."

Guam residents are US citizens who cannot vote for president and lack full voting representation in Congress, despite having one of the highest US military enlistment rates per capita and are federal taxpayers. Demonstrators highlighted this contradiction as a central point of frustration.

"We couldn't even vote for this joker, but yet here he is," said Tim Fedenko, a longtime Guam resident and local teachers' union president. He pointed out Guam's straw poll results from the last election, which voted for Kamala Harris as president.

"Give us a voice, right? But they don't want to give the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa or Guam a vote. It's because they're scared of the brown vote."

Others travelled from off-island to join the protest, including 74-year-old political activist Taynay Matsumoto, who is visiting Guam with family. A former delegate for District three in Georgia at the Democratic Convention, Matsumoto said her activism is motivated by concern for her grandchildren's future.

"I'm worried that if my 16 [year-old] got pregnant, I don't want anybody to know, she should be able to have an abortion, that's her right," she said.

"Use your power as a person. It's very powerful. And Trump wants you to think that you don't have it, that he as all of it. Those are lies."

Despite Guam's geographic isolation, protesters emphasised the interconnectedness of national policy decisions and their local impacts like federal budget cuts to stalled compensation for Cold War-era nuclear fallout.

"This administration is anti-everything that I'm for," Underwood said. "Even though we're far away, we still have the same fears. Being a teacher, I'm concerned about the Department of Education, right? And the arts being affected."

Local grassroots group Prutehi Guåhan organised the demonstration, and said "Prutehi Guåhan joins the "No Kings" movement to resist fascism, ongoing war crimes in Palestine, and violence against immigrant communities and protesters in Los Angeles and elsewhere."

"We're the first No Kings rally in the country," BJ Cruz said, adding, "And we're in solidarity with the rest of the country, and hopefully they'll stand up for us eventually."

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