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Across the nation demonstrations against Donald Trump’s racist, verbal assault on Mexicans, Latinos and immigrants have been steadily gaining steam, but activists in San Francisco’s Mission District have found a creative way to issue their own beat down: by way of a Donald Trump piñata.
Adults and children lined up on July 19 to take a swing at the piñata that resembled the Republican presidential candidate during Sunday’s rally of about 50 people at Mission and 16th streets.
“We like piñatas, but we also like politics,” said Frank Lara, an ANSWER Coalition organizer, as he made his way up a small ladder to hoist the rope that suspended the candy-filled figure, which was fitted with a paper-blue suit, red tie and Trump’s famous hairdo.
Many in the crowd took the opportunity to take selfie’s with the Trump piñata before it was too late.
Participants chanted the traditional Mexican folkloric song “Dale, Dale, Dale, no pierdas el tino…” (Spanish for “Hit, hit, hit, don’t lose your aim…”) and lined up to take their best shot at the piñata with a wooden stick.
Veering from Mexican tradition however, participants weren’t required to wear a blindfold.
After just a few participants, candy burst from the piñata, prompting someone in the crowd to yell that money should have flown out of it.
When the piñata was battered beyond tatters, children quickly picked the candy off the ground as adults behind them cheered and laughed.
At the beginning of the rally, Aaron Peskin, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and Jose Carlos, from the American Postal Workers Union, spoke at the rally condemning Trump’s comments on immigrants and the city.
“They love picking on San Francisco because San Francisco values are the values of a real, open society,” Peskin said.
Peskin praised San Francisco for being one of the first to implement a city-specific minimum wage law, universal healthcare before Obama’s presidency and sanctuary laws that helped shelter Central Americans who fled the terror of their war-torn countries in the 1980s.
“We came here to work and give our families a future,” Carlos, who came to the United States from Peru 30 years ago, said in Spanish.
With his campaign slogan being “Make America Great Again,” Trump called Mexicans “drug dealers,” “rapists,” “murderers,” and “killers” during his presidential nomination speech in mid-June.
“We don’t need Donald Trump, who never sees the good we do and the contributions we make to this country,” Carlos said. “We’re engineers, lawyers, professors and politicians.”
Protesters then spilled onto the streets for a march along Mission Street. Local police officers managed traffic as protesters chanted and marched to 24th Street on the roadway.
During the march, a second Donald Trump piñata could be seen pinned to a pole, its mouth taped shut.
Marchers rallied at 24th Street for a final round of speakers and piñata bashing.