What compels an Alameda resident to protest daily
Every few days, Jean Luke walks to the same street corner in front of City Hall with a new sign, a Sharpie masterpiece on cardboard. He stands alone. He doesn’t chant. He doesn’t shout. But he shows up. Again and again.
This isn’t normal for Alamedan Jean Luke.
Before this month, Jean Luke had never been to a protest. That changed on April 5, when he attended Alameda’s “Hands Off” protest at City Hall—a rally that drew more than 1,000 people to voice opposition to President Donald Trump’s whirlwind policy changes since retaking office.
He’s since returned to City Hall six times. Alone, he quietly holds up a new handmade sign at the corner of Santa Clara Avenue and Oak Street. That corner is just a block from my house. Every time I walked into town, there he was.
“I think we’re reaching a point of no return,” he said. “Policies are changing so frequently that waiting days or weeks to protest feels moot. In a week, it’s just going to be so deeply buried that nobody’s going to even remember it.”
Each sign reacts to headlines, especially the story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an undocumented immigrant wrongly deported to El Salvador.
On Tuesday: “Only tiny (Dick)tators deport and disappear the people who disagree with them!”
On Wednesday: “There’s nobody more homegrown or more criminal than Trump.”
And on Thursday: “Trump and his corrupt cabinet are the true terrorists.”
On April 10, the U.S. Supreme Court directed the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return promptly and with due process, something even some prominent conservative publications are calling for. Four days later, in a highly publicized White House meeting with his cabinet and the Salvadoran president, President Trump effectively shrugged off taking action—while also floating the idea that even naturalized and “homegrown” American citizens could face similar fates.
That hit close to home for Jean Luke.
He became a U.S. citizen in 2022. He was born in South Africa the year after apartheid ended. His family moved to the United States when he was 10. Since 2016, he and his husband have lived in Alameda. Until recently, he worked at the College of Alameda.
“This whole country is made up of immigrants,” he said. “I would like to think that if I wasn’t a naturalized citizen, I would still be brave enough to stand here. Right?”
It’s a notion that hits close to home for me, too. I’m a naturalized citizen as well. I fell in love with Alameda during its Fourth of July parade, a Rockwellian reminder that this country can still feel like a shared project. Immigrants often carry a convert’s kind of national zeal—the things we work hardest to achieve are the things we value most.
That’s what I felt talking to Jean Luke.
“Even before I could vote, I was still pretty invested,” he said. “Now that I can? I’m even more.”
That’s evident in his signs. His typography is intentional and expressive, even on scrap cardboard with a Sharpie. Each day, there’s one message that consistently appears somewhere on his signs: “DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED.”
At this busy intersection, many drivers honk or flash a thumbs-up. That’s not surprising in a town where more than 80% of voters supported Kamala Harris and only 16% backed Trump. Occasionally, though, a jeer or thumbs-down cuts through. One driver slowed down, made sure he had Jean Luke’s attention, and started swearing at liberals.
It wasn’t a drive-by shout, it was deliberate. He wanted to be heard and leave a sting. Then he peeled out onto Santa Clara Avenue as punctuation. The driver’s face and his accent suggested a shared origin—a fellow immigrant.
I’m projecting here, but it unsettled me. Here were two Alamedans—likely both immigrants, probably both citizens—who’d walked the same bureaucratic path to belonging. Passed the same civics test. Sworn the same oath. And yet, at this moment, they weren’t on the same side of anything. Not policy. Not belief.
I asked Jean Luke if he had a goal in mind with all of this.
“I’m on Reddit and online a bit,” he said. “I see people talking about protesting, waiting for someone to set a date. But that’s the thing, you don’t need someone to organize it.”
Surveying the intersection, he added, “I’m not here to convince anybody. I’m just trying to support people who already know what’s right.”
That spark worked on me. It led to these conversations, and to this piece.
“So, you’ll be out again tomorrow?” I asked, wondering if his midday pattern would continue.
He nodded with a grin. “I’ll be here.”
As I walked away, a young man who appeared to be East Asian approached Jean Luke from the nearby bus stop and said: “Thank you for being out here…”
Thushan Amarasiriwardena is walking all the streets of the Island and documenting it along the way at EveryStreetOfAlameda.com. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Thushan-Amarasiriwardena.
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