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A ‘guerilla’ action for hope and strength

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Sonoma Valley Sun

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Whoever said that flower power was dead? Certainly not the three Sonoma women who call themselves “The Guerilla Girls” and who were distressed by Donald Trump’s victory at the polls on Election Day. To buoy their own sagging spirits and to provide some kind of comfort to distressed voters they staged what might be called a guerrilla action in the plaza that attracted modest attention and led to spirited conversation.

The Guerrilla Girls — Isa Jacoby, Simone Grasshoff and Stacey Tuel — made and displayed a colorful banner that read “Our Spirits Will Not Be Broken.”

City groundkeepers stopped them from hanging it from a palm tree. After one of the men threatened to call the police, the Guerilla Girls gave up and place the banner on the grass. They also used flowers they had gathered to constructed an icon in the shape of a heart.

“I’m doing this because I woke up feeling broken and hopeless,” Grasshoff said. “This is a way to regain my sense of power and to support the people I feel Trump is fighting against — immigrants, women, and queers — the very people who enrich this country.” Jacoby explained, “We want to keep the positive energy going and we want to be grateful for the bits of beauty that we do have and that we can put together.”

Tuel added, “This election brought out so much divisiveness. This is a way for us to come back to hope. I’m pregnant. I want to bring my child into a world without hate and hate speech, a world in which we take care of one another.”

A British tourist stopped to admire the flowers and the banner. “Thank you for doing this,” he said. A Mexican woman with a young daughter said, “I’ve felt a tightening in my throat all day because Trump won. It helps me feel less tense to see this.” A middle-aged woman explained that Trump’s victory felt like a kind of terrorist attack. “I hope that peoples’ spirits aren’t broken,” she said. “We need to go on.”

The sun went down; the Guerrilla Girls left their art on the grass and then they wandered into the darkness that surrounded the plaza.

— Jonah Raskin

Photo by Simone Grasshoff




Sonoma Sun | Sonoma, CA