Through The Cast Iron Doors

You can smell it as you step off the bus: the infusion of thick, salty ocean air into smog creates an amalgamation that chokes your lungs. Cars speed by, honking at the small tour bus that has stopped in the right-hand lane to dump you and nineteen other American teenagers onto the barren cobblestone sidewalk. You stare up at the empty concrete building. The shop doors that line the outer wall are shut tight, concealing the wonders of the market inside. In front of you, the large doors in the center loom open, like a mouth that leads to darkness and the unknown. The bus speeds off, leaving you stranded outside a Chilean fish market. This wasn’t what you had in mind when they said you were going to explore the city of Santiago.

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For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.

Washington flourished—but the people did not share in its wealth.

Politicians prospered—but the jobs left, and the factories closed.

The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.

Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

That all changes—starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.

It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.

This is your day. This is your celebration.

And this, the United States of America, is your country.*

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January 20, 2017. The 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump, gave his inauguration speech. Only 600,000 people showed, leaving the West Lawn of the U.S Capitol barren compared to the crowd of 1.8 million eight years earlier when Barack Obama, the 44th president, was inaugurated. Trump spoke to America, promising power back to the people. He promised that voices would be heard and that the United States of America would be one nation. That the nation would share the pain, share one home and one destiny. He promised that together, we would make America great again. Quiet cheers could be heard from the minuscule crowd, most unsure of what this change in leadership would bring. 

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A day after Trump’s inauguration, hundreds of thousands of people crowded into the U.S. capital for the Women’s March on Washington. It started with a voice. Teresa Shook from Hawaii went to Facebook, proposing a march on Washington, D.C. for a change in gender and pay equality, LGBTQ+ and civil rights, affordable health care, reproductive freedom, and environmental issues. A total of 4.6 million people attended marches held around the nation. Together, they created one of the largest single-day demonstrations in U.S. history, spanning from New York City to Los Angeles. D.C and Los Angeles grew to over 500,000 people who marched together to call for social change. 

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After the bus disappears into the stampede of traffic, you turn toward the fish market and walk toward the looming cast iron mouth. Darkness engulfs you as you step through the doors. Immediately, the scent of cold, salty fish invades your nose. It drifts through your senses, stinging your eyes, slithering down your throat, and burning your nostrils with its force. The sounds of the traffic disappear and all you can hear is yelling. As your eyes adjust to the sudden darkness, you begin to make out the corridors of stalls, each displaying wide-eyed fish corpses that lie on beds of shimmering ice. Stall owners shout to customers over the graveyards of fish. Glimmering eyes of death staring up at you from between the shouting men. It’s inescapable as the crowd pushes you through the marketplace and you choke down the bile that has begun to churn in your stomach from the aisle of ice and death.

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He promised a wall, a sealed border to separate the U.S. from Mexico. So, on January 25, 2017, Executive Order 13767 was issued, just five days after the inauguration. The Department of Homeland Security began work on eight prototypes built near San Diego that cost taxpayers about $2.3 million. In November, SWF Construction won an $18 million contract to replace a wall in Calexico, California. Just over a year later, the federal government would go into a shutdown due to the $5.6 billion demand for funds to begin work on the wall.

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A white sea, speckled with green, white, and red flags swarm the streets of dozens of Mexican cities. They carry signs and posters demanding the halt of border wall construction. They stand in unity, tens of thousands of people, protesting the barrier between the countries, families, and cultures. But he doesn’t listen as he fences them in, blocking their chants with steel.

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The ice clatters onto the display cases; some rolls onto the floor, and you make a mental note to watch where you step. You don’t want to be any closer to the grimy concrete floor than you already are. Around you, stall-owners shout jumbled Spanish at you and your friends. Your five years of Spanish classes did not prepare you for this environment. You can catch some words: “¡buen pescado, buen precio!” or something like that. Good fish, yeah right. Their glassy eyes stare up at you, and the bile in your throat rises again. Behind the counters, the ear-splitting sound of cracking bones from cleavers chopping off heads and the other unsavory parts blends into the chorus of incomprehensible shouting. The deeper you go, the louder the men behind the counter become and the more crowded the stalls get as people shout to each other and wave bills in the air. The stench of fish grows heavier, and the flow of the crowd thickens until you have melted into the smelly soup of bodies and ice. You want to get out, to tear away from the crowd, but you keep marching forward, through the endless hallway. 

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The Keystone Pipeline: expected to span almost 1,200 miles across six U.S. states and move over 800,000 barrels of petroleum from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries. President Obama had previously blocked the construction of the pipeline due to its effect on the environment. In January of 2017, though, Trump approved the pipeline, and crews continued construction on the expansive project. 

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Mae Hank, a member of the Inupiat tribe, made the 10-hour journey from Point Hope, Alaska to Washington, D.C., joining thousands of other protesters and tribe members to bring awareness to indigenous concerns about environmental, economic, and social issues. The tribes marched together to halt the building of the pipelines. Meanwhile, across the country, construction crews are tearing through the final frontier, installing a shining gray pipe that stretches along the Alaskan wilderness.

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Sopa de mariscos—it is the only thing you can translate when yelling to the server over the crowd, and you assume it’s a safe option because at least you know where the fish came from. When your friend orders, you can’t even hear her talking. The soup comes in a black bowl filled to the brim with oysters, fish, clams, squid, and some sort of gray-tinted broth.  It is the melting pot of the ocean. The broth crunches, and you’re not sure if you should be chewing or swallowing, but your stomach growls with hunger. The clams aren’t bad, but the oysters are gritty and taste like sand. From your spot at the table, you can see a bright light looming on the far wall. Through the cast iron doors, the bus is probably waiting, with its air conditioning that tastes like a gulp of ice water. Outside, the buzz of traffic probably sounds like bumblebees. You long to join the march of traffic, for the kiss of fresh smoggy air, but you’re stuck in the fish market chewing on salt water broth and watching as people scream over each other in order to listen.

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*Donald Trump, “The Inaugural Address,” The White House, January 20, 2017, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/the-inaugural-address/