Garrett Gazzo, 19

"I’m Garrett Gazzo, and I'm gonna talk about how mad I am at America. Trump won, and I feel like that’s bullshit. He didn’t even win by the popular vote, he won by the electoral vote, I don't know how the people in power are going to allow him to be in that position. What I'm really pissed about is that Harambre got over 15,000 votes, in the presidential campaign. It just proves how immature Americans really are, and I'm fuckin' pissed. Oh my god... Let that sink in. A dead fucking gorilla got over 15,000 votes, in a presidential campaign, when it could have gone to something a little better which would've been Hillary. My input on this presidential campaign is that if Trump won, which he did, we’re fucked. if Hillary won, we’re less fucked, if Bernie stayed in the campaign, we would’ve been chillin', but we voted him out, and America is stupid for that, and that is my input. Fuck America, fuck Americans, fuck Trump."

Russell W., an older student

"My name is Russel Walls. I am a senior, I'm also an older student, older than most. I was born in the 80's before the internet was common in every household, and kind of the last of a generation to grow up outside with people in your neighborhood. It didn’t matter what color you were or what language you spoke, all I cared about is ya know, if I throw you a football are you gonna catch it? Fast forwarding to this election and all the hatred and all the divisiveness that's been brought about, you see further diminishing of societies that used to be somewhat open and acceptable, and from an academic perspective, I was not a victim but part of a downward recession, I lost my job, and I was under-educated, so I came back to school, I spent the last six years working to build a future for myself, and to see that the leader of this country doesn’t believe in science, although uses a computer and a jet to do his work, it's just a very interesting time and place to be in. It makes me pretty sad that I maybe have wasted my education, so we’ll see what happens. I’m terrified."

Tray Bradford, 20

"Well I didn’t follow the election results too much, I really found out that Trump won it the next day, I was just kind of glad that Hillary lost it. I don’t really support Trump and his views but Hillary has kinda worried me with just a lot of the scandals she's been involved in ya know, putting those two in a match up together, I thought Trump every time. Really I just don't know how much it'll matter, republicans don't like Trump and democrats don’t like Trump, so I don’t think he'll be able to do very much at all. So I think that a lot of people, they hold these events, and Berkeley they're rioting in the streets or whatever, but I just think that in a month this will all blow over and we’ll go back to America as normal."

Donnie R., 21

*Just tell me how you feel*

"My feelings on this issue, are both anger and sadness, I would say, anger in the sense that I didn’t realize how prevalent it was. I’m just kind of in shock that it happened and that Donald Trump is now our president. But I think that more than anything when it comes to sadness, there's just a lot of very hardworking families and hardworking people in general who, it just doesn't seem right that they’re getting the bad end of the stick, I see it in all walks of life. I dunno, just the fact that he, Donald Trump, has won this election based on fear tactics and rattling people up to be afraid of minorities, immigrants, and how they're bad people, little do they know, its what makes America, America you know? It's just unfair. I dunno, growing up half Mexican, and half white kinda puts things into and interesting perspective for me. My name is Donald too, and that's not a common name.. but seeing the struggle that real people deal with, its not cool, I don't think that people get a fair rap. I just don’t think its fair. I think he should resign and I think he knows he should resign, and that's my two cents."

Kevin Martinez, Poly Sci Major, 23

"How do I feel, well I didn’t think he was going to win the electoral college, that was pretty surprising to me, maybe naive, but I'm pretty sketched out. Normally I know racism is sorta the norm here in Humboldt County, maybe not in Arcata we live in kind of a bubble but I usually walk around with a knife and last night I already had it pulled out, I was on campus around 12:30 a.m.-1 a.m., which probably wasn't the smartest idea, but you could hear on different parts of campus people yelling “build that wall, build that wall.” It kind of put me on edge, I already know there are Trump supporters on campus but hearing those statements, was pretty... surreal. I hope this gives a chance for people of color when it comes to inner-cities and what not, ya know the right is malicious, they're all into guns, who owns the most guns, it's white people, they’re all into self-defense. People of color can look towards that avenue not for assaulting other people but defense within their own communities."

Mallory I., 20

"Well, last night was pretty awful, felt pretty sad. Something really sad happened this morning while I was in class, my teacher and I had a discussion and she almost started crying because she was talking about her kids and how she can't support someone who supports bullying and she can’t tell that to her kids..and now [Trump] is the face of the United States. And everyone just seems pretty depressed and sad."

Iran A., 20

"I’m really disappointed in the outcome of everything. And the fact that our nature is at stake, people of color and marginalized groups are at stake, it's difficult to process something that you've been passionate about for a year, and it being a huge disappointment and... just coping with this, is a lot. A lot is at stake and we don’t realize that our Earth is in danger, our people are in danger and it's just hard."

Students in the quad listening to the public speech being held on November 9th.

HSU Student Hector Arzate speaking out on the HSU quad. | Tarah Moleski

A growing crowd gives their attention to Malcolm Chanaiwa | Tarah Moleski

Alexander Sterns, 25

"I feel really disappointed. I never would've thought that all three sections of government would have such strong republican presence, and I find that incredibly threatening as an LGBT community member. I'm really scared for my fellow brothers and sisters, I’m scared for my friends, who are people of color, of different religions, there's so much hate mongering... it's very uneasy, how I feel. I’m terrified of what would have happened if Hillary would have won, and that’s sad, with all the riots and stuff. Yeah, mainly really sad and not looking forward to the next 20 years. I’m scared I may not have a family, I may not get to marry, I may not get to adopt a child. It’s really horrible to hear that your dreams may not end up happening."

Cory Stewart, 21

*Whatever you’re thinking right now about America*

"Okay, well, I have a very strong feeling that things are going to go south, sooner or later in this country. But, I don’t expect it to happen like 100 percent, if people try to get over the whole divide between Hillary and Trump supporters, hopefully, Trump won't fuck up everything too bad. I’m really concerned about the near future for sure. A lot of families have different family members voting for different parties, and most of my family voted for Trump but I didn't. There's that, but I just I feel like everyone should try to suppress the animosity that's bound to happen in the next couple of weeks and I know that a lot of my LGBTQ community friends are really terrified right now, and all my minority friends and marginalized groups are not too happy about what's going on. But you know, stuff is supposed to get worse before it gets better, I guess that's the way life usually works. So this could be a great opportunity for America to transition into something else, whether or not that's a good or bad thing, that's not something I’m able to predict. Just try to keep your friends close."

Logan & Nicholas G., 20

"Well hello, I'm Nicholas and I definitely voted for my girl hil-dog, it's just crazy how disappointed I am with this country and I’m super bummed by everything-Logan you got anything to say?"

Logan, Senior, Criminal Justice Major

"Little disappointed, I did vote for Hillary I will say, I’m just a little scared for women's rights in particular. Just because we’ve worked so hard over years and years to get our voices heard and to have a president come along who is a rapist."

Nicholas:

"Dude he’s such a kook! Such a kook."

Logan:

"It's a little frightening as to what might happen. But I have to be optimistic and I don’t think running away is the answer, you can’t flee the country."

Nicholas:

"But now what?"

Karina Coronado, 19

"So I don’t really have much to say just because I feel like I am just as ill informed as everyone else but I know one thing we could have done differently and still aren’t doing differently is directing our attention away from saying 'fuck Trump' when we could be talking about how we could be moving forward, if we just keep saying fuck Trump that's pretty fucking obvious, but that has just kept us in that same mindset of talking about what we don’t want. But we don't even know which direction to take with what we do want, for the most part. But what do we wanna do now? Can we kick him out? I dunno."

Kelly Bessem, 24

"I was unprepared for yesterday because I totally assumed that a certain thing would happen and didn’t even prepare myself for Trump winning. I had talked to my family earlier that day and they had told me they were voting for Trump and I, you know, I remained calm and told them the reasons I wasn’t, and I guess it didn’t bother me as much until he won, and I realized that my family helped him to do so. And it also made me think about how my dad, as a father with two daughters supported ya know, all that Trump stands for, wholeheartedly. I actually brought up that Trump is sexist and racist, so I can't stand behind him no matter how good his policies are or aren't, that would go against what I work towards. My dad's response was, oh well he's not racist, so he admitted that he was sexist, but still voted for him. So I’m just really... it's really weird, I just like don’t know how to interact with my family right now. I dunno. What do you say to them in the wake of this, when you know that's what they believe in? When that's everything you’re against. It's just really strange, it's uncomfortable. That was my weirdness of it. I know a lot of other people will be facing a lot more uncertainty and hardship that I really can’t understand but it was just weird, having your family support that stuff."

Myself, 21

"As for me, when I heard the news, that Trump was winning I really didn’t want to believe it. It’s news for me, that is the equivalent of hearing news that there is a ginormous comet coming towards Earth and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, and we are all fucked. I feel as though I'm in a bad dream I need to wake up from."

Thank you all so much to everyone who gave me a moment of their time, while I gave a moment of mine back. It was truly awe-inspiring for me to hear different perspectives and interact with people on my campus, friends, and classmates. I wish I could have talked to more, but I wouldn't have wanted to spend the day any other way.

Remember to reflect love inward, and outward as well.