San Diego local and undergraduate student at the University of Iowa, Nikkie Zapata, put together a "Love Still Trumps Hate" rally on November 9th at noon in Iowa City, Iowa. The student posted a Facebook event on her Facebook page and 613 people expressed an interest in going, and 366 people stated that they were going.

The rally took place on campus and over 200 people were reported to have attended. Nikkie, who identifies as bisexual and is a proud Mexican American, stated on her Facebook page:

"I'm not a person that steps out of their comfort zone. Making the event at all was a huge obstacle for me, and when I saw how many people were going, hours before it was even supposed to start, that was overwhelming ." She continued to say, "I know our demonstration won't change the results of the election. But it show's his supporters that WE ARE STILL HERE. We won't be silenced just because you don't think we should have the same rights as you. It showed that we have a strong community. Seeing people going out of their own comfort zones to share their feelings, seeing people hug crying strangers... For those people, this is their family. This is who they go to when they feel like giving up... hearing people say that this got them out of bed this morning, that gave me the strength to have hope that I thought was gone."

Nikkie had help putting this event together from her friend Gemma Van Jacob, who wrote on her Facebook page:

"Love Still Trumps Hate was made in order to bring the community together after such a tragic, hopeless election. I think we both expected 10-20 people to show but by the end there was an estimated 200 that had come and gone. We sang, we chanted "Stronger together," "We're still here," "Don't mourn-organize!" and so many more. We had people relate their stories and emotions about the outcome of this election and how it will effect them. It was not until I heard their stories that I realized just how detrimental Trump's presidency will be to those marginalized in society."

Since the event, the rally has already been featured on Iowa City Press-Citizen and The Tab Iowa. The Tab reported that "students of all backgrounds, African American, Latino, disabled, LGTBQ" showed up to support their fellow Americans.

I reached out to Nikkie, who is currently trying to organize another couple rallies in the near future, to ask her a few questions about the rally. When I asked how she came to the decision to set this up, she told me she "was just upset about, not really Trump winning but more the effects I knew it would have, because I knew of all these people being attacked even before he was elected." She basically felt like he gave people the "okay" to express their racism, sexism, and homophobia to others.

She explained to me that she already had plans to hang out with her friend on Wednesday morning, so on Tuesday night they thought of the idea to make it a Facebook event to see if more people would be interested in coming to talk with each other about what had just happened.

"We thought that ten, twenty people would go and so we made a Facebook event and next thing I knew I looked at it and over 100 people were looking at it," she stated.

When I asked what advice she would give to anyone who wants to start a rally at their college, and have as successful of a turnout as Nikkie did, she said that the Facebook event was a really big part of it. She told me that having a big audience is key, and even though she originally did not have a significant number of Facebook friends, she insisted that having a few supportive friends committed to getting the word out there is what matters.

"I asked my friends to share it and had Melissa (my sister and UIOWA alumni) share it with her friends. I made the event at like 2 am and by noon it had been 300 people who said they were going. It was shared with almost 1500 people."

As for what went on during the event, Nikkie told me that the rally consisted of singing songs, chanting and sharing stories.

"It seemed like a lot of people showed up out of nowhere. This guy had his guitar with him so we just started singing 'This Land is Your Land.' I think people liked that we weren't asking to donate, we weren't asking for anything. I tried to organize it without being too overbearing. I was just kind of walking around to make sure people weren't getting into any arguments and to see that everything was going smoothly."

"One of the really big things that I think matters for this, is that it's not to be against Trump, but there is an effect that his hate speech is having, there are people who have spoken out [upon being influenced by him] and say hateful things."

"The hate speech is in support of Trump and people are trying to say the two are not connected. It is very clearly inspired by Trump's hate speech."

I also had the opportunity to speak with Nikkie's sister, Melissa Zapata, about her sister's rally. "I'm so proud of her!" she told me, "I feel like Iowa City is a really liberal city even though Iowa came up as a red state." As a Hispanic student at the university, Melissa was considered a minority among a predominately white population.

When I asked Nikkie what she thought of this, she told me "Obviously there are Trump supporters but I don't think they're as extreme here. It's important for people to know that just because they live in a liberal area, it's still important to speak out and show our support. Because if only people in those [marginalized] areas are speaking out, it makes everyone else look unsupportive. It wouldn't be fair for us to sit back and not do anything."

Whether you are for Trump or not, this rally is an inspiring message to all young adults across America that we can make this country whatever we want it to be, we just have to come together.

We cannot allow a president to dictate, violate or take away our rights because we have come much too far. We must keep fighting.

This country was born on the promise of liberty and democracy, the voice of the people. Whether our president is Trump, Clinton, Obama, George W. Bush or even Beyoncé, we cannot allow them to oppress us or put fear into our hearts. We need to stand together, united, as a nation and make America great ourselves.