Spring 2024: The LZ Encampment

A typical afternoon on the Quad on May 1st, 2024

This photo encapsulates a very specific moment in history for UW. The Liberated Zone encampment was still present on the UW quad. Protests and gatherings were happening weekly if not daily at UW and all around Seattle, all around the nation and around the world. My thinking is forever changed on how small actions put together can become a movement, and also that people will listen if we seek to understand first and approach with respect and honor.

When I studied abroad in Jordan, I encountered the world’s eyes turning to the relations between Palestine and Israel. I was there the autumn of October 7th. 

Everyone was shocked. 

The Arab world has been aware of the plight of the Palestinian for a long time, but the Western world had yet to be awakened to the issue (and is still awakening). No one knew what would happen next. With more than 40% of Jordan’s population being Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled from their homes in 1948 onward, there is a huge emphasis on Palestinian freedom and restoration of justice among Jordanians. What the exact solution looks like is still up in the air, but everyone was pleading for ceasefire at the bare minimum, since innumerable war crimes were being committed, including killing civilians and blocking medical and food supplies. 

During this time especially, I experienced a lot of valuable learning on the relationship between Jordan and Palestine, and how Jordan navigates their relationship with Israel while the majority of Jordanians still hope and pray for Palestinian freedom and restoration of rights. Being so close to the tragic tsunami of destruction that followed October 7th was both heart wrenching and agitating. As I worked with fellow Palestinian coworkers in the nonprofit family health clinic I was interning in, I felt their pain as they could no longer talk with family members in Gaza due to the electricity being cut off as well as censorship and tracking by the Israeli government. My friend who had family in Gaza had seven nieces and nephews who were killed in the bombing. And then her sister. 

People cancelled their weddings and birthday parties. My host family showed me the list of boycotted brands that are supporting Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, and I gladly avoided the items at the market. 

Small actions, seemingly insignificant, that contributed to huge decreases in sales for huge companies like McDonald’s, with net profits falling by 12%, and Starbucks, its total international profits declining by 23%. Once-popular restaurants that became like ghost towns before my eyes in the bustling city of Amman. The grieving and somber attitude during this time felt like a way of revolting. A way of declaring to the world, this isn’t right! 

My sign I made from the inside of a cereal box

Marching peacefully for a ceasefire with my friend

This was ringing in my brain when I returned to Seattle, and I searched for events to show solidarity with Palestine and raise awareness. Thanks to the support of many friends and fellow activists, we campaigned for UW students to take action on what they were seeing in the news. I began to think critically about the complicity of my role as a student in a university which partners with profit-driven companies that produce weapons of war. How some of my peers will be trapped into contracts designing bombs and tracking equipment used to target whoever gets on the bad side of the wielders of the technology. I wrote a speech which I gave in a protest in front of the Board of Regents meeting calling for accountability, reform, and love to guide our next steps as an institution. It is structured with indentations and line breaks for ease of reading. 

Here is the speech I gave on May 9th, 2025: 

“Two days ago, I had the opportunity to be in the same room as President Cauce. 

I approached her with a bit of my story and told her that it breaks my heart to know that my university is so closely tied with Boeing, 

that we are, by association, fueling and funding the genocide not only in Palestine but in destruction around the world, including the Philippines. 

What I took away from that conversation is that storytelling is powerful. 

The stories that Prez. Cauce knows and believes are different from the stories we as the student body know, hear, and believe. With the few stories that students and staff shared in that room two days ago, more understanding was able to be found, small steps toward the goal of divestment that is not as impossible as it looks. I encourage you to keep storytelling, using your voice, actions, and taking a stand for what you believe in, because it is working. 

Our voice is strong because we are empowered not by hate but from love. 

It is love that calls us to choose to give up funding here at UW because we see that human lives are infinitely more precious. 

We are here because we recognize that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

We will not turn a blind eye to our neighbors in Palestine who are suffering. We students will use every ounce of our strength, resources, time, energy, and creativity to ensure that the generations will know that we stand for freedom. 

Let me be clear, when we say cut ties with Boeing, our engineering students seeking internships and jobs with Boeing and Boeing employees themselves are not the issue. The problem lies in a system designed to favor Boeing, a war profiteer, 

and giving engineers little choice to deviate from Boeing’s agendas.

The decision-makers in Boeing profit unimaginably from students' ingenuity, time, and lack of options in the engineering field. Look at the Boeing-funded facilities being built past the fountain, with classes taught by Boeing staff, and enticing promises of tuition coverage for students committing to work for Boeing after graduation. 

This exploitation should not have to be part of our story. 

UW students stand for reconciliation, for justice, for rebuilding. For cutting off this cycle of destruction. We aim to live in a world where no innocent lives are lost. 

In a world of wounded bodies and hearts, let there be healing. In a world of division, let there be reconciliation— honest and open dialogue where we see the other as human. In a world where unforgivable atrocities have been committed, let there be an utter transformation of the hearts of those who wield power.

I want to challenge us to keep loving our neighbors and even counter-culturally showing kindness to people who oppose us while we pursue justice. That sends a message to those in power that this is the kind of future we're fighting for.

Representing as one of the Filipino community, as a mixed kid, an artist, and as one who loves God, it's the highest honor and the least I can do to join my peers in calling our University institution, companies, and global leaders to accountability. --- and believing, as author and activist bell hooks put it, in their “capacity to be transformed”. 

Whether or not our administrators choose to change, our role as the broad majority of people who want and need to see justice is to keep pressing forward because we as the next generation of leaders are ultimately the ones who write the story.

Today and every day continue to resist, doing our small part of fighting for liberation until Palestine can be free. If you're gifted at making art, do that. If you have a heart for service, set up tents, we need you. If you are an organizer, keep using your talent to bring people together. If you write music, use your song to sing us one step closer to justice. Everyone has a place in this story for liberation. 

Thank you and FREE PALESTINE”