Abbey Kim photos
AG Tong (left): “Let us commit to each other as we run.”
Sasha Watson (center) and her family at Sunday's run.
Five-year-old Tristan Jones stood beside his dad and grandmother and held his rainbow-emblazoned sign high: “I am the descendant of immigrants! I love mom! Go moms!”
His mom, Sasha Watson, was one of more than 3,400 people who registered for Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS)’s annual five-kilometer Run for Refugees, which raised more than $145,000. Around 2,500 runners took off from Wilbur Cross High School at noon on Sunday — undeterred by the four inches of snow from the storm the night before.
“We’re here standing, as we do every year, in support of what makes America greater,” IRIS Executive Director Maggie Mitchell Salem said. “This year, with the snow, the challenges are almost perfect given what’s been going on in the last three weeks.”
She alluded to President Donald Trump’s actions—cutting off $4 million in federal funding and suspending U.S. refugee resettlement, resulting in IRIS laying off 20 percent of its staff—and broader rhetoric denigrating the contribution of immigrants to America.
“Unless we’re Indigenous or Native Americans, we’re all descendents from immigrants,” Watson said, “including people who came on the Mayflower.”
Watson works alongside dozens of other volunteers at Refugee Resettlement in Ridgefield, an IRIS co-sponsorship group that has been helping a Syrian refugee family of five resettle since June. She highlighted the need for support for the 200 refugee families that arrived with IRIS’s help in New Haven between Oct. 1 and Jan. 20, when Trump cut off arrivals and funds.
Watson’s mom, Dhelma Burgonio-Watson, immigrated from the Philippines. She too cheered on Sunday with a decorated sign: “From our hearts to your hearts, you are our relatives.”
Burgonio-Watson sent their funding call to relatives in the Philippines, as well as neighbors in Ridgefield. Their group ended up raising more than $1,000.
“I just wish there was more that we could do,” Watson said. “We just have to keep being loud, being kind, and fighting for everybody’s rights.”
The family joined a diverse group of runners at the race. Mayor Justin Elicker, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, and East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith all made speeches ahead of the starting horn.
An impassioned Tong recounted Connecticut’s role in fighting to protect birthright citizenship by suing to stop Trump’s executive order. Without birthright citizenship, Tong said, he wouldn’t be standing before the crowd today.
“That is what we’re fighting for today and every day,” he said. “Let us commit to each other as we run.”
The run offered some participants an opportunity to voice their concerns about displaced people everywhere. Hend Elsantaricy and her 14-year-old son, Ali Elawa, came from Newtown donned in keffiyehs to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. Elsantaricy praised IRIS’s work to build hope and safety for refugees. She criticized Connecticut’s investment in Israeli weapons manufacturing.
“We are actively encouraging displacement and are complicit,” Elsantaricy said. “All humans deserve to live peacefully and with human dignity.”
Elsantaricy found her first opportunity to talk to Blumenthal about investment in Israel on the sidelines as the race began. “At this point, you shouldn’t be at any event without people bringing up these issues,” she said.
As the race wound down, the streets filled with cheering fans dressed in their winter best. Watson huddled on the sideline, rejoining her family. Five-year-old Jones wanted to make sure she had heard what he had cheered as she rounded the final corner: “I said, ‘Go faster!’”
A board showcases motivations for running.
Hend Elsantaricy (right), with her son Ali Elawa ...
... and sharing some choice words with Sen. Blumenthal.