Outrage, sadness, and mourning were among the feelings expressed by the women and men gathered together in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in downtown San Diego last weekend for Un Llanto Colectivo, a public collective outcry against ICE and the separation of families crossing the border from Mexico into the United States, and an interactive performance protest, or “performa-protesta,” as part of actions throughout weekend-long events.

With conviction in her voice, Estela Jimenez, with the Otay Mesa Detention Resistance, a committee of humanitarian group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, addressed the crowd.

“Brothers and sisters, this is the cry of pain of La Llorona (the Weeping Woman), of mother earth, of the deepest part of her being, from the deepest part of her heart, crying out for her children, for her daughters, for her sons, who are imprisoned, those missing children, daughters tainted, and for the children who are caged. This is a cry for the freedom of our peoples, enslaved, and massacred.”

The call to come together was made by Las Maestras —which includes Celia Herrera Rodríguez, an educator, painter, and performance and installation artist, and Cherríe Moraga, an educator, activist, and internationally recognized poet, and playwright. Both women are also co-founders of Las Maestras Center for Xicana Indigenous Thought and Art Practice at the University of California Santa Barbara, and they directed the protest performance.

Herrera Rodríguez began the day’s events with a prayer as the group walked to the front of the ICE building together, which then separated with one group forming a circle. Another smaller group created an altar of sunflowers inside the circle. Afterward she explained the significance of the formation, “It’s a way of asking for permission of the ancestors, of the spirits, of all that’s around us.”

“It’s our task, our history, this is what’s been given to us,” Herrera Rodríguez said. “I was praying that we could see each other’s humanity.”

“Life loves to live,” Herrera Rodríguez added. “Even if you don’t water a plant it will hold itself, it will do whatever it can to live. We survive by coalescing, by coming together.”

Stan Rodriguez, a member of the Santa Ysabel Band of the Lipay Nation and an educator in the San Diego and Native Kumeyaay communities, also helped lead the opening prayer.

Rodriguez sang in Kumeyaay and encouraged those present to help those holding immigrants back understand “What they are doing and that they must stop. I ask this of you in the name of the creator.”

Roberto D. Hernández, a professor at San Diego State University said the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the university was among those that heeded the call put out by Las Maestras for the collective outcry. Artists came from all over the country including New York, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and others came from Tijuana and San Diego.

“We are here as a collective group. We come from many communities, from many of the original indigenous communities. We are here offering our heart, our energy, for all those families, all those children, youth, that are separated from their families,” said Elvira Colorado, one of the elder teatristas, who along with Hortencia Colorado, also a teatrista led a number of the performances. Both women are Chichimec Otomi storytellers, performers, playwrights, activists and co founders of the Coatlicue Theatre Company in New York.

Un Llanto Colectivo comes as the Trump administration continues to enforce its zero tolerance immigration policies. One week ago, the New York Times reported the overall number of detained migrant children has exploded to the highest ever recorded, reaching a total of 12,800 this month. Earlier in the month, the Trump administration moved to keep children and their parents in detention longer.

Unlike other protests, no signs were held in the air and no one marched on the streets.

Instead, prayers, performances, music, poetry, and oration took centerstage to express the suffering immigrants experience. Also on display by the teatristas, artists, activists, and supporters who attended the protest was the outrage and the call to end the separation of families and the unconscionable treatment of people seeking asylum in the U.S.

Everyone wore white, which Herrera Rodríguez said represents “All that’s possible, new life.”

“Yo lloro,” or I cry in English, one of the teatristas said as the performance protest began in front of the ICE building, as true stories of immigrants were retold by the teatristas.

Marely Ramirez, with Families Belong Together, said she helped collect the testimonies from detainees, asylum seekers, deported parents, fathers and mothers who were reunited with their children, but are still experiencing trauma and pain after the reunification.

Ramirez also said Las Maestras wrote the dialogue and pulled the performances together with the intent to educate the community about the actual challenge’s immigrants are facing.

Roberto Corona, founder of Pueblo Sin Fronteras said, “We are organizing to walk without fear in our continent.”

Jeff Valenzuela, also from Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said over 25 asylum seekers with Pueblo Sin Fronteras remain detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, including fathers who were separated from their children. He added, “Pueblo Sin Fronteras protests Mexico’s militarized and U.S.-backed immigration enforcement.”

“We live with a presence of high militarization, where immigration agents act with full impunity. If we stay quiet, they will stomp on us, they will win,” said Pedro Ríos, director of the U.S./Mexico Border Program with the American Friends Service Committee.

Sounds of the conch, flute, maracas and drums, instruments indigenous to the Americas, were also heard throughout the protest. In the evening at the Centro Cultural de la Raza, the rhythm and sounds of son jarocho and bomba filled the room.

“This event is historic here in the border. All the time I’ve lived here and in Tijuana, I’ve never seen an event which spoke of the need for a collective outcry as a means to heal,” said Christina Juarez, part of a music group of son jarocho called Quiquiriqui Coyotas.

On Sunday morning outside the walls and barbed wire of the Otay Mesa Detention Center, the protest continued.

“I cried, oh how I cried, to see my children locked up inside between four walls. My mother would cry and I cried, too. Let my children out of those four walls,” are lyrics of one of several songs sung together by the teatristas throughout the protest.

A phone call from several detainees inside the detention center to protestors outside was met with cheers, and ended with a chant from a detainee on the phone and the protestors outside.

“¡Alerta, alerta el que camina, la lucha del migrante en América Latina!”

Copal, or incense, was also used to cleanse the protesting space outside the detention center.

Jennie Luna, one of several women who held the Copal, added, “It’s an offering for our people to feel our voices. The smoke carries our intentions to the people,” referring to the detainees.

Ymoat Luna, one of the organizers of the collective outcry affirmed the group’s commitment to immigrants, “We will continue this work, which can be so challenging.”

Moraga explained the two-day actions were inspired by the original 16th century story of La Llorona, a woman who cries out in anticipating the loss of Mexico’s children to the Spanish invasion.

“My children where can we go? History repeats itself as indigenous families from Mexico and Central America are being separated from their children by state sanctioned violence in the North and the South.”

“In the spirit of La Llorona, our Llorona, we cry out in protest and ask you to join us,” Moraga said.