One week into the second Trump presidency, students at Diablo Valley College were already expressing a range of opinions and mixed feelings about what they anticipated from the new administration.
John Lacaba, 25, a mechanical engineering major, said he was feeling “a little worried [that] we’ll see the repercussions soon.”
“Some [people] are getting instantly affected [by the Trump administration], but I feel like the effects aren’t felt as much as they are being played up to be,” he added.
Lacaba, who immigrated to the United States from the Philippines, said, “I recently became a citizen, [and] it’s definitely scary to see all the ICE stuff,” in reference to the nationwide crackdowns on illegal immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
At the same time, looking at the economic impacts of Trump’s policies, he added, “I’ve been doing research on the tariffs, and some people don’t understand that it’s really going to affect the consumer.”
Jacqueline Ochoa, 21, a business accounting major, also expressed some fears about the effects of the tariffs. “I guess everything is going to go up because he is going to tariff everything. So everything we buy is going to go up,” she said.
Beyond that, “I’m worried about human rights and how our government is just letting Trump sign everything into law,” Ochoa added.
In the earliest weeks of the new administration, Trump moved to ban birthright citizenship; declared a national emergency at the southern border; expanded the use of expedited removal for immigrants; created a so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and placed billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk as the head of its cost-cutting operation, and banned trans women and girls from competing in female sports, among dozens of other executive actions.
“How does Elon Musk have the authority to just fire all these people and Trump’s fine with it?” Ochoa said.
As for the way students locally are feeling the effects of the new regime in Washington, some said the impacts are not necessarily being taken so seriously.
Another DVC student, a 21-year-old nursing major who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Inquirer, “To be honest, I don’t mind [the new administration] at all. Nothing much has changed.”
Looking at the media’s early coverage of the administration, he added, “It depends on where you look: it can be quite deceiving on whichever end you’re on.”
From a global perspective, the student said, “I don’t know how the rest of the world views us, but as someone that lives here, [Trump] makes us look silly.”
Ochoa seemed to agree with his sentiments. “We look bad to other countries,” she said.
For Lacaba, living in liberal California, a reliably blue state, makes him apathetic about the political system and his impact on the democratic process.
“I know where my state stands, and sometimes it feels like I don’t have enough power to change anything, and it’s frustrating to see,” Lacaba said.
“I feel like I don’t have much control over what’s going on.”