As the Trump administration doubles down on immigration enforcement and denies the validity of transgender Americans' identities, members of those communities in the Shenandoah Valley are canceling cultural events. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
Organizers of the 2025 Hispanic Festival in Harrisonburg and the Fishersville Library Pride Day announced on social media on Thursday that external pressures were causing them to cancel their events.
Crimson Solano, the executive director of COSPU, an immigrant solidarity coalition, wrote in a press release his organization was canceling the Hispanic Festival this year [quote] "due to increasing threats posed by the federal administration's immigration enforcement policies and the demonization of immigrant families," adding that a public event would expose vulnerable community members to harm, possibly including surveillance.
The Augusta County Library posted on Facebook that the county Board of Supervisors directed them to cancel the Pride Day program scheduled for this Monday, June 16. They noted that no library staff or board member had a say in the decision, and they were "immensely disappointed."
WMRA called all seven Augusta County supervisors, all of whom are Republicans, at midday on Friday. Scott Seaton said he was on vacation, so he did not know why the decision was made. The rest neither answered the phone nor returned our calls by the time this story aired.
We also reached out to COSPU and the Shenandoah LGBTQ Center and did not hear back on Friday.
County school board members have taken stances against the LGBTQ community in the past. As the News Leader reported, the board rejected model policies from Gov. Ralph Northam's administration regarding the protection of transgender students, and considered removing a student's artwork about the effects of religious trauma on the queer community from an exhibit at Fort Defiance High School last year.
