Trident Booksellers and Cafe hosted an event called “Write Your Reps” Tuesday evening to encourage individuals to get in touch with their local politicians by either asking them for political change or thanking them for their public service, according to the event’s Facebook page.
While some local residents were seated throughout the cafe and given postcards, others in the upstairs seating area were passing around addresses of the offices of representatives.
Mackenzie Van Engelenhoven, the event coordinator, said about 200 people turned out to the event because political activism is becoming more important to a wider demographic of people.
“The political climate is really intense and really active right now,” Van Engelenhoven said. “A lot of people are feeling very scared and unsafe and are looking for ways to act and are feeling very helpless.”
Van Engelenhoven said organizers were hoping to increase feelings of activism by offering people a chance to become directly engaged in the political process.
“We were hoping to give them an outlet to feel like they’re acting and feel like their voice is heard,” Van Engelenhoven said. “Sometimes all you need is that extra push.”
Organizers have plans for similar events in the future, Van Engelenhoven said.
“We’re hoping to do political education nights where we have different experts in the area come in and talk about different sort of hot-button political issues right now,” Van Engelenhoven said. “We’ve got four more years here so we’re definitely going to be having more ‘Write Your Rep’ nights.”
Michael Lemanski, the general manager of Trident, said if citizens have matters they are worried about, writing letters to politicians is an effective way to get those matters resolved, and a bookstore is an ideal space to do so.
“Bookstores traditionally have been a space for free thought and conversation and discussion,” Lemanski said.
Several participants expressed their gratitude toward representatives, in addition to voicing concerns.
Emma Hammack, 32, of Brookline, said she wrote to Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey concerning the issue of gerrymandering.
“These little electoral maps … are really engineered demographically to exploit people,” Hammack said. “It’s something we really need to address going forward so that maybe when there’s a presidential election or a local election, the voice of the majority of people is actually being heard.”
Ashley Pelton, 29, of Fenway, encouraged all individuals to become involved in the democratic process.
“A lot of people didn’t take advantage of voting and I think it’s really important and they should be active and vocal about what they believe in,” Pelton said.
Sarah Koenig, 31, of the South End, said participating makes her feel like she’s making a concrete difference.
“This just feels like a good way to talk to people, see who else is around and then feel like you did something solid,” Koenig said.
Charlene Chow, 30, of Dorchester, said she has prior experience speaking to representatives, and it is uplifting to see more people becoming engaged.
“In the past I’ve mostly done work very specific to fighting human trafficking,” Chow said. “I’ve written letters before, hand-written letters, because they tend to catch people’s attention more than something that’s printed … so it’s not particularly new to me but it’s definitely encouraging to see more and more of my peers becoming politically active.”
Sam Martin, 46, of Brighton, said events like this increase activism, and she was primarily writing about her concerns for the environment.
“An event like this makes it a lot easier for someone who’s inexperienced in this sort of thing to learn and to participate,” Martin said. “I’m pretty concerned about environmental issues, climate change, that sort of thing.”
Amanda Miner, 26, of Quincy, said the state of education in America, specifically the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, is her biggest concern.
“Knowing someone so incompetent is sort of at the helm of things is really kind of an eye-opener that we have to put our mind where our mouth is and write our representatives,” Miner said.
Christina McKennerney, 37, of Newton, said politicians in Washington D.C. need to listen to the concerns of citizens, as current issues are affecting everyone.
“It affects all of us, everything’s that happening right now,” McKennerney. “It’s either affecting us directly or will indirectly in the years to come and I think the people in Washington really need to hear the voter’s voice and understand that we’re not happy.”
