A hard cell? Alcatraz tourists released Trump's “crazy” plan to revive him as a prison | Donald Trump

IIn the chopped waters of San Francisco Bay, there is a crushed former federal prison on a wind -flogged rock, which is now in the center of Donald Trump's most recent real estate proposal: “Reconstruction and open Alcatraz!” Over the weekend, he announced the social of truth to “serve as a symbol of law, order and justice”.

On Monday, the day after Trump's explanation, the amount of tourists for the ferry in the Fisherman's Wharf stood to visit the island.

Jonathan Perez, 20, a psychology student from Miami, was scarce: “He is crazy.”

Perez stands in the former prison cell house and is horrified by the idea that the notorious prison could suddenly be brought back to life.

“He has already shown his enthusiasm for the masses that can be seen in El Salvador, and he had mentioned that Guantánamo Bay had imprisoned people,” said Perez. “I think it's terrible. You have given up prison for a certain reason.”

Alcatraz is urgent in contradiction – a lively symbol for the punishment of state power, indigenous resistance and a space in which tourists are encouraged to think about history, memory and justice. The former prison is now a museum that is operated by the National Park Service and is one of the most popular tourist destinations in San Francisco with 1.4 million visitors per year. California officials have described the idea of ​​reopening the prison that has been closed since the 1960s, an absurd and inconsistent political distraction.

Many visitors seemed to agree on the island. “As a tourist, we are a bit shocked by this news when you consider how old it is and how long it was really inhabited,” said Janelle Lawson, a tourist from Australia. “There has to be a lot of money in the infrastructure to make it worth living again.”

“Typical announcement by Donald Trump,” giggled her husband Wally Lawson, a retired IT teacher. “I think it's a bit of a stunt to bring the media from the other decisions that he made. There is only so much that a newspaper can print a day so that all the other things that are going to get so much report.”

The 66 -year -old Matti Oshhri, who rose from the ferry and further to Alcatraz Island, had a cheaper rating. “Trump – he is the best,” said Oshhri, who appeared from LA to tour Alcatraz with her family to tour Israel. She doesn't know why he wants to transform the popular tourist attraction into a prison, but she believes that he will follow: “I think he'll do it. He's crazy but crazy.”

Nobody from the National Park Service that operates Acatraz was entitled to speak to the press, but the annoyance was noticeable among the employees.

Two French couples from Toulouse, who jointly took America's national parks on tour, twitched, turned their eyes and said they did not believe that the proposal was serious.

“He marches backwards. Tomorrow he will announce a little,” said Regina Jaquelle, a retired policewoman when her friends broke out in laughter. “As president, he is not credible.”

“This is just another load of bullshit,” added her husband Eric Jacquelle. The two couples mocked the other real estate transactions – from converting Gaza to a French Riviera to the annexation of Greenland, Panama and Canada – through which Trump has publicly considered.

“Doubling” with a violent heritage

Alcatraz was closed in 1963 because, according to the Bundesburo for prisons, it was three times more expensive than any other federal prison, for the most part of the island location and the lack of amenities that had to cause everything from food to fresh water.

“With the state of our economy, which was just too expensive, then too expensive, it is definitely too expensive to run now,” said Tolu Ogundele, 22-year-old psychology student at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. She was excited to visit Alcatraz, but didn't think much about Trump's plan. “To be honest, he doesn't have a lot of good ideas,” she added.

After its closure, the island recorded a second life as a place of the local resistance. In 1969, a group of activists from the American indigenous people Alcatraz occupied and explained them in an act of protest against broken contracts and systemic neglect. The 19-month crew has given away the modern movement of the indigenous rights, the legacy of which today lasts.

“I think it should stay what it is, a national monument,” said Jacqueline Kemokai, a retired nurse from Tampa who was moved by this story. “You have already taken away so much from the past and there must have been something behind to keep our memories going,” said Kemokai.

It is a story that is alive and good for Morning Star Gali, a member of the Ajumawi band by Pit River Stamm. In the past 16 years, Gali has organized the largest sunrise ceremony in the USA in Alcatraz. The events, which are held in November on the day and for the Thanksgiving Festival Indigenen Volksfreunde, attract thousands of people, including members of over 300 tribes from the USA.

Alcatraz again turned the sunrise ceremonies into a prison, said Gali, who had been looking at her since her child and got her name there, Morning Star, there. For them, Alcatraz is a holy place of indigenous resistance and resilience. “The reopening of Alcatraz as a prison would not only be an act of historical deletion – it would be an explanation that this country doubled its most violent legacies,” she told Guardian by phone. “Here the first California leaders were detained, and that's a story that is not yet widespread,” she added.

“Everything is only shock and awe. It's all part of the performance. It is just clickbait,” said Louwegie McGill, a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribe.

For McGill, the indigenous detention is not just a thing of the past. He spent time in the Californian state prison system and drawn attention to the disproportionate rate with which indigenous people are detained. He now works as a re -entry coordinator for indigenous justice that indigenous indigenous people are submitted again for time over time.

McGill, who goes to Alcatraz six to eight times a year for the sunrise ceremonies and gives the students history tours.

Gali has another vision for his future: “I would like to see that she has returned to the indigenous peoples.”