But over this week, that changed as she organized a walkout at Ogden High School over the course of a few days, culminating in a protest Tuesday against the tactics being utilized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Trump administration.

Jordan told the Standard-Examiner on Wednesday this was part of a larger wave of demonstrations across the country.

“There was a nationwide protest happening through the Women’s March in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. and I planned our protest to be on the same day,” she said. “Our message was to stop hate and to spread peace and a sense of unity within the people in our community.”

She said the idea for Tuesday’s protest came only a few days before during a conversation with the school’s senior class president.

Photo supplied, Nova Jordan

“We were actually at a concert Friday night and we were just talking about the political climate and we were talking about how it really just doesn’t feel like our community agrees and it feels like everyone is scared, hurting and there’s so much violence going on,” she said. “I don’t like to see that. No one really likes to see that and I just started thinking, ‘What can I do for myself, my friends and my school and my community to promote this message of peace?’ I just want to stress that our school is a safe place for everyone no matter what their citizenship status is, their country of origin, their race, their gender, their sexuality — everyone is welcome and I just wanted to push that message.”

Jordan said they ultimately started an Instagram account and made fliers to spread the word to students about Tuesday’s walkout.

“I was really, really concerned that we wouldn’t have enough people to participate,” she said. “We just tried to push the message as much as possible. Tuesday, during school in my third period before lunch, I printed out the flyer that we had been posting. … During lunch, I just started handing them to random people as I was walking by. Some people shoved them into the little slots on lockers so people could see them as they were walking down the hall. All day before the actual walkout Tuesday, it kind of just felt like we were all in a secret club because you could walk down the halls and be like, ‘Hey, you coming?’ And people would be like ‘Absolutely!’ and it was just really beautiful for me to see that type of support and to see so many people come together to lift each other up rather than tear each other down.”

However, she said not everyone shared this enthusiasm.

“We did receive threats from a group of boys at my school saying that they were going to shoot us all with paintball guns,” she said. “It didn’t happen. I’m pretty sure our numbers scared them off.”

Photo supplied, Nova Jordan

Police presence was boosted around the protest as a result of the threats, but Jordan noted there were no issues between law enforcement and protesters throughout the afternoon.

Jordan said the walkout began at 2 p.m. to disturb classes as little as possible.

“We stressed to everyone that we do not want to disrupt class and we’re not going to force people to participate, we’re not going to egg people on,” she said. “This will be peaceful, nonconfrontational and absolutely nonviolent.”

Marchers went from the school’s courtyard to the sidewalk along Harrison Boulevard. Some held signs and flags while others were provided with banners from the Ogden chapter of the 5051 movement.

“It was incredible to me to see so many people united and have so much love and peace and hope,” Jordan said. “It was just really inspirational. … We got a lot of positive support from people driving by, lots of honking, lots of (positive hand gestures). This one lady posted a story on Instagram and it was a video of us walking to the sidewalk on Harrison and she said, ‘I am just so proud of these kids. I love seeing my community show up for one another.’ Seeing that response from the public, as well as from the kids at my school and the other schools, was special to me.”

Photo supplied, Nova Jordan

Jordan said around 250 kids showed up to the protest, which also included a handful of speeches over the course of just over an hour. She noted that there were no disturbances or other incidents in connection with Tuesday’s protest.

She also made it clear that the reasoning behind her organizing a protest against the tactics of ICE and the current administration isn’t out of a hatred for the country, but rather the opposite.

“I love my country,” she said. “I truly am so proud to be an American, but the violence that his been incited by the current administration and the actions of the ICE officers — the kidnapping of American citizens, the abuse of immigrants, the dehumanization of immigrants — that is disgusting to me and that is 100% not American. I want to be proud of my country and I want other people to be proud of my country. It was just really important to me to push that message of peacefulness and togetherness to combat the message of violence and hatred.”

Jordan said that she wants to make sure that those who need it most know that the community has their back.

“My school, over half of the student population is Latino,” she said. “I know, personally, some students have had very serious interactions with immigration officers, and it has not been positive. That’s very, very heartbreaking to see and to experience, of course. I just wanted to reinforce the idea that everyone’s safe and people will fight for one another. People are looking out for one another.”

She said there are no formal plans for another similar demonstration at the school at this time.