In the shadow of the federal building named for late Congressman and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, a fierce advocate for civil rights, seven Bay Area residents have spent the better part of two days abstaining from food in protest of immigrant children detained and separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. And the hunger pangs are only just beginning.

Sitting in a semicircle of lawn chairs in the courtyard of the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Oakland, the people abstaining from food — four parents, a nurse and two “concerned community members” — clutch canteens of water and chat. Sitting helps maintain their energy in between three daily demonstrations that include musical performances and speakers condemning the Trump administration’s controversial policy of separating thousands of children — some as young as toddlers and infants — from their families.

“Some claim that family separation is un-American, and I appreciate the outrage, but it’s important to remember that the entire nation is founded on genocide and slavery,” said 32-year-old Katie Loncke. “Particularly the separation of enslaved people from their children and the kidnapping of native children and sending them to boarding schools. This is who American has been.”

Loncke, an Oakland resident whose family includes people who fled the Holocaust as well as ancestors brought here from Africa as slaves, said the hunger strike has been a way for participants to call on the Trump administration to return detained immigrant children to their families.

After the Oakland hunger strike comes to an end, a handoff of sorts will take place to another group of protesters in Sacramento who are expected to begin their own three-day hunger strike. The strike will then move to Santa Cruz before traveling up the coast to Portland, Ore., and other cities across the country over the next month, Loncke said.

Despite reversing course on the policy, the administration has missed deadlines to reunite children in what many protesters have called a haphazard process. Loncke hopes the three-day strike, set to end Wednesday, will prompt the U.S. government to provide asylum to immigrant families detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“We know that the voluntary duress that we’re putting our bodies through by abstaining from food for three days is ultimately very small compared to the nightmare that families (interdicted) at the border are facing,” she said.

Carolyn Norr, 40, said her own experience raising two children, ages 4 and 6, compelled her to get involved in the strike.

“When my kids wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and they call for me, I imagine there are kids who wake up in the middle of the night and call for parents who aren’t there because of our government,” she said.

Norr also works with undocumented children as a mentor in a local after-school program and youth organizer for 350 Bay Area.

“This is a crisis,” Norr said. “This is a moral outrage against kids and families, and it’s our federal government that is responsible.”

The final day of the Oakland hunger strike is scheduled to include demonstrations at 8 a.m., noon and 5 p.m. At the conclusion, participants will host a “break the fast” community meal in the federal building plaza Wednesday evening.

Lauren Hernandez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LaurenPorFavor