My faith in humanity was bolstered today.

Scene; I'm at the grocery store. Now, this is a pretty pasty pale suburb, but it's not as bad as you'd think. I grew ...up getting a lot of crap for being Hispanic, but these days there's a significant Asian (Indian subcontinent and otherwise) and Latino population, and we're bordered by two very culturally diverse burbs. It has evolved, in other words.

I am spending my day with a group of incarcerated young people for whom I have been co-facilitating an LGBTQ support group, the last few months with a friend. A...s Black & Brown folks, (especially those of us who are from multiple targeted groups) this holiday feels kind of meta. It is complicated, messy and a lie. Yet, within that, for many of us, this is one of few days where folks grew up expecting some of their family members to be off from work, where there is a special meal prepared, and folks get to spend time. I feel like I have been adding to chosen family with these youth and am reminding myself, that regardless of what this holiday makes me feel, there are many I love who do not have a choice in how they celebrate/resist. May today be what you and your people need in order for us to continue our resistance tomorrow and the days after.

Without playing oppression olympics and acknowledging detention and deportation are bad for EVERYONE, transgender and queer immigrants are not getting the suppo...rt we need. Are we the less important side of the family that folks feel comfortable overlooking? Are people aware that many children seek asylum in the U.S because they will otherwise get murdered for being too feminine , too trans, too gay? The messages about families and children and the immigration fight have yet to center and amplify our stories and exacerbated vulnerabilities. Perhaps it is under the white supremacy neoliberal tactics that led them to believe we are not worth it or that we are not a palatable group of people to uplift. Many folks in the immigration justice spaces will share a tweet here and there, a Facebook post if we get lucky, after a lot of put pressure by those of us with big mouths. We are often the hardest immigration cases, the sex workers, the trafficked people, the raped, the ones put in solitary confinement while in detention, denied of our HIV medications and hormones. But who cares this is about cisgender heteronormative families ONLY. We just need to continue doing the work and letting others reap the lions share of our organizing and advocacy efforts. Because that’s what happens when neoliberal advocates take our work for granted. But not for a second try to erase us beyond your neglect. We are here and we are #HereToStay and #AbolishICE ! The immigration movement owe us as it was built off our backs! People like Ana Andrea Molina, Jonathan Jayes-Green, Jennicet Eva Gutiérrez, Arianna Lint, Luba Cortés, AnthoNy Alarcon, Marco Antonio Quiroga, Bamby Salcedo, Día Bùi, Isabel Sousa-Rodriguez, Prerna Lal, Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez, Julio Salgado, Luis Ojeda, Monserrat Padilla, Olga Tomchin, Cecilia C Chung, Venus Aoki, Ray Corona, Jerssay Arredondo, Josué Andonaegui, Mateo Guerrero-Tabares, Zenén Jaimes Pérez, Sharita Gruberg, Carlos Rojas Álvarez, Hua Boonyapisomparn, Bianey Garcia, Diego A Gutierrez, Alexandra Bow, Alex Aldana, Dago Bailon, Kamau Chege, Kirin Rosemary Kanakkanatt, Yesenia Chavez, and THOUSANDS of others more. We are powerful! We are resilient! We are more than one or hundreds . We are thousands and we will fight the anti immigrant hysteria and the progressive establishment that works so hard to sideline us. And guess what? we will still find time and inner strength to come for all of you too! You know who you are! We are not as powerless as your pseudo progressive actions want us to feel. We will tell our stories and expose your hypocrisy! YOU WILL HEAR US ROAR! Ps: liking this status will not absolve you from your lack of actions and efforts in flexing your RELATIVE privilege and power to center the most vulnerable!

I want to send a special thanks to all those who recognize my humanity in this work.

Here are a few points I want to share:

1. Stop burning out your community... organizers, advocates, and activists. This is not the time.
2. Learn how to give feedback in respectful ways. Yes, it matters how you communicate. People pick up quicker on how you convey things more than the content of it. Not every critique you are making is being made to the status-quo. Not everything requires guns blazing take-downs that make you feel good about yourself.
3. If your only contribution to movement work is critiques and take downs, then its unhelpful.
4. Redirect your energy into building.
5. Donations aren't a substitute for the labor required to move the issues and work in this moment.
6. Being a radical on your own without recognizing where the community's temperature isn't a win. The point is to push these perspectives to the point that they no longer are considered radical.
7. Being an activist and a community-builder v. organizer aren't the same thing. Organizing and community-building is humbling. Activism means you can drop the mic and leave without doing the hard work of actually educating and moving people to action and then facing the consequences of losses, demoralization, and the energy needed for consistency.
8. If you can't be flexible enough to shift your tactics and strategies when the same thing isn't working, its a waste of time, resources, and energy.
9. Above all people trust you when they see you have shown up and are willing to do the work.
10. Respect boundaries. One doesn't need to be available 24/7 and people shouldn't feel entitled to immediate responses. We are people not hotlines staffed 24/7.

$3,000 for one court transcript in Georgia—a state that legislated a ban on payment to imprisoned people for their labor.

Necessary for post-conviction relief.... Unattainable to the vast majority of imprisoned people.

“We don’t speak in euphemisms! We don’t speak in euphemisms because when you speak in euphemisms you water down the people’s will to resist. It’s not “police br...utality” — it’s state terror. Its not “jails” or “detentions centers” — it’s concentration camps. It’s not “gentrification” —they’re land grabs. [..]

From Sarah Patterson (please copy and paste!):

WHAT TO DO AT AN ICE CHECKPOINT: ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE A WHITE CITIZEN
Hello, I saw someone on here post that they... encountered an ICE checkpoint in NYC. Here's the deal
-Border Patrol can verify citizenship within 100 miles of a border or "external boundary." This includes coastlines, so NYC, Philadelphia, and all of NJ are within the 100-mile zone.
-Border patrol can only ask brief questions about citizenship, and they cannot hold you for an
extended time without cause.
-You always have the right to remain silent. You do not need to answer their questions.
-WITH THAT SAID, IF YOU ARE A BORN CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES AND ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WHITE, YOU NEED TO SPEAK THE FUCK UP.
-The most important acts of resistance are the small ones. Make it difficult and uncomfortable for ICE agents to do their jobs. They are counting on citizens to turn a blind eye and allow them to deport undocumented citizens without challenge. Disabuse of that notion.
-If you are on a train, bus, or anything else and ICE or CBP boards, you need to stand up and loudly let everyone know that they have the right to remain silent or only answer questions in the presence of an attorney, no matter their citizenship or immigration status. There have been numerous reports that confronting the agents in this way has caused them to leave without verifying citizenship. THIS CAN SAVE LIVES.
-If you see anyone being held up by immigration, loudly ask if they are being detained and if they are free to go.
-Immigration officers cannot detain anyone without reasonable suspicion, an agent must have specific facts about you that make it reasonable to believe you are committing or committed, a violation of immigration law or federal law.
If an agent detains you, you can ask for their basis for reasonable suspicion, and they should tell you.
-Always say no to a search and let everyone know that they can and should refuse consent to a search.
-They cannot search or arrest anyone without facts about that make it probable that they are committing, or committed, a violation of immigration law or federal law.
-Silence alone meets neither of these standards. Nor does race or ethnicity alone suffice for either probable cause or reasonable suspicion
-As white citizens, we have a level of privilege which protects us from retaliation from ICE for being "rude" and making a scene, which makes it our DUTY to speak up and make sure people without the same privilege know their rights. GET LOUD. YELL. YELL IN SPANISH IF YOU KNOW IT. LET PEOPLE KNOW THEY DON'T HAVE TO SAY SHIT. MAKE ICE UNCOMFORTABLE. THROW SAND IN THE GEARS OF WHITE SUPREMACY.
Bonus info-
-It is perfectly legal to record immigration agents as long as you are not on government property or at a port of entry. If your train/bus gets board, pull your phone out and start videotaping immediately.
-If you are detained or see someone getting detained, get the agent's name, number, and any other identifying information. Get it on tape.
-Contact the ACLU if you see someone's rights being violated.

How can I take white colonizers and settlers of soveriegn lands seriously when they march for immigrants and refugees? Or even Black and Brown neo-colonizers wh...o identify as proud AmeriKKKans here in the U.S.A.? Walking around everyday on the literal bones of indigenous people and ignoring living and breathing tribes and nations....while saying you care about Brown and Black folks being deported? How? If you really cared give the lands back...fuck your condos...stop building them...end your pipelines....take your military bases from other people's lands...give all the wealth and valuables back that has been stolen and the people trafficked and enslaved globally. Close your sweat shops. Shut down your museums and give the art back. Abolish the prison systems where you have been splitting up families for years. That is for starters. Y'all playing games. People want a more palatable occupation...but they definitely want the occupation...and don't want this empire to be over. GTFOH....

This is a good time to remind people who keep insisting that everyone "take the streets" that there's a lot more work than that to do. I appreciate mobilization... and direct action is my shit, but mobilization and organizing aren't synonyms. These people who keep saying we need to be in the streets every day are 1) not gonna do that and 2) not thinking critically about what happened after Trump's inauguration, when big marches were all the rage. People fatigued very quickly. People need to be learning about the work that isn't broadcast on CNN. The unsexy work of education, persuasion, building networks and figuring out how you can CONSISTENTLY contribute to strategic efforts. Marches make for great TV, but they are a tactic, not a strategy.

To add insult to the larger injuries of this day, this afternoon, at the college where I work, I was walking back to the library from my car when a teenage boy ...who appeared to be developmentally disabled walked past with a man who I'll call his father, even though I don't know that for sure. I didn't pay them any mind until the boy turned his head as we crossed paths and said "konnichiwa." As per usual, I was caught entirely off-guard, and for a minute could only stand there and look at them. I don't blame the boy to any degree; he seemed utterly lacking in guile at that moment. His father, on the other hand, was laughing.