Can't Stop Now...

I’ve been spending more time on Twitter recently, keeping up on midterm election news, finding out who the person who spat on me is (I told you in my last post I would never forget his face), and just in general looking for some hope in the pile of stink that this country keeps digging up and throwing all over itself.

First of all, an update on the spitter: apparently he is just another Nazi boy who thinks it’s OK to harass people and spew hatred everywhere. I saw that look I have encountered in others in his eyes when he walked past, so I wasn’t that surprised really…  Despite what the city tries to tell us, Sacramento is full of racist cops, Neo Nazis who are consistently called “Conservatives” by the press (who then always go on to vilify Antifa and anyone who appears to protest against Nazis), and people who pretend to be all “peace and love” until you accidentally step on their lawn, at which point they will call the racist cops to come and flush you out. In any case, let me just say that it wasn’t the police who helped me find the spitter’s identity, I actually found out via Twitter, and I am grateful to the groups of people who are actually really looking out for the community. They are also the ones who made me aware of the Nazi, sorry I mean “Conservative” rally this weekend at the Capitol, so I didn’t take the kids there as I would normally do.

I also came across a tweet written by a man who had been brought up in the UK by one British parent and one Dutch parent, and who had suffered so much abuse growing up because his peers didn’t consider him “British” enough. He detailed some really horrid bullying and more, so much so that he felt as an adult that part of his identity was missing, and that he was unable to find it again. It reminded me of something that had happened to my sister and me during our first year or so living in The Netherlands. We had moved away from England, away from our extended family that we had always lived very close to, and were getting used to living in another country where everything was different, including the language. We learnt to speak Dutch very fast, but the first year was a lot of trial and error, and a lot of learning by ourselves. I was 10 when we moved there, and my sister 8, and we had also been through some very recent trauma. We would often be sent out on our bikes to the local supermarket by our stepfather who was home with our baby brother and who spoke less Dutch than we did.

There were two boys who would follow us on their bikes, trying to knock us off, yelling things at us, basically being mean kids. They couldn’t have been more than a year or so older than me, and they just acted like real bullies. The type you are always on the lookout for once they have harassed you once or twice. One day they cornered us down by the canal where the bike path navigated its way on the embankment, above the water but slightly below the main road. One of the kids spat on us, and they called us names, pushing us around, mentioning the word “taal”. In Dutch the word “taal” means language, but it is also the name of the subject of Dutch language at school. At that time the only way I had seen it used was in terms of it being a school subject so I had no idea what they were talking about. It was only later that it dawned on me that they were bullying us because we didn’t speak the same language as them. Kids get these things from their parents. The only way an 11 or 12 year old would have been pushed to bully two younger girls because they didn’t speak the same language would have been because they heard their parents or siblings talk about other people in a derogative manner.

In any case, my sister and I ended up having enough of it one day when they actually followed us home, and we raced into the house as fast as we could and our stepfather came out and yelled at them in English. They never came near us again.

All my sister remembers of those guys is that they kept spitting and spitting at us, huge wads of spit. I remember the mix of fear and incomprehension: what had I done to deserve this? Thing is, when I think about it now I know that this was one experience of xenophobia in my life; there have been others but I am able to pinpoint them to a time and/or a place for the most part. I have not had to live day in day out with being treated like a lesser being because of my skin color. But having experienced it like that at such a young age helped my resolve to fight all the harder against injustice, racism, bigotry, and white supremacism in general.  

These past few years have in general been terrifyingly triggering in many aspects for me. It’s hard to feel 100% when every day you wonder what current event is going to unearth a ton of old shit that you spent so long trying to bury far away in the ground…

The election results were better than I hoped for (not as good as my wildest dreams, but still, better than what I thought would happen). It has been wonderful to see so many women elected, so many immigrants of children of immigrants, people of color, LGBTQIA people, representing all of us, not just a small percentage of white USA. That is huge, and I think a great overview of how hard people have been working to create a better world for everyone. I just worry so much that all of the people who have done the bare minimum these past few years (i.e. vote) will assume they don’t need to do anything else because we are OK again. We are NOT OK. And a large amount of the population will tell you that they have never been OK. My kids will never be OK in this country the way it is now. We can protect them as much as we can but it’s impossible to avoid the hate that is so rampant around us.

One tweet I read last week that has stuck with me said “Voting doesn’t get rid of white supremacy”. Another tweet (I’m sorry, I can’t remember the name of the person who compiled it) listed every single person in office who was openly a white supremacist and who had ties to white supremacy, and that list was scary. Scary because these people are considered normal, these people were elected to supposedly look after this country in the way the people want them to look after it. Scary because these people don’t represent a majority, but for some reason they still manage to get a majority. So, no, voting doesn’t get rid of white supremacy, (and somehow it seems to allow white supremacists to be legitimatized over and over again), but it does however help to make a difference, as we can see from Tuesday’s elections. The only way to get rid of white supremacy is to fight it from the core, and those protecting that rotten core (a large amount of white men and women) are currently hanging on strong. I don’t understand how a person can pertain to have certain values and standards, and then go on to vote for people like Steve King or Ted Cruz, or back people like Brett Kavanaugh. Is it fear of standing on their own two feet and looking at the world the way it really is rather than the one they have always lived it? The easy way out? Just not giving a shit? Reluctance to relinquish power? Greed? All of the above and more? I don’t understand it. But white women (and that includes myself): we need to step it up and get these ridiculous percentages of other white women to stop voting for people who will never have their backs. Honestly, how could 50% of white women have voted for that disgusting Ted Cruz?!

This means that we can’t stop fighting, not today, not tomorrow, not even when the first woman becomes president. The core is so very deep, and it resides under all of us. It’s OK to feel uncomfortable now and again… Many of us live with that feeling. These past two years have been a huge wake up call to so many people, an eye opener to what we have let slide, what we endure, what we sit on and hide. Now is the time to step it up and really go for it. This means denouncing the spitter who thinks he got away with degrading a woman, it means voting in every election you can vote in, it means standing up whenever you see injustice or prejudice or violence against another person, and it means unearthing your own prejudices and getting rid of them too.

I’m already dreading the next restrictions that are heading our way, the next immigration hammer to fall this week. More gaslighting, lies, hatred, and doctored videos coming from the White House. We aren’t OK. But we can continue to fight to be OK.

The Definition of Cruelty

The definition of the word cruel is “wilfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it”. Separating children from their parents is just that: cruel.

I can tell you for a fact that no parent leaves their home with their child(ren) to make a dangerous and extremely difficult journey to another country for fun. It’s not a decision that any parent would make lightly. I’ve written about the border crossing experience before, a true life story from 15 or so years ago, and it’s not something that anyone does just because they woke up that day feeling like taking a little trip somewhere. The conditions of immigrant detention centers are a lot worse today, bordering, and frequently crossing the border of, inadmissible. Prisons are a major business in the US, and immigrant detention centers are also part of this business. People are held for days, weeks, years even, in cells and cages, some even in tents, in freezing cold and boiling hot temperatures, without the ability to communicate with family and friends outside the centers. I’ve known people to disappear suddenly and reappear again 6 months or so later, unceremoniously dumped on the other side of the border. What good is it to anyone to detain someone for so long for the sole act of trying to walk across the border? Because it’s a business, and many people are profiting from it.

Obviously immigration detention centers have never been “nice” places to stay, and undocumented immigrants were arrested before Trump was elected president. However, the spike in arrests and deportations of law-abiding people, people who have been here for decades, and the deterioration of conditions in detention centers are just some of the proof that this current administration’s agenda is more about dehumanizing the non-white immigrant, demonizing entire populations, and targeting those who are the most innocent, than actually making the country a safer place.

The family separation policy is not even a law, but already over 2,000 children have already been separated from their families at the border, breastfeeding babies included, in less than 6 weeks. The administration has created a loophole in the system, deeming that every person who crosses the border illegally should be prosecuted, and as you cannot let a child go to jail with their parents they are taken from them and thrown in detention centers, often under horrific circumstances. It is then up to their parents to find them and get them out again, usually with little help or recourse to help. Also, if you have been following what’s been going on in Congress for the past year or so you will have noticed that when it comes to immigration policies, hardcore Republicans have been using immigrants as bargaining chips to get what they want. Up until now it was the Dreamers, but you can be sure that it will soon be immigrant children and how they are separated from their parents. “If you give us the wall we will let the kids stay with their parents”.

We all know this is completely immoral, wrong, insanely disgusting, cruel, and abhorrent. I don’t need to explain why, because those who are up in arms about this know full well why, and those who aren’t are not only being gaslit by their government, they also won’t change their minds anyway. For centuries this country (and many other European countries for that matter) have been in the habit of dehumanizing races other than white in order to maintain white supremacy, so the sheer amount of people who are able to look away from the inhuman practice shouldn’t be that surprising. This should however just make us want to fight all the more to make sure these policies and this government are run into the ground.

Those who are throwing up their arms in mock outrage proclaiming how “unamerican” this policy is need to understand that it has existed for centuries. Children of slaves were taken from their mothers (while their mothers were forced to nurse white babies), Native American kids were removed from their homes and shoved into boarding schools or adopted out into white families. And this is just the US. I don’t think we need to explain how the Nazis in Germany separated children from their parents. It was one of the first things they did when they rounded up families. Or what Stalin’s officers did when they were rounding up Poles and sending them to Siberia in 1939-40. It’s not that we don’t learn from history, it’s just that we seem to refuse to believe that atrocities can happen again, so they just keep on happening, hashtag “no more” and “never again”.  

This isn’t just Trump though, it is also all of those people who are around him, all of those people who have been waiting in the sidelines for their moment to arrive. Remember, Hitler himself didn’t come up with the “Final Solution” (mass extermination of Jewish people): Himmler, Goering, and Heydrich were the ones who devised the main plans. We have to be aware of all of these people, some of which were elected a long time ago, way before Trump. Keep an eye on people like Stephen Miller for example. It’s in everyone’s best interest to know who is representing us. It’s even more important that those of us who are immigrants know who are representing us (and not representing us at all).

Saying that, I noticed something a long time ago, but it’s become way more apparent now... So many immigrants from Europe whose situation is considered “safe” lower their eyes and look away when you try to talk about immigration policies and human rights issues with them. They wave their green flag far and wide on social media, but if you ask them to sign a petition or join a march they disappear. I don’t think it’s because they don’t care, but their “safety” is a privilege that they don’t want to lose: “we are OK now, we can’t afford to think of others”. Thing is they never really had to fear ICE knocking on their door, never had to fear losing their children, their livelihood, their lives anyway. It’s a privilege that makes me slightly sick. There is also often that back thought of “well you know you could have done it the “right” way”. I’ve seen it flash in people’s eyes when I tell my story or when I tell someone else’s story. Privilege. Even as an immigrant it is your fundamental right in this country to benefit from freedom of speech, and you cannot be penalized for standing up against what is wrong. Every voice counts when it comes to rising up and fighting against injustice. A lot of what is happening in this country hits very close to home for my family, and I can’t just stand back and watch it happening just because I finally have a green card. No one is safe.

This is why I ask ALL immigrants to stand up and fight against each and every damning immigration policy. Especially those who have their green cards, or those who are naturalized. As I said, no one is really safe.

“This is what happens when you operate on emotions” is a phrase that caught my eye on Twitter this past weekend, a phrase voiced by a troll trying to tell us all that separating families is OK. But if we don’t operate on emotions then we cannot claim to be humans anymore, can we? If a child crying for their parents doesn’t make YOUR heart hurt then there is something intrinsically wrong with you. If you believe that one person has more rights than another based on where they were born then you are just perpetrating the hate that is rotting our existence from the core. If we use our privilege and standing to hurt and destroy others rather than protect and aid them then we are the problem. But staying silent and turning our heads away from everything that is happening makes us just as complicit. The only solution I see is standing up and fighting against all of this.

It’s not enough to just share articles on social media or talk about it with friends. We need to STAND UP AND RAISE OUR VOICES. Here are some ways to help. But really, keep calling and writing to your representatives, and ask them to support Senator Feinstein’s Keep Families Together Act. Even if your representatives are aligned with your beliefs write to them anyway: the more support they have the harder they will fight.

Apathy is the bane of our society. We have to be better at protecting each other.

You can read all of my immigration stories and articles HERE. If you are interested in having your own story told, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

The Truth About Chain Migration

Chain Migration.

If you listen to Trump it sounds like a dirty word, something to avoid at all cost, a major problem that will affect you all. All these evil people coming here and dragging 100 family members along with them! Having kids here so that they can’t be deported and so their kids will sponsor them for citizenship immediately at birth. Immigrants, too many of them ruining our country with their drugs and their guns and rapist attitudes, getting their family members in through these chain migration loopholes!

It’s absolutely incredible how many people have NO IDEA how their immigration system works.

I think that citizen and immigrant alike can agree that the system is broken and it has been for many years. It absolutely needs to be reformed. However:

If I asked you to explain how many visas exist would you be able to tell me? If I asked you what each visa would entitle me to would you be able to tell me? If I asked you which visas provide a path to a more permanent solution would you know? If I asked you how long it takes to get a green card or citizenship or to bring a family member over would you know? If I asked you to explain the green card diversity program (or lottery) would you know? If I asked you to explain what TPS stands for would you know? If I asked you to point out an undocumented immigrant and a documented one in a crowd would you be able to? Or would you automatically point to a Mexican and then to a white European while realizing how prejudiced you are?

See, while I understand that it’s not necessary to understand the ins and outs of a very complex system, it IS important to understand how the system works if you want to comment on it. As immigrants we are able to tell you exactly how it works. We can tell you about all types of visas, and also about how long it takes to get one. We can tell you how much money we have spent on applications and lawyers just to be told that our case has been rejected. We can tell you that often you can be here for decades without any path towards citizenship. Not because we are too lazy to do the paperwork, but because it actually doesn’t exist. So if you want to talk about immigration and pathways to citizenship and taxes and benefits and anchor babies and chain migration please educate yourself before you say anything.

(Someone called one of my children that once by the way. Every time I think about it I feel like I am being kicked in the gut.)

So, chain migration. This seems to be on Trump’s shit list for some reason, because he really makes it sound like people are coming here in droves, dragging second and third cousins along with them. I can tell you that this is not how it works. I know because the reason I am here is because of this so-called “chain migration”. Basically, the current system allows for green card holders (permanent residents) and citizens to sponsor immediate family members. These family members used to be restricted to minor children and spouses, but they were extended a few decades back to include other family members such as siblings, adult children, and parents.

My mother was transferred from France to the US in 2000, and her company took care of pushing her H1B visa and then permanent residency through as fast as it could go. My sister and brother were minors at the time, so their green cards went through fast too. I was 22 in the year 2000, and my mother’s company couldn’t do the process for me as I wasn’t a minor. So my mother petitioned for my green card. I received it in December 2011, and only because in the meantime she had become a citizen. If she hadn’t I would still be waiting for it. And if I had got married in that decade to someone who wasn’t a US citizen I could have said goodbye to that green card.

That’s how chain migration works.

You wait years, decades even, for your number to come up. See, there are only 226,000 visas available for immediate family members every year, and there are specific priorities and per-country limits at play too. If my mother had been a citizen when she sponsored me I would probably have had to wait 5 years, not 11. If I had been married I would have most likely had to wait 20 or so. If I had got married in 2010 I would have had to start over again and wait another 10 or more years.

The current population of the US is approximately 324 million people. Every year 226,000 people are approved to become legal permanent residents through immediate family sponsorship, and these people have been waiting between 4 and 27 years on average for this approval to be granted. Trump’s chain migration claims are just a teeny tiny drop in the ocean of people who reside in this country. Chain migration is not coming to steal your job and your culture and your home.

I found legal loopholes that I was able to exploit, and lived for many years with the fate of my yearly visa renewal in the hands of an immigration official at the Canadian border. I have just started to write about all of the times I sat there waiting, wondering what stamp I would receive. Wondering who I would call to look after my cat if I was denied or deported. I have buried a lot of the fear, pain, and anger at how I was denied the right to live near my family. While today I am happy about the experiences I got to live during that time, it still makes me sad and mad to think about it. I spent too many years not being able to fully enjoy my life because I was too scared that one day it would be cut short and I would have to start over again somewhere new.

Dreamers, undocumented immigrants, chain migrants, immigration lottery beneficiaries: we are seriously a drop in your ocean of people. US born children can only sponsor others when they turn 21, so the whole “anchor baby” theory is ridiculous. I have been reading and listening to so many immigration stories recently, often wiping the tears away from my eyes, and relating to so many of them. So much bravery, so many dreams, and a lot of resistance.

You don’t need a wall. You don’t need to end chain migration (it doesn’t exist). You don’t need to end programs like TPS or the visa lottery. What you do need is to have a heart and actually understand how the process works. And I really hope that all of my white European immigrant friends are calling Congress every day to fight for the Dreamers, because the only real difference in it all is a plane ticket, a landing card, and ultimately the color of your skin.

Call Congress and demand your representatives that they say NO to a spending bill that doesn’t contain a Clean Dream Act. It takes a minute or two of your time, and you don’t have to be a citizen to make your voice heard. I know, because there are tons of us doing it every day.

Your Safety Is An Illusion

As a child I would curl up in a chair and devour books about WW2, Résistance fighters, Holocaust stories, and think about how lucky I was to be living in a safe country, protected by our freedom and our laws. I would listen to Tracy Chapman and Bob Dylan and feel inspired to become a real activist, always speaking my mind and never letting anyone put me down. As a young teen I delved deep into feminism and activism through people like Marge Piercy, studied the Civil Rights movement, wishing that I had been alive in the 60’s so that I could have been a part of it. I butted heads with my American history teacher during my first year at university in France, chastised for using the word “massacre” in an essay describing the battle of Wichita Village. There were no massacres apparently. It didn’t matter, I knew I was right, and I was stubborn. I sang to Bikini Kill and Hole, shy but ready to fight for equal rights. I still assumed that I was safe: privileged and safe. When I moved to the US I spent the first few years being proud to live in NYC, discovering a city that brought every part of me into a whole. I finally understood why so many people wanted to live in the US, and despite her flaws, she would be the place I felt the safest. Still, I understood how privileged I was, and how lucky: young working class white girl from England and France, running around the streets of the Big Apple, every opportunity available to me should I want to try it. I WAS safe, I really thought I was.

As I was putting the dishes away just now, relishing in the first moments of calm after putting the kids to bed the too frequent realization that we are NOT safe here washed over me. I live in a country where (just to name a few of the most glaring issues:

• You could be gunned down at the movies, in church, on the street, in a bus, at school, or anywhere else for that matter, at any time.
• Racism is institutionalized and constant: we may all have the same “rights” but POC still have to face racism and aggressions every single day of their lives, even from those who are supposed to be allies.
• People are called “illegals” when they don’t have the documentation that allows them to legally live and work in this country, even those who have been here for decades, or most of their lives.
• Women are in constant fear of losing their reproductive rights.
• Women STILL earn less than men, and POC women usually earn less than white women. For the same position and same job.
• Sexual harassment, assault, and abuse are still rampant in all levels of society, and the president has gleefully admitted to harassing and assaulting women on tape.
• When victims are brave enough to report assault and harassment they are usually blamed, their lives dissected and paraded for all to see, and finally made to shut up. Usually white, male perpetrators get a slap on the wrist, or become president.
• Immigration officials have no qualms about shoving 10 year old post-op kids with Cerebral Palsy in detention centers without their parents, or going into schools to check out possible undocumented fourth graders, or trying to deport adults who have an American parent, but whose other parent forgot to do the paperwork when they arrived in the US decades before.
• We are being governed by a disgusting idiot, most likely thanks to the Russians who have been on a massive hacking spree, probably infiltrating everything they can, in cohorts with the extreme far right wingers.
• Anyone can buy an assault rifle and use it.
• The current administration considers a median income of $450,000 a year as “lower middle class”.
• Climate change is apparently a farce, even though we are faced with the reality of it every single day.

So, no, we do not live in a safe country. We are not at war (unless you consider the “war on terrorism” to be a legitimate war), and there is no civil war raging within our borders. People seem to think that this country is still doing pretty OK, and some delusional individuals even think that this president is going to “make America great again”. But we are NOT safe. Our enemies could literally be anyone, even a neighbor who you say hello to every morning. While there HAVE been some isolated attacks by “radicalized” persons who were not born here, we have a lot more to fear from gun-toting homegrown terrorists than we do from ISIS. And we have a LOT to fear from this current administration, because everywhere you turn a liberty is being knocked down, and down every road you go a roadblock is being thrown up. It’s been a year since the elections now, and nearly 11 months of Trump, and it’s a LOT worse than even I imagined it would be. And I was considered a fearmongerer back then. I fear for my partner and for my children. I fear for my friends who don’t fit in your WASP box (which basically means 99% of them). And I fear for this country as a whole, and for this world in general more than ever.

I used to imagine myself working for the Résistance, wondering if I had possibly been alive in France in the 1940’s in a previous life. I used to imagine working underground during the civil rights movement, always on the run, always challenging the system. And now I find myself, at the age of 39, fearful for our lives and our safety, penning letters and articles and stories, writing faxes to Congress every day, calling representatives I don’t even have the right to vote for, planning escape routes to Mexico and Canada, and generally just wondering what else I can do to make us safe again. I can’t vote here, and even then I am beginning to wonder just how much of a difference it would make (that would never stop me from voting though).

And yes, I know we don’t live in a war-torn country, running for our lives while the government rains down biological weapons on our heads or holds us hostage in our homes. I know that I don’t have to worry about my children being trained to become child soldiers before they hit the age of 10. I know that there is no imminent danger of us all dying tomorrow from some kind of chemical warfare… But I will never feel safe here ever again. As much as we fight gun laws never change. As much as we talk about the benefits of immigration, people still hate us, as much as we talk about the decline of racism, it is still a very prominent and ingrained issue in this country, and as much as we talk about women having equal rights, we are still fighting for real equality. Gay marriage may be legal today, but in the mean time people are pushing through idiotic transphobic laws, and camps to “convert” gay teens STILL exist. So yeah, maybe we aren’t so free after all. And we are definitely NOT safe.

Please, for the sake of us all, do your part in the resistance. Because if we don’t all band together, no matter who we are or where we are from, we are going to wake up one day and find ourselves in a reality we never thought possible. And even those privileges we took for granted yesterday will probably be gone. We cannot let this happen.

(Do your part by voting in local elections today PLEASE).

Here we go again...

I am beginning to hate this country. When I finally said that out loud this morning I felt something snap inside.

It’s OK, I hear you all saying “well why don’t you just leave then?” If it were just me, I would. Setting up a new life in a new country has never fazed me before. It’s a little different when you have a family; there is quite a bit more work involved.

All day today phrases like "fingers crossed it won't happen" or "I hope it will get better" are standing out like giant beacons, my fingers racing to crush them with words, but holding back because what good is that going to do? The thing is we don't have TIME to sit here crossing our fingers and hoping for change. At every little turn there is something hiding behind a bush, waiting to ambush us. We look forwards, backwards, left, right, and centre and still get caught off-guard. And then we say to ourselves “well what were we thinking? All the signs were there from Day One.” All the signs were there, and now they are sirens, closing in on us.

DACA… So what is DACA? DACA is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, implemented in 2012, giving undocumented immigrants who came to the US as minors the chance to gain two year work permits, and therefore prevent them from being deported during that time, with a long-term aim of becoming citizens. You may also hear people talk about “Dreamers”. Dreamers is the term coined for kids that grew up in the US, went to school here, work here, pay taxes, but who remain undocumented as they were brought over by their parents as kids, often as infants. These people have no other home than the US, and deporting them due to their legal status would basically mean sending them to a country that they don’t know, sometimes even to a country whose language they may not speak. Many Dreamers don’t even find out that they are undocumented until they try to get their first job. DACA was created by President Obama’s administration as a way to help these people legitimize their status in the US. There are currently around 800,000 people enrolled in DACA.

President Trump has hummed and hawed about DACA for a while, amidst other immigration policies, threatening to dismantle it. This is a far cry from his “we will chuck out all the bad hombres” rhetoric seeing as these Dreamers are the opposite of criminals: they are law-abiding individuals intent on becoming law-abiding American citizens. The only thing that differs them from say, my children, is the fact that they were born in a different country. Ha, most of the Dreamers have the same nationality as my kids do (they have three, one for each parent and one for their country of birth). So why go after these people? Is it because he feels like he needs to dismantle everything Obama created? Or is it more sinister than that? Does he want to appease the disgusting racist agenda that he has surrounded himself with? Does he think that if he can get away with this then he can get away with anything?! If he can go after kids and innocent adults who have basically lived their entire lives here, then there really is no hope for the rest of us. But right now I fear for those people who put their trust in this country and who may now face deportation or going back underground again. I will be fighting to make sure that Congress doesn’t ruin these peoples’ lives. These people put their trust in the system, and now it’s turning its back on them. We have to resist this, just like we have to resist every other bed of thorns they throw our way.

(Even today in Sacramento there was a protest, small but loud, echoing through the streets downtown to the Capitol… We ALL will be heard).

I know you probably feel for people getting deported, but so many of you shrug your shoulders and move along, not really wondering what happens to the children and the other family members of those deported. It doesn't really affect you, there are more important issues to fight for, and deep down you think "well they had a chance to make it right and never did, didn't they?” It's OK to admit that you don’t really understand how the system works and that you never thought about it before. But please try to educate yourself on the ins and outs of immigration policies in this country and why so many people remain right there in front of you in the shadows. I wrote an article a few months ago detailing some of the most common myths I saw being recycled here there and everywhere, setting the record straight, and I realize now that I was just preaching to the choir. Those who believe Trump and his cronies are doing the right thing won’t listen to the truth, they just want to sit and wallow in a sea of crap because it suits their disgusting racist white America agenda. So instead of trying to set the record straight we now fight.

In the meantime, while I write and call and protest, and write some more, I also sit here and devise escape plans and customize emergency strategies in case we need them. Phone numbers, lawyers, friends we can trust. Passports, birth certificates, important papers in duplicates "just in case". Ever since Election Day I have known that this day was bound to arrive, it’s just happening a lot faster than I imagined. So please, no more finger crossing and hoping, because if those had helped us in the past we wouldn’t be in the situation we are today.

#IAmAnImmigrant

This Is Not A New Phenomenon

I wish those fears that have been growing and growing since the election campaigns started had just been an overreaction. I wish I wasn’t sitting here, watching the same scenes that I imagined in my head playing out on the news. I wish I could still feel surprised at what is happening around us, but I can’t and I won’t. None of this is new, but so many people only notice it now because it’s in their faces and they HAVE to look at it. Did you see the look in those neo-Nazis’ eyes when they were marching on Charlottesville on Saturday? I’ve seen that look before, and it chills me to the core.

I’m tired. If I am tired what does that say for my friends and family members, and for all those people I don’t know, who aren’t white? They fight prejudice every single day of their lives. I don’t have the right to be tired, not now, not ever. Racism is such an everyday part of this country that people don’t even realize how appalling some of the things they say are…

"Oh you aren't like them, you are one of the good ones, you did it the right way!"

"I'm not racist, one of my friends is black!"

Or, you know when someone makes a racist joke and laughs and then says "only joking!". And then says "lighten up it was only a joke" when you get angry or offended.

There are many more of these aggressions. Those three are a few amongst many.

And then what about all those justifications I keep reading concerning the so-called “Alt-Right”… (Call it what it is please. A bunch of neo-Nazis).

“They aren't really Nazis!” (No, they were just waving that Nazi swastika around on flags for a laugh)

“There aren't many of them, stop overreacting” (Oh no, that's why there are currently 917 hate groups that we know of in the US).

“Freedom of speech!!” (Hate speech too then?)

“If you bring attention to them you just give them more publicity which is what they want” (oh so sticking your head in the ground is a better option?).

“It's not the president's fault!!” (I didn't see him rushing to denounce white nationalist groups this weekend, did you?)

“But you say "Black Lives Matter"! So why can't we say "White lives matter" then??” (Because there never was a moment when the white person had to fight for equal rights in this country. Or any country for that matter).

“All lives matter!” (Fuck off please. Just fuck off).

This one is also great "I don't like to talk about my opinions on social media but that doesn't mean I don't donate, help, protest etc" "being a keyboard warrior doesn't do anything!".

Actually... WRONG. What happened during the Arab Spring? Where did you see REAL footage from REAL people? On Twitter! Where are the best opinion pieces being found nowadays? Blog posts going viral. When you refuse to voice an opinion you are dangerously close to becoming one of those who refuses to see the reality of things. And trying to justify why you don’t want to talk about causes online makes it sound like those who do are doing something wrong. Opinions DO matter and are always important. Even just sharing a good blog post or a photo or a news article can maybe help reach one additional person, create one more ally. Don’t pretend that social media doesn’t matter, because it is a HUGE part of how events/news/issues and information is shared today. If you want to keep your social media opinion free, do it, but don’t go on about why you do that on social media, please. But honestly, to me, your silence speaks volumes.

Back to our white power-KKK-neo-Nazi groups. What the fuck is "white culture"??? If that's a way to refer to "European culture" then I think it's time for a geography lesson... Europe is composed of many countries, spanning a large space in the Northern Hemisphere. These countries have different histories and backgrounds, as well as different languages and traditions. Danish culture is very different from Spanish culture; British culture very different from Russian, and so on. I have as much in common with a Latvian as I do an Indian. I was born in a European country and raised in another and have no idea what these US white supremacists means when they refer to “white” or “European” culture. I know what they are referring to, and don’t need to be enlightened on the subject, but my point is that it makes no sense whatsoever (although not much of what they believe in does to me).

If you are white and you are American you are a descendant of immigrants. Your culture isn't "white culture" (whatever that really means). Your culture is a mix of your heritage, the traditions your ancestors started in the new country, and the cultures and traditions brought and started by other immigrants who came here. Your culture is the land you were born on, land that used to belong to the natives and the buffalo and the wild horses. Your culture is a mix of everything. You can’t pick and choose what you like and don’t like – your country belongs to people from all over the world. But ultimately your country belongs to those who lived here long before your ancestors. Long before the white person stepped foot on this side of the world.

So… Whose culture is really being erased?

We all know how badly ingrained racism is in this country. You can whine on about how you aren't privileged but if you are white you are. Just listen to the experiences of others instead of refusing to believe that this country is pretty rotten at the core (hey I have no qualms admitting that my country has done some pretty disgusting shit too, and still does). Don't say you "don't see skin color" because you do. You can't tell people to stop talking about race and then pretend that racists don't exist. Oh yeah, please don't talk about reverse racism – that really doesn’t exist. And again, don’t mention your one black/Mexican/mixed friend. I doubt your token friend appreciates that you like him/her because “they aren’t like the rest”.

I will tell you a story, a personal experience. I know many people think I overreact when I hear of Nazi rallies or when I see someone with a Nazi tattoo (happened a while ago in a deli, an older man, he turned round and smiled at the girls and all I could see was his tatted back and torso, Nazi symbols intertwined with crudely inked words). You don't have to have your swastika in full view, the 88's, the runes, the images... They speak for themselves. I react the way I do because I KNOW how serious these people are. This isn't American History X, a bunch of disenfranchised youths listening to their leader and following every word he says, becoming "enlightened" after a prison sentence and realizing that black people aren't what they were taught (surprise!). This isn't a movie; these people are REAL and they are everywhere, even more in the open than they were before. And while Trump has allowed them to be more open about their beliefs and convictions, fearing fewer repercussions, they existed a long, long time before. And not just here, all over Europe. And not just in the old Eastern bloc countries, ALL over Europe.

I know for a fact that many of the people who join these hate groups aren't unhappy, unemployed, uneducated youths. On the contrary, they are often well educated, smart kids who slowly become more and more involved, fully believing their convictions are real and the truth. Back in the 90's when I was a teenager and into a lot of heavy metal I saw a grey line emerge within the scene. It was the time of black metal, the time of Burzum and Varg Vikernes' incarceration. Metallica wasn't enough, more darkness was sought after, and with it often came another darkness, one that I saw emerging in people's eyes, turning them from friend into foe. These friends weren't easily manipulated or suffering from some kind of superiority complex. They were not poor and unemployed. They were just looking for something to make their lives more meaningful, convinced that their country was being overrun by evil. Slowly but surely the scene grew apart, disbanded, everyone going off in different directions, and even though I still lived in the same town as them I made sure I didn't bump into some of those old “friends” again. Over the years I heard stories, even though I had moved across the world, stories I knew were not rumors. I had hoped that with time their minds would have changed, they would have grown out of this hatred, but unfortunately it just got worse.

 I recently woke up to a comment on one of my public photos on Facebook, and felt my heart skip a beat. My last run in with this person was in my very late teens, locked into a room where he looked at me with black, piercing eyes, telling me if I didn't shut up and “get with the program” harm would come to me. Even back then I documented everything with words and photos, and I still have a photo of my face after that "party", eyes bloodshot from crying, but resolved to never, ever let anyone instill fear into my heart again that way. That last encounter with that person proved to me that I was right to walk away from these people and their growing hatred. Seeing this person comment on a photo of me and my family 20 years later asking me how I was and how he would love to hear all about my life stopped me in my tracks. Should I answer? Had he changed? One quick glance at his profile, one “WP” thrown in a public status was enough to tell me he hadn't. And no I did not need to respond. Just because we went to metal shows together when we were 16 doesn't mean that we need to be connected on social media now. I abhor what he stands for, and seeing as he's all for white power, I'm pretty sure I'm considered a traitor to his precious race anyway. Some people really don’t deserve a second chance, or even a first chance.

All this to say that they are everywhere, and not always in places that you imagine them to be. They aren't all skinheads with white laces in their paraboots. They look "normal", have "normal" jobs, and probably don't bring too much attention to themselves. But they harbor beliefs that do not represent what this country supposedly stands for. Their rhetoric may be enchanting at times, and you may be drawn to dismiss them as a "bit extreme", or "a bit eccentric, but harmless". I suppose it's easy to say that if you have nothing to fear or lose. But believing one race is better than another, believing that if you don't conform to certain ways of life, you don't have the right skin color, gender, religion, or sexual orientation you are a lesser human being and don't deserve to live, well those beliefs have caused wars and millions of deaths. Dismissing one person, pretending they don't exist or are harmless just helps them grow stronger. Your country hasn't just become racist. These people aren't new, they are a lot more entrenched and numerous than you can imagine. I was brought up to believe in equality and love, but even my upbringing didn’t stop me from being surrounded by people with hatred in their souls.

If you can stomach it, take some time to read the literature that these hate groups churn out. Read what they say about women, POC, immigrants, the LGBTQ community. Read what they say about non -Christians. Read what they say about mixed marriages and mixed children. And believe what they say - because if you don't you risk to be taken by surprise sooner rather than later. Saying that you don't want to bring attention to them is a cop out - bringing attention to them makes it easier to flush them out. They aren't going to go away just because you pretend they don’t exist. And by saying that really shows your privilege. So please, use your privilege to flush them out and get rid of them. Use your privilege to fight with and for those who need to be protected from this crap and this bullshit. These people won’t be changing their minds anytime soon, so let’s stop them from getting bigger and stronger. On Saturday a woman was murdered by a white supremacist, a terrorist, born and raised here. How many more will get hurt or killed at the next rally? Be brave. Be honest and be true. The longer we sit in silence, the faster they gain power.

And no, again, I am not overreacting.

"We must always take sides. neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." - Elie Wiesel