Fragile

Fragile

We usually communicate every time I go back home. The day before, a friend posted on her Facebook timeline a cautious post regarding a checkpoint near home, about six or seven minutes away from my house. In the meantime, I’m here in school wondering if this was actually real and if perhaps people I knew such as family members, old high school friends, or old coworkers had been affected.

Once again, I felt like I was in seventh grade when media outlets circulated news about the expansion of employment eligibility verification better known as e-verify—when Immigration and Customs Enforcement would go into companies to exercise massive raids where several people were detained and ultimately deported.

This time however, everything seemed more real considering the current administration and almost felt like a slap on the face, after my attendance at the Migrants day international protest in DTLA. I had the honor to hear and attend my first ever protest. California Senate President pro tempore Kevin de Leon assured and reassured that Los Angeles would become a sanctuary city and I felt the most hopeful, especially when he said:

We are confronting a dichotomy, a democracy where it appears that the most abate head of state, and more than ever it’s important that California continues to be America's exceptional example, a beacon of hope and opportunity for all individuals irrespective of who you are, where you come from, the color of your skin, the language that you speak or who you love. California will protect its people.

I think a tear or two traveled down my face when I heard his words of Lucha, struggle and earnest efforts to combat threatening attacks towards our communities and families in the city of Los Angeles.

My anxiety heightened, however. I mean, not only was it the post that had me worried but there were rumors of Trump wanting to defund California for declaring itself a sanctuary state. Trump declared in a news interview with Fox “I don’t want to defund the state or city, I don’t want to defund anybody, I want to give them the money they need to properly operate a city or a state. That said if they’re going to have sanctuary cities we may have to do that-certainly that would be a weapon.” The next day after scrolling down on my news feed and finding out about the immigration checkpoint it felt worse, if anything I thought we’d be safer in the walls of my intimate, small inner city, after all I'd say jokingly among friends, “honestly who wants to come near, outsiders usually assume the city is infested with low lives, individuals who have no interest in progress.” That same afternoon I couldn’t think of anything besides getting home as fast as possible but this work meeting was holding me behind. At 6:59 pm the meeting was finally over, I quickly unlocked my bike and jumped on it, then headed to my apartment to charge my phone and call dad.

This was the scary part, I dialed but no one picked up, dad rarely misses any of my calls since he abhors when I do it. I couldn’t avoid the thought but, I truly imagined the worst possible. I packed all my belongings and headed to the bus stop that takes me to the Green line station and from there I usually call dad to come pick me up. When finally, I arrived to the Green line station which seemed quite empty, I called dad for the third time and then began to think of my growing up in this very fragile community. From time to time fears roam around my head.

So I’m about ten minutes away, close to arriving at my stop when my phone starts vibrating. I looked at the screen and to my comfort it was dad I felt my heart content once again. This is not the first time communities are attacked. I’ve been in the fight somehow, someway and it hurts me at all levels when families are being separated after they’ve poured their hearts sustaining their families and hoping that one day they’ll live comfortably with more options and opportunities.