Chicago's Struggle: A Voice from the Frontlines

This solo episode is a quick reflection on the current political climate in Chicago, focusing on the emotional and social impact of federal actions against vulnerable immigrant communities. I share my personal experiences of protesting against these actions, highlighting the fear and uncertainty felt by many residents, share a brief written account of a one day protesting at the Broadview Concentration Camp and discuss the importance of preparing spiritually and emotionally for the challenges ahead.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Current State of Chicago: A City Under Siege
• 7:47 Personal Experiences of Protest and Resistance
• 16:31 The Emotional Toll of Activism and Community Solidarity

Transcript

Nicte-Ha: 0:00

Uh, you can't do that. If you don't live in Chicago, I'm not really sure that you're getting a good picture of what's happening in the city right now. I think that from what I can tell, it looks like the mainstream media is mostly focusing on a couple of the incidents that have occurred where agents have tear gassed bystanders, where people have clashed at the Broadview detention facility outside of the city. And while I think that those are good to highlight because they are happening, what they're doing a poor job of communicating is the emotional shift in the city. And they're also ignoring the community outpouring and unification that's happening in the face of the invasion and terror that's being visited on our city. If I could tell anyone what it's like, I think it would be, well, I think it's kind of impossible to convey completely because, in many ways, for millions of people in this city, life is continuing the way that it always does. They're going to go to grocery, get groceries, they're going out to dinner, they're meeting with friends, they're taking their kids to after-school activities. And in between all of this, there are whole communities where things are absolutely not normal, where they are looking over their shoulder every time they leave their house or they're afraid to leave their house, or they're mourning the disappearance of a loved one or a child, and they're wondering if they're going to be next or their family's going to be next. So there, it's not just about the individual acts of agents coming and snatching people off the street. It's about the kind of miasma of uncertainty and fear that has invaded many people's daily life. Even people like myself, who I don't, I am a very low priority person in the eyes of immigration. I'm a citizen, I'm pretty white presenting, I live in a wealthy neighborhood, or at least a somewhat wealthier neighborhood than many people here in the city. And so I fly under the radar. I have very little fear that I'm going to be randomly stopped and interrogated by ICE. But it doesn't stop me from feeling like I'm under attack and the people in my community are under attack. Because the reality is that fascism doesn't need fascism isn't going to be over. This isn't going to be done. They're not going to leave just because all the Latinos are gone. They're going to need another enemy. Fascism always needs another enemy. So maybe it'll be people who spoke up against this first round, or people who criticize Charlie Kirk, or people who criticize the president, or who make fun of things on social media. So there's always going to be an enemy that they can persecute. They're just happening to start with us. They're definitely not going after the uh the worst of the worst. What they're going after is they're going after the elote man, and they're going after the tamali lady, and they're going after the landscapers, and they're going after two women who were waiting in line to pick their children up from school. They smashed their windows and they dragged them out of the car. Um close to my house, they were stymied by community members who were trying to warn people that they were on the streets. And so they released tear gas into the community while children were at recess nearby. So I don't have to be directly at risk for this to be an assault on me as a member of the Chicago community, an assault on me as a chicana, an assault on me as a parent. So I think that when you think about what's happening and you see reports here and there about protesters and about um federal action, just put yourself in the place of people living their life, watching every car that goes by and wondering if this is going to be the one, or masked men climb out of it and swarm them and pull them away, and nobody knows where they go. Ask ask yourself what it would be like to live in that city. Even if you're pretty sure you're safe, you can't be completely sure. And just one extension onto that. Even if you feel like in some way, you know, we should just let these enforcement activities happen, or not even enforcement activities, kidnappings, frankly. This is opening the door for anybody to get a police vest and just start abducting women. I guarantee it's probably already happened. As a woman growing up, you know, you're always told, well, if somebody's attacking you, if somebody's coming after you, then you just have to scream for help. Scream as loud as you can. While recent history is showing us that that's completely false. A group of men in broad daylight, one or two men in broad daylight, can grab me and stuff me in a car, and people will stand around videotaping it and do absolutely nothing to intervene. I could call 911 and say, they're kidnapping my daughter. There are masked men that won't identify themselves, putting my child in a car, and the police either won't show up or they'll just say, Oh, I bet they're ice. So this makes us all unsafe, not just in the long run. You know, if this becomes normalized and we really start ramping things up and ugly things that have popped up in previous fascist states start to happen here: mass graves, disappearances, torture, secret prisons that they're in the middle of constructing right now. So as this progresses, we are all less safe. So even if you don't think you're directly a target, I'm sorry to inform you, but you are maybe just next on the list. So that's just a little rant, I guess, about what it's like to be in Chicago right now. In many ways, it's normal. And I want to tell people to come because our city's wonderful. There's art, there's music, there's resilience, there's food, there's culture, there's all these beautiful things. And I want to tell people it's perfectly safe because it should be, because it has been. But I can't promise that, not with federal agents roaming the loop and driving around in unmarked cars, harassing tourists, abducting people. And so our city's gonna suffer. And I think that more than just an assault on Chicanos, on Latinos, on anybody who's not white or who's different. What this is, is this is an assault on Chicago. This is economic punishment. Because as long as the focus of their enforcement, as long as the focus of their activities is here, we're gonna not see as many people coming to visit. We're gonna see fewer tourists, we're gonna see lower foot traffic, we're gonna see restaurants affected, businesses are gonna have to close. This is economic warfare in addition to being an invasion. This is punishment. This is not an effort to enforce the laws of this country. This is an effort to punish Chicago and other blue cities, which are economic powerhouses in this country. It is an effort to punish us for our success, which is the best argument for diversity in this country. So I'm gonna just read really quick something that I wrote about protesting at Broadview, because I have been out to Broadview several times in the last five weeks. And it was a a startling personal experience for a number of reasons. You know, I I've been a protester for a long time, protest the Iraq War, protested in various places, but you know, the March for Science, the March for Women's Rights, but all of these were, you know, pretty much what I would consider sanctioned protesting activities, right? They were uh they were put on by organizations with permits on nicely highlighted routes with volunteers and all of that kind of thing. So deciding to go to Broadview was definitely a step in uh in in a direction that was less controlled and less safe than what I've done before. But uh, but that but I felt like it was really necessary. So um I'm gonna read this selection of something that I've been working on just to highlight how it felt um that first time. And then I'll talk a little bit about emotionally, spiritually, how I responded to that experience. I had felt it boiling in my veins for months. It was rage and clarity that pushed me to broadview. Previous generations had faced down police dogs, water cannons, and lynchings to give me my freedom as a woman and as a person of color in the United States. In this moment, when people in my community, gente, were cowering in fear in their homes or being violently wrestled into unmarked vans, they're being vilified and mocked in the media and online by cruel and ignorant people, the very least I could do was to make a personal physical stand against injustice. I'm not new to protests. I have been attending them off and on since the early 2000s when I joined millions of people to cry out against the Iraq war. However, not since I had read about nursing babies and toddlers being ripped from their parents' arms in 2018 have I felt such a clear and urgent personal calling to put my line on the body put my body on the line to protest. This time, I'm not carrying my infant daughter strapped to my chest, but I hold her and my son's faces in my mind's eye, steadying my anxiety with the thought that my children deserve a mother who lives her values and advocates for them unapologetically. So when I round the corner toward the immigration processing center, the unseasonably hot September sun beating down on my head and see the building before me, I understand the sudden tightening of my breath. It's an unassuming brick building in a quiet industrial back street around the corner from the Iron Workers' Union just off the highway. The windows are boarded up with plywood and the parking lot is fenced in with a tall automatic gate with loops of barbed wire on top. The road has not been blocked with heavy mesh gates yet, like it will be in a few short days, so I'm able to walk straight up the road directly facing the building and look up at the three men standing on the roof, clutching weapons and desert camouflage fatigues, balaclava snug around their faces despite the 90 degree heat. Below them, a motley assortment of people are milling around in the street in front of the building and chalked messages stand out bright on the street and the sidewalk. There is another small knot of people sitting cross-legged in the street, in front of the driveway, heads bowed under the punishing sun, while a small band of musicians sings protest songs next to a U-Haul truck filled with water and other supplies for the protesters. Directly in front of the building on the sidewalk, two plastic tables have been set up, covered in a messy assortment of food and drink hastily laid out, baking in the sun. The protesters are variously holding Mexican flags, U.S. flags, and wearing Palestinian colors. There are older people, men and women dressed like they're headed to the grocery store, and young people in all black with kaffias loosely around their necks. There are disabled protesters and middle-aged people like me. Women dressed in yoga pants, and some people in various uniforms. A short man dressed in private security uniform catches my eye and we start talking. He's a Latino with red hair and green eyes, short and slight with a thin, sharp face and lips, stopping by on his way to work to see what's happening. He reminds me kind of superficially of one of my cousins having a similar slight foxiness to his features. In between us and the building is a thin line of broad view police, standing in relaxed groups of two or three along the sidewalk. Suddenly, a cry goes up. They're coming out, and a loading dock opens, a loading dock door opens to reveal a tight formation of uniformed ice agents wearing gas masks and carrying weapons. They walk out, and the protesters immediately surge forward except for those blocking the driveway. There are angry shouts and sign waving. Unexpectedly, I offend myself galvanized to join the general rush forward to yell at the men dressed mostly in camouflage, with their sweating faces hidden behind thick balaclava's tactical goggles and gas masks. White hot rage swamps any fear or apprehension I might feel approaching armed men, and I join the yelling, chanting group standing toe-to-toe with the agents. The agents spread out, pressing forward to try and clear a path for a car as unified cries of shame, shame ring out on the streets. Throughout the morning, the scene is repeated again and again, sometimes to clear a path for a car, sometimes to clear the path for a van. Once or twice they come out to the loading dock and just stand menacingly behind the line of local police officers holding their weapons and looking out at us, and glance up and see one of the officers on the roof aiming his tear gas launcher at us, and I point up at him, showing him that I know where he is and that I'm unafraid. The surge of confrontation and retreat would continue through the hours that I was there. Eventually, overcome with emotion, I knelt across from the facility and I wailed, bent double with rage and grief while fellow protesters held space for me. I cried for the detained, frightened and confused, for their family members wondering where they might be, for the people trying to live their lives to the fear that they might be snatched, even for the agents sweating in camo who could take money to tear families apart. I cried for my country, I cried for myself and my own helplessness in the face of the violence that had come to my city. And I think when people go to this kind of protest and you confront state violence in this way, I think that you have to be prepared for an incredible surge of emotion, for an overwhelming desire to either run away or to move forward, to do something. And so when I returned to Broadview, well, when I was there, I met a group of young people and they had brought Sage with them and they had a candle and we prayed together and we smudged each other to try and clear out some of the grief and the anger and just the heaviness of being in a place of so much suffering and conflict. So I think that when you go, if you go to a protest, and I hope you do, because I think it's important for all of us to take to the streets and show up where and when we can. But I think if you go to a protest, just be ready. Say your prayers, do your meditation, bring your sacred objects, whatever they are, anoint yourself because you are kind of going into battle. You're going into spiritual battle on behalf of yourself, on behalf of ideals that you hold for the community that you love. And also, you know, prepare, uh, prepare a ceremony for yourself when you come back to your house, take a shower, cool off, drink tea, watch something funny, meditate, pray, do something to reconnect you to your calmer, cooler self and to help process a lot of the feeling that you have experienced being in that kind of state, elevated state. I think I well, I know I'm going to continue to take part in protests and actions. And obviously, we're entering a time when speaking out and standing up could be risky or dangerous. But I think it's important for us to speak clearly with each other and to hold in, hold close to us the reasons and the motivations that we do this. And that we do it out of love and we do it out of a love of justice and a love of community and a desire to make our country a better place. We can't pretend that where we were before Trump was a just society. We can't pretend that it was perfect. We can't pretend that there were not human rights violations because there were. And also we have the opportunity to work together to make it better. But we need to remember our spiritual tools when we enter into this kind of fight. So this is sort of a spontaneous offering on this podcast of the story and these words. And I hope that as we move into this weekend and especially the No Kings protest on Saturday, I hope that you arm yourself for the battles ahead and that you find your community and you draw strength from them because you are not alone in your anger and your rage and your fear and your love. You're not alone. We're all together in this.