Never did I ever believe we’d be in this situation again. But bigotry has made a stronger comeback than before, rising up and reclaiming all the progress we’ve made. It tries to put us “back into our place.”

I remember waking up on November 9, 2016. My eyes were puffy from the night before. I had cried myself to sleep. I was tired and frustrated and scared. I remember hoping to wake up to miracle; I believed everyone would come to their senses.

But I was wrong.

I woke up to only find that hate is greater than common sense. It’s greater than change and it’s greater than love. My heart had fallen to my stomach and my entire body felt heavy. I couldn’t think and trying to think made everything worse. My whole spirit was broken and I felt destroyed. I couldn’t breathe. I was too choked up with tears that breathing didn’t seem as important as crying.

At school, no one stood or said the pledge of allegiance that day or days after. We all had the same question, should we pledge our allegiance to a flag or to a country that couldn’t even do the same for us? A country that broke treaties time and time again and continues to enforce years of colonization, ignorance, hatred, and fear in almost everything we do, could we pledge allegiance to that? Without any hesitation, our immediate answer was, “No.” This country can’t give us the loyalty it so rudely asks for so we don’t owe it any.

We were all shocked, some of us completely broken. I had countless friends come up to me in tears, in fear for themselves and their parents because of their documentation status. Teachers were quiet. Students were silent. We didn’t do much that day; everything was heavy.

It’s been almost two months since that awful day. And now tomorrow, hate and fear will take on the role of president. The sad part is that hate and fear aren’t new parts of our country; this country was built on hate and fear. But I think this time is different. I think this is an attack on change. It’s an attack on a black president. It’s an attack on the change any minority has ever made and that is why I am in pain.

See, I knew my country hated me, but this much?

But despite all the pain I’ve felt for the past months, and even now, the fight for our liberation will go on.

¡Mi gente, somos fuerte!

We are valid and strong. We are the roses that grew from concrete.

Fight. Heal. Revolt. Survive. Decolonize.

Mi gente, how I care and love you. We have passion in our soul, from the food we eat, to the way we walk with music in our feet. We are the seeds of resistance and we will plant them for the rest of our lives. We create movements with just one flick of our fingers.

We will thrive like our ancestors intended us to.

Our existence is resistance.

We are valid. Our feelings are valid.
We exist. We are powerful.
We are here to stay.

– Chicahua

*Because the author is underage, Coachella Unincorporated asked that a pseudonym be used.

Bad grades or disorderly conduct may be the reason why high school seniors are not allowed to walk the graduation ceremony, but this was not the case for a senior at my old high school. My classmate was deported a few days before his graduation. The night of graduation there was a cold silence that could not be ignored. We all felt the pain of his parents, who were only left to imagine their son walking the stage.

In the eastern Coachella Valley, Border Patrol trucks are seen daily—at every stop light and at every gas station. They hide behind bushes at night waiting for cars to drive by and seize any opportunity to stop them. Every year, exceptional students are deported and although they are productive members of society, they are denied the chance of furthering their education due to lack of money, support and, unfortunately, their legal status.

During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised he would create immigration reform that would benefit those applicable, but this promise was turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Instead, the Obama Administration has deported more undocumented people than any other president in history. On the bright side, President Obama passed an executive action in 2012 that allows those who entered the country as children and meet certain guidelines to be considered for deferred action for a period of two years with subject to renewal. Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals (DACA) provides those applicable with a work permit and a social security number that allows them to enroll in college. DACA is still active today, but with the new president-elect arriving in the White House, it could become history. Trump said he will revoke DACA once he takes office and this is something to be afraid of.

Every two years, those in the process of renewing their work permit must take a biometrics exam, information which will fall under Trump’s Administration. From 2012 to 2015, a total of 908,479 DACA cases have been approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This means that today there is approximately 1 million undocumented students being productive members of society, whose personal information is in the hands of Trump. If Trump follows as promised and revokes DACA, a lot of talent, dedication, ambition and intelligence will be tossed out.

Those who oppose DACA argue that the government cannot reward people who committed a crime, because it produces a moral hazard. They believe that Dreamers or DACA recipients are criminals and should be punished. But, what crime did they commit if their presence here is not fault of their own, as they were brought here as children by their parents? Many DACA recipients do not even speak the language of their parent’s country, how can we “send them back” when they have no recognition of that place?

Our immigration laws are broken, which means we have a lot to do. Let’s give undocumented students a chance at being educated and the chance to be contributing members of our society. Undocumented students face consequences for actions they did not commit and actions they have little control over. What this country needs is a path to citizenship for undocumented students so they are able to study, work and live in this country without fear and without prejudice.

About the author:

Leydy Rangel is a youth reporter with Coachella Unincorporated and a senior journalism major at Cal Poly Pomona. She’s an eastern Coachella Valley resident and enjoys telling stories from her community. View her author page here.

By Karen Borja

Convincing a government agency to meet you on your own turf is a win for professional organizers. A meeting in a community, as opposed to a distant government office, shifts the power dynamic, allows locals an opportunity to host and makes it impossible to deny that certain needs are or aren’t being addressed – after all, seeing is believing.

So it was a victory for North Shore residents to receive a visit from county officials in 2012 to discuss transportation needs. The five officials arrived late, spilled out of their van, sweaty, and red in the face exclaiming, “We got lost! We didn’t even know North Shore existed.”

A community leader whispered to me in Spanish, “How are they supposed to provide us with services if they don’t even know we exist?”

That meeting proved to be a turning point. From then on North Shore residents understood that they had to organize to remove the distance that existed between them and their visitors.

The 45-year-old PICO (People Improving Communities through Organizing) organizing model I use to train people holds that a protest would alienate. Instead, it suggests that residents need to forge relationships to prove their existence and win support for their cause. Using the PICO approach, North Shore residents committed themselves to building relationships with decision-makers by attending and hosting meetings where they could share their testimony on day-to-day experiences with difficult local themes.

In my work I often ask residents what they like and dislike about their communities and I follow up by asking, “What can you do to change things?” I’ve heard thousands of answers over the course of my five-year organizing career in the Inland Empire. The answers that provoke the most tears and deepest desperation are those that come from the Eastern Coachella Valley, where people are struggling to survive the intense hardships of extreme poverty.

In helping them to meet these challenges, I try to unlock the power they hold. It is the hardest part of my job. But that inner power is displayed when a shy, immigrant, monolingual mother publicly shares how even the slightest improvements to transportation in her community will save her family thousands in college tuition because it will allow her son to finish a degree in not more than four years. It is apparent when kids, parents, and soccer coaches convince local government to convert an abandoned, neglected school into the unincorporated area’s first park.

After 11 years of engaging in community organizing, I know unlocking the power of people is what will continue to move any community forward.

Right now, that power is seen in the group of ECV mothers calling on their school board to build a new elementary school instead of doubling the size of the local continuation school. After three years of organizing neighborhood residents, these mother can now see that their efforts led to an investment that will help their community’s future in more ways than just education.

I write this as a testament that community organizing works and is something many places desperately need. No one was talking about these communities, let alone their people, until residents started sharing their testimonies publicly.

As the first mobile clinic rolls through North Shore, and the first park for the community of Oasis is being opened it is important for me to step into the background and shine the spotlight on the residents who organized and are helping make their neighborhoods better for everyone.

There is an expression in Spanish that translates to, “there is no worse effort than the one that was never made.” I have heard this from so many involved in community organizing in poor neighborhoods. People have used it at times when our organizing efforts are at their dimmest.

There is always a sense of pride when we claim victories in the Eastern Coachella Valley because I realize then that I have allowed myself to be lead to victory by the community. Community organizing unlocks the power of people and creates change in our communities.

About the author:

Karen Borja is the Associate Director of Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC). She was born and raised in Coachella, and has been involved in community organizing since 2006. She can be reached at [email protected]

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