I love this:

They fucked up when they decided to lump us all together as “Hispanics”; by doing so, they may have created a catalyst for solidarity among people who may have otherwise remained atomized…segmented…unconcerned for one another.

I said something similar in a video I made. Being “Latino” or “Hispanic” does not have to erase our own connection to the specific culture that we connect to or the land from which our families came…but it does mean that they attack us as one, and so we band together as one to be stronger than these errant splinters of hate that keep killing gente.

Stay strong, hermano. Keep the open heart. And your fury, too. You can borrow my hope when you need to.

al rato…

I usually become enraged at far less.

After reading about what this family is going through, my heart is too tattered for anger. Anxiety, si. Wariness también. Pero hope? Where do you find hope? Please tell me, because right now I could use a dose of some real hope as opposed to Hope(TM). I know the anger will come eventually…I’m not looking forward to it.

The backlash against Latinos in general is starting to impact my own family. My uncle is starting to get harassed by the cops whenever he leaves his house lately. He drove my little cousins to school last week, and he was pulled over for…nothing. He had to put up with this white cop calling him “Julio” (which would have been fine except that is not his name), and saying things like “So what kind of Mexican are you, Julio?” (We talked about it and we decided he probably meant “Latino”). He asked all these questions and comments like “where are you from”, “where were you born”, and even “I bet none of those kids have the same mother, do they Julio?”

I am far from patriotic, but my uncle served in the Marines, and he now works as a prison guard. As law abiding citizens go, they don’t get much more law abiding than my uncle. Oh yeah, and then there’s his job…He used to work for the phone company, but they basically ran him off with the constant racist bullshit and giving him the shittiest assignments because “your people don’t mind doing the shit work, isn’t that right?”

Now, he has to watch his back at work b/c of the Aryan gangs AND the fucking white guards who apparently “bond” with them in their hatred of “wetbacks”. I am waiting for the phone call one day soon when my grandmother calls to tell me he was killed at work. Because it’s not like his coworkers are going to have his back if he gets attacked by one of the white gangs.

I decided to stop using my “Christian” (i.e., Anglicized) name entirely. I refuse to make myself less threatening to the nativists out of fear. The more they terrorize us, the more brazenly brown, them more brazenly “ethnic”- the more brazenly ME- I will become.

They fucked up when they decided to lump us all together as “Hispanics”; by doing so, they may have created a catalyst for solidarity among people who may have otherwise remained atomized…segmented…unconcerned for one another. I only pray that the crucible of the nativists’ fear and ignorance will force us to soften, to melt and to meld together to become precisely what they fear…

Pero for now, all I want to do is to cry.

Thank you for your words about what is happening to the Fernandez family.

And congratulations on your many accomplishments and awards. You deserve them all, and so much more.

Elián