We fight with whatever we've got

This year has already asked so much of us. I hope you were kind to yourself in January. I hope you embrace whatever February brings as who you are, not as who others might want you to be (or as who you think they want you to be).

I’m devoting some of my creative energy this year to sharing the lessons Death has taught me. Last month, I wrote about sovereignty, the kind that’s claimed within. This month, I’m writing about resourcefulness.

The lady who walks my neighbor’s dog handed me a whistle this weekend. Immigration agents have been roaming around our neighborhood. They were spotted just last week seven blocks north of where I live, unmistakable inside an unmarked SUV. The lady who walks my neighbor’s dog told me they were inside her building, knocking on doors. She watched them march past her apartment through the peephole — quietly, fearfully. She’s a naturalized U.S. citizen. “What if they take me?” she asked me. What if? Could they take me, an immigrant, a naturalized U.S. citizen, a journalist? How might they judge my work guiding reporters whose stories capture the profound personal impacts of this cruel bait-and-switch approach to immigration enforcement, one that pledged to target criminals but that has instead taken people whose crime was to believe this country could give their children a chance at a safe, stable future?

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The whistle I got from the lady who walks my neighbor’s dog is made of plastic, something you might pick up from the shelves of a discount store. It’s flimsy. It’s a tool. It’s a statement of our resourcefulness, that ability to find a quick and simple way to stand up for ourselves. It is our weapon.

Make some noise.

With love and purpose always,

Fernanda