life – Seeds of Hope

I’ve been trying to put down in writing what it has been like living in Minnesota for the past two months, but it’s been hard. How do you fully capture both the pride and love you feel for your neighbors and community, and the anxiety and fear you’ve felt for your loved ones every time they leave the house?

I’ll back up by saying that as someone who has lived in the Twin Cities (both Minneapolis and St. Paul) now for the past 13 years, I am not surprised by how people have stood up against the federal immigration occupation that’s consumed our state and continue to resist in creative, non-violent ways. I’ve come to know the Twin Cities as a place of stark inequality but also a place where people care deeply for each other and aren’t afraid to show up for vigils or protest in sub-zero temps. Some days though, the fear has been paralyzing.

So, what are things like right now? For me, things generally feel quieter than they were a few weeks ago, or certainly a month ago. We don’t drive around our neighborhood daily on edge, waiting to see an ‘out of state’ license plate that could be ICE, sending messages to neighbors over our Signal chat thread. Still, too many people are living in fear, hiding in their homes, and have been for weeks, even months. Still, people are being kidnapped by ICE. Still, the trauma of federal occupation lingers.

Some family and friends have asked me, “How is this happening in MN?” or “How is this happening in our country?“. So much of what has happened these past few months has felt disjointed, out of a science fiction dystopian novel.

Yet, when I’ve paused to think about it more, I’m reminded that Black and Indigenous people have experienced violence and inhumane treatment from the federal government and law enforcement for centuries in this country. Now, it’s just affecting a larger portion of the population, and has come into our social consciousness. We can’t forget our own U.S. history of broken treaties and boarding schools, enslavement and plantations, and Jim Crow.

As I’ve been reflecting on who we are as a nation, I remembered a podcast I listened to this past fall by Ameya Desai, a 5th grader, who won NPR’s student podcast challenge. Ameya interviewed a survivor of the Japanese American “internment”, or incarceration camps, Linda Horikawa, in a podcast titled “Far From Home – Shikata Ga Nai”.

From this podcast interview with Linda, what strikes me the most is the forced removal of 120,000 (roughly) Japanese Americans by the the federal government isn’t some far off history. Survivors and their families are still impacted to this day. When Linda Horikawa was asked about this podcast interview she shared, “I am honored. It means that another story will not be lost in time, another story that may help people not repeat the same mistakes.”

The novel “Our Missing Hearts” by Celeste Ng stands out in my mind as a novel that reflects our current reality, too. In this novel, the protagonist is a young adolescent living in the U.S. and witnesses other young people his age being taken by the federal government and ‘disappearing.’ The author Celeste Ng shares in a Time article titled “Celeste Ng did not set out to write this book” that “I don’t pretend to have the answers. But every book I’ve written is me trying to tell you what I see in the world. Not how the world is—just what I see.” So often children are used as a tool of social control by authoritarian governments, and ours right now, is no different.

Ten years ago, I taught in Columbia Heights, at the middle school and substitute taught at 3 of their elementary schools, including Valley View Elementary. Columbia Heights is a small, incredibly diverse, inner ring suburb that I know well. I love this place and adored the students I worked with there. Columbia Heights Schools has had dozens of students and their parents taken by federal immigration agents.

In this incredibly well done video by the New York Times, Columbia Heights students tell their stories. In the interviews, students write letters and poems addressed to ICE agents and to one of their classmates taken by ICE, Liam Conejo Ramos. Their words are both powerful and heartbreaking.

How have we been surviving right now? I cannot tell you, but we are. We just keep going. We don’t have any other choice.

Earlier last month, on a cold, windy Saturday night in the single digits we joined hundreds of neighbors and Eastside community members at Lake Phalen. We didn’t fully know what to expect when we arrived except there would be a candlelight vigil and the promise of snacks and community.

Here’s a bit of what we saw: people eating pizza and drinking chai tea made by volunteers, a long table filled with people prepping candles in bags, kids holding ‘ICE Out’ signs and walking around with hot chocolate.

The warmth of being around so many people there for a common reason, to show the strength of our community and solidarity of neighbors standing together, filled me with pride and hope. A few of the organizers had us stand side by side and starting leading us in songs. We sang and watched the candle design being placed on the ice. Despite the wind whipping, and our long walk back to our car afterwards, I left feeling warm and hopeful for the first time in weeks.

MN > ICE community organized candlelight vigil at Lake Phalen, St. Paul MN Feb 2026 (note: this photo was taken by a drone of one of the organizers).

The beauty amidst the horrors of the immigration enforcement actions has been getting to know our neighbors. I never expected to get to know my neighbors who we’ve lived next to the past five years so quickly in the span of just a few months. We’ve started group chats, joined neighbors for dinner to support local restaurants, and gathered at local congregations for neighbor-led community meetings. It feels good to be reminded that we aren’t alone in this, and we’ll get through this together.

Here’s a few podcasts I’ve been enjoying that I encourage you to check out:

And, a few organizations to check out if you’re able to donate your time or resources:

I’ll leave you with this: It may have started with Minnesota fighting back, but it won’t end with us.

It can’t end with us.

May each of us find small ways to resist.

It was my Grandma Fanny’s birthday earlier this month. She would have turned 91 years old this year. This summer, my Grandpa Dan passed away on July 9^th exactly 9 months after my Grandma Fanny. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the imprint family leaves on our lives, especially those who have passed on. My grandparents were both ordinary people, but they left an extraordinary mark on their communities and my life.

Growing up, I thought all grandparents traveled around in an RV. I didn’t realize what my grandparents were doing was special or unique in any way. When they retired, my grandparents decided they wanted to travel across the country, so they sold their home in Connecticut and got to it. They spent time in nearly every state and every corner of the country. Every time they would come to visit us in Minnesota I remember being so excited to get to sit in the big RV and explore with my sister. I also remember getting potty trained in it! After a few years, they decided to settle down in a town nestled in the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains in California called Yucaipa.

My grandparents taught me about the connectedness of people and how if one group of people is being treated unjustly it affects everyone. They taught me to speak up. They practiced the art of paying attention and taking action, but in different ways.

My grandma was a force of nature, and the kindest person you’d ever meet. She grew up in the Bronx to a working class family. She was the first in her family to be born in the U.S. As a young adult, my grandma was an interpreter for Italian cancer patients and their families at Sloan Kettering hospital in New York City in the early 1950’s (note: I learned about her work as an interpreter just a year before she passed). She talked about the challenges of having to share difficult news with family members and being in high demand with interpreting because of her fluency in Italian.

During the years when she raised my mom and her 3 siblings, she worked as a school nurse. After my grandparents settled down in Yucaipa, she became very involved in their new community with the local chamber of commerce, garden club, and substitute teaching at nearby schools. In 2001, my grandma was recognized as “Citizen of the Year” by Yucaipa’s chamber of commerce for her advocacy in revitalizing a local park and dedicating it to the veterans in their community.

She was such a creative person, and the only person I know to have grown an entire avocado tree out of a single avocado pit! She was known by so many people for her “green thumb” but I always admired her for the attention, care, and leadership she showed in so many areas of her life.

My grandpa grew up in St. Alban’s NYC, and had many stories to tell about his experiences growing up as a first-generation immigrant in the ’30s-40’s. He was a trailblazer in education for students with disabilities in the ‘70’s and a talented writer. I remember reading one of his books, “Taller than Bandai Mountain”, about Dr. Hideyo Noguchi and being astonished that he was the author. Throughout middle school and high school I shared the essays I wrote for school with my grandpa and always adored his responses to my writing.

My grandpa wrote extensively about Italian Americans in the U.S. and discrimination they faced in the early and mid-20^th century part. He didn’t shy away from writing about the xenophobia, systemic oppression, and the role the government played in targeting immigrants. He wrote about the forced removal and detention of Japanese Americans during WWII and the unjust treatment of Chinese Americans during the railroad construction in the 1800s. His poetry inspired me in my own writing. Many of his poems can be found through the University of Minnesota’s Immigration History Research Center.

My grandpa, my partner, and me visiting them in Yucaipa in 2019.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of my grandparents and what their responses might be with the current times we are living in. I think they would be outraged by this administration’s misuse of power, the fear they are stoking, and the dehumanization of marginalized people in this country, especially immigrants.

During the pandemic, I started calling my grandparents on a regular basis, something I hadn’t done as an adult prior. Everytime I would call them, there was a routine. My grandma would answer first, and ask me about the weather. There would be rustling in the background and I would hear my grandma tracking down my grandpa, and getting him on the phone with her.

Almost every call included stories of how they met. My grandpa always emphasized that he had to travel all the way from St. Alban’s in Queens to the Bronx where my grandma lived, which to his credit is actually quite a haul. My grandma would chuckle and chime in to correct my grandpa’s telling of it or share a detail he hadn’t mentioned. Then, my grandparents would say something about how proud they were of me, and our conversation would steer toward commentary on the news or what they watched on TV recently.

I miss them. They were incredible people, and very ordinary. I feel compelled to tell their stories to serve as a reminder to not be silent in these unsurmountable challenges we’re facing in our country and in the world.

In the last card I wrote to my grandpa, I shared a poem that had been on my mind written by Ada Limon called Dead Stars. You can listen to it read by the author here or read the poem here. A few of my favorite stanzas include:

But mostly we’re forgetting we’re dead stars too, my mouth is full
of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising—

to lean in the spotlight of streetlight with you, toward
what’s larger within us, toward how we were born.

Look, we are not unspectacular things.
We’ve come this far, survived this much. What

would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?

If you feel compelled, please consider a donation in my grandparents’ memory toward the following nonprofit organizations doing work with folks on the margins and building communities of care around Yucaipa CA, where my grandparents lived, or find an org in your community:

May you find meaningful ways to honor those who have left an imprint on your life, and hold their memories close.

Tag: life

Reflections on the start of 2026

A tribute to my grandparents