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Trump Is Striking Fear In My Community

In the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration, it seems as though through all sources and outlets that the country, and the lives of its citizens, has been spiraling downhill. This is especially true in areas that are densely populated by targeted minorities and vulnerable groups as fear and attacks have reverberated throughout residential areas.

I live in the Coachella Valley, a large desert valley in Southern California occupied by an average of 71.5% Latinos. The valley is set up in such a way that the further east you travel, the more Latinos, undocumented people, and low-income neighborhoods you encounter to the point where the last eastern town holds a population of 100% Latinos. Vice versa as you travel towards the west from the east, finding yourself in more white, affluential communities along the way and arriving at Palm Springs, a gentrified, white vacation spot for the privileged.

All throughout Trump’s campaign, most of my community just laughed out of fear and anger at whatever spewed out of his mouth. We would turn to Channel 12 and just jokingly chuckle and angrily yell at whatever María Elena Salinas reported about him from the other side of the screen.

It wasn’t until he got elected that I stopped hearing laughing and heard doors locking, and stories of scared children and parents.

My valley, the place I call home, began sounding like ocean waves of whispers last week; Cardenas, a widely popular Mexican supermarket chain, was surrounded by ICE officers. A safe space for undocumented and Indigenous people was intruded as officers stood outside the market’s glass doors, and demanded those leaving and entering for I.D., proving citizenship and arresting few who could not comply. This did not occur at only one establishment, however, it is rumored that this occurred at three different Cardenas’ and one local Food4Less (another supermarket equivalent to Cardenas in terms of a sanctuary) in the east of the valley. ICE knew all too well of their targets and its demographics, painting themselves in an even more evil manner, causing distrust of authority and law enforcement throughout the eastern valley. All of this was communicated and spread through word of mouth like a wildfire, however, since no media covered these incidents whatsoever.

Legal residents of my community are not excluded from this fear, also. Although these raids and spontaneous ICE operations are said to have stemmed from the Obama administration, Trump’s new revamped immigration plans have sparked outrage and fear within DREAMERs all over the nation. DREAMERs are legally protected under DACA, allowing them to work and study in the U.S. as long as it is renewed every two years—their parents, however, aren’t included in the protective executive action. With Trump now planning to manage immigration with an iron fist as soon as early as next week—releasing weekly lists of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, stripping undocumented people of their privacy, granting ICE-like power to local officers, and tracking, hunting down, and deporting humans, innocent of crimes or not, in mass number in a more speedily manner—the air surrounding our thriving homes have soon thickened with anxiety.

“It’s really scary, y’know?,” said one of my undocumented classmates who will remain unnamed, “Do you know if my parents would be protected? What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. Her face fell flat and she returned to her work.

She is only one of the many across the nation who lie awake at night dissecting news reports, since DACA has been renewed and approved for more than half a million eligible youth since 2012. I am not a victim of any of these fears and hardships, for lack of better words, but I can’t help but hold tears as I stare at my friend(s), knowing they’re trying to hold themselves together as our nation’s new administration tries tearing them apart.

My community will always be thriving, however. We will still hold each other’s hands in mass and line up for tacos right after behind the parish halls, we will still support each other financially with odd jobs, and we will still try our best to protect each other from persecution and deportation. But we will never normalize or accept any authoritarian-like behavior and orders from a man elected by a system and not the people he serves. He’s a rabid wolf in wolf’s clothing, the worse of two evils—a monster.

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