Please please PLEASE keep in mind the Hispanic and Latino and Chicano communities right now when you’re talking about racism. Please remember us when you talk about oppression. Go out of your way to LEARN about the oppression we’ve been facing historically in this country for centuries! Learn about how schools in Latino and Hispano communities were and are still underfunded, learn about how it used to be that those schools didn’t teach actual academics, they taught about cleaning and trades and labor because my people have always just been relegated to cheap sources of labor. Learn about the Chicano Movement, about Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and how they had to fight and protest so we could have equal rights. Learn about the Latino and Chicano roles in the queer community! We have such a beautiful and rich history that adds more colors and layers! Learn about the slave labor that the US actively perpetuates in Latino countries, about how the majority of Latino countries were intentionally toppled by the US Government to keep them poor and desperate, creating the need to immigrate to the US. Learn about the working conditions on farms, the way Mexican laborers are paid. Talk about the overpolicing in Latino and Chicano communities and the stereotypes of us as either gangbangers or simpletons. Keep all of what you’ve learned in mind as ICE terrorizes my communities, drags my people away and locks them in camps. They’re coming after all of us, and they don’t care about whether or not we’re legal.
And hold space for us trans Latinos. We’re having trouble getting documents now more than ever with the passport bans and the waves of discrimination laws. Remember the forced labor camps in Louisiana that ICE shoved my people into for being queer and trans masc before abusing them in ways I don’t even want to think about. We are not criminals, we are more than just a cheap labor source, and we need to be remembered.
