Make the call
And keep calling.
I had an essay for today all queued up before children were used as bait and another human being was shot dead in the street, but it just wasn’t the day.
I’ve been thinking about if ICE came here. It’s a remote mountain town, especially my little valley. But every day, up over that ridge in the bustling little town where we get our library books and our groceries, hundreds of people drive from over an hour away to work all day long to make a life for their family. That old American dream. And can you guess where a lot of them are from?
Well if you ask us, they’re from here. This is where their kids play trains at the library. This is where they’re stuck in traffic. This is where they work on construction sites for multimillion dollar homes for people who will never live in them. This is more their home than it is the latter’s.
If you take the time to enjoy this newsletter on Sundays, take action this time instead. Look up your senators and call. You don’t need a script. You just need your zip code and your heart on your sleeve.
We gotta give ‘em hell any way we can.
I’ll see you next Sunday.
To my friends elsewhere, thanks for your patience.
The reframing of "from here" based on daily presence and community integration rather than paperwork is powerful. When someone's kids grow up using the same library and they sit in the same traffic jams, that lived experience becomes a kind of citizenship that legal status can't fully capture. I've seen this tension in alot of small towns where the people building the houses arent the ones who end up living in them, creates this weird dislocation.
Done. Both Senators (Republicans) received emails and calls. Well, one’s voice mail was full. I hope with all my heart that this slows the budget debate… and Kristie Noem and Stephen Miller’s drive to fascism.