I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, in the same towns and roads that Cesar Chavez and the UFW marched in the 60s. At the same time my grandfather was young and in those fields. There’s a few schools and libraries named after Chavez.
It's not much, just a token gesture. Something to acknowledge his struggle and the plight of the people he fought for, people like my grandfather who didn't speak the dominant language and was literally voiceless.
But Mexican Americans don’t have day’s off to celebrate that struggle in this country. There is no Chavez day. People like my grandfather are systematically abused to this very day on those same fields.
It's absolutely fucked, i just read that because of the schools being out, young kids whose parents are undocumented have no choice but to go back to picking. And that’s if they're lucky to avoid militant hit squads funded by taxpayer money.
I talk about this every other day. Retweet depressing articles about these people being gassed, families being broken up, children being sexually abused, etc. Never ending horrors. I donate and advocate for policies i think will help.
But in my lifetime it probably won’t. Before Chavez marched there was the great repatriation of Mexican Americans and up to 2 million Latinos were plucked from their homes after being courted to come here from Mexico because America was at war.
And this isn’t taught in schools to kids like me, growing up the ancestors of people who have struggled for decades. Its a never ending whitewashing of my people by the power establishment and its enough to drive you fucking insane sometimes.
But we have those schools and those statues. To remind us people like Chavez fought for people like my grandfather. And to remind us to keep up the fight for people that still exist to this day. Gestures and words matter.
Every now and again I check my friends' tweet histories, out of morbid curiosity, to see if they've ever tweeted the words abolish ice or even just ice to talk about how fucked up a system it is.
I'm talking about good friends who I know are with me on this. You know what I see most often? Ice cream. These are friends for whom i stick up for in regards to sexism, trans issues, black lives matter, etc. And they can't even tweet once about this abuse.
And it can be dispiriting to see silence from people I consider allies. So I think words and gestures, being given in good faith, should be received that way. Because sometimes its what keeps you going.
Oh, also, #abolishICE
You can follow @RamonVillalobos.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: