Does anybody else feel like they’re sort of going crazy?
Every day, there are more terrible headlines. It’s like being pelted continuously with bricks, except that you are supposed to carry on your normal routine while being pelted, and if you complain, you get told that the bricks are not really hurting you.
For both LGBTQ+ and Latinx students, the storm of bricks is particularly ferocious. While the Trump administration has targeted pretty much every ethnic, sexual and religious minority under the sun, the cultural vitriol has been particularly placed on transgender people and Latin American immigrants.
Currently, around 68,000 people are being held in ICE detention centers across the country without due process. On top of this, 73% of these people have no criminal convictions. Meanwhile, Trump has implemented no less than seven executive orders and a multitude of directives that target transgender and queer people in all areas of their lives.
All of these events send a clear message: Queer people and Latinx immigrants are not welcome under the current administration. However, in the face of all this, on-campus communities find ways to stay hopeful and resilient.
This year, the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) implemented a weekly event called Queer News. During Queer News, Vice President Nia Berndt shares recent positive news stories about the queer community with the club.
“We try to find the positive things to hold onto hope,” Berndt said. “Hope is just a really powerful thing that we are trying to build in this community.”
With all the negativity in the news cycle, there is very little we as students can control, but that does not mean we cannot focus on what we can control.
President of Latinx Unidos (LU) Leslie Moreno emphasized that on-campus organizations like LU help give people support networks during this difficult time.
“We’re there for each other,” Moreno said. “We hear stories from students who are having difficult times at the moment, and the biggest thing is that we try to be there for them.”
It sounds corny, but leaning on our communities is how we get through this tumultuous time. We have to support each other, and especially encourage each other, not to give up. For example, Moreno urged Latinx students to continue to prioritize their college career despite current events.
“The biggest form of protest is our education,” she said. “Keep going forward. Keep getting educated. When we have those jobs, when we’re in those higher positions, that’s when we’re able to make those changes.”
It can be difficult to stay motivated for school and prioritize your own life in the midst of chaos. But that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.
Activist Mariame Kaba famously said that “hope is a discipline.” Hope is not something that you passively feel and have no control over. Hope is something that you cultivate within yourself and within your community, despite outside forces that threaten to take it away from you.
“As easy as it is [to lose hope], you have to stay resilient,” Berndt said. “If not for your own self, to spite the people in power. Our joy is an act of resistance. Our joy is something that they are trying to squash out, so it is something that we must preserve.”
To anyone feeling hopeless right now: Your fear is valid, but you can not let it consume you. Change happens slowly, but when it does, it happens as a result of people banding together. In the meantime, lean on your campus communities and keep supporting your fellow students.
For anyone wanting to help in more tangible ways, consider supporting local and national organizations like Palomares Social Justice Center, the Quad Cities Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees, Clock Inc. or the Iowa and Illinois branches of the American Civil Liberties Union.