New Bio of Famous East Bay Author Recalls Fine Old Conflict in Richmond
By Steve Early
During World War II, the shipyard workforce in Richmond, CA. numbered one hundred thousand—and 20 percent was non-white. By 1945, Richmond had the largest public housing program in the nation, with seventy-three thousand residents. Eighty percent of Richmond’s black residents lived in these hastily constructed units but in racially segregated fashion.
As a “thank you” for their service building ships to defeat fascism in Germany and Japan, Richmond’s fourteen thousand African Americans became victims of renewed housing and job discrimination and wholesale displacement efforts, after the war.
The city’s federally funded projects became a major postwar battle- ground because of decisions made by the powerful, all-white Richmond Housing Authority (RHA). In the late 1940s and early 1950s, nonwhite public housing tenants were showered with eviction notices warning that their apartment buildings were about to be torn down.
The RHA’s demolition plans were protested by the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because they were clearly designed to drive African Americans out of town. Black tenants responded by signing petitions and attending mass meetings, picketing the RHA, and organizing rent strikes, all of which slowed the process. Nevertheless, by 1953, all seventeen of the public housing projects near Richmond harbor had been dismantled.
Private housing options in the city were far more limited for blacks than whites, as navy veteran and American Legion post vice-commander Wilbur Gary discovered. He tried to move his wife, Borece, and their seven children from the Harbor Gate wartime housing project when it was scheduled for destruction. Their new home, purchased through a black real estate agent, was located at 2821 Brook Way in a subdivision of eight hundred single-family homes called Rollingwood. During the war, it was a neighborhood almost exclusively occupied by white defense industry workers.
The Gary family was greeted by white racists who planted a KKK-style cross on their lawn. The downtown Richmond office window of their realtor, Neitha Williams, was shattered by a brick. On the night of March 7, 1952, after the family actually moved in, a menacing crowd of four hundred white men and teenage boys gathered outside their new home to curse at them, hurl insults, and throw rocks.
A Lynch Mob in Richmond
The unruly mob ignored the county sheriff when he read parts of a US Supreme Court decision outlawing restrictive covenants of the sort that white homeowners wrongly assumed would continue to protect them from new neighbors of the wrong color. The white protestors were similarly unmoved by the arrival of three white ministers who carried a US flag and a copy of the Constitution. The sheriff’s department made no arrests and little effort to defuse the situation.
Fortunately, hundreds of Bay Area progressives, both black and white, rushed to the scene that night–and for as long as it took thereafter–to defend the Gary family. They formed a “human chain” around the house facing the screaming mob, in what became round-the-clock shifts. Among the first to arrive from Oakland was a key organizer of this fight, an immigrant from Britain whose activist career is now the subject of a new biography calledTrouble Maker: The Fierce, Unruly, Life of Jessica Mitford. (Harper-Collins, 2025)
Written by literature professor Carla Kaplan, this book cites many other examples of Mitford’s exemplary 20th century solidarity with causes ranging from fighting fascism in Spain in the 1930s to saving the lives of unjustly convicted death row prisoners in the U.S.
Despite coming from an extremely privileged background—described in Mittford’s own 1977 memoir A Fine Old Conflict— she was able to “transform herself into an engaged, effective ally because she sought others out who had reshaped their lives through personal sacrifice. She read. She listened.”
Communist Party Members
In the Gary case, her more experienced partner was Buddy Green, a fellow Communist Party member, military veteran, and leader of the East Bay branch of the left-wing Civil Rights Congress (CRC). As Kaplan reports, the CRC took a “a more activist approach to the fight for civil rights—not only in court but in the streets—to picket and do things that were considered, at the time, beneath the dignity of the NAACP.”
Green and Mitford’s hurried consultation with the besieged Gary family led to “a many-pronged approach: physical protection of the house, trade union resolutions demanding police protection, and distribution of leaflets, drawn up by the CRC, throughout the Bay Area.” While keeping its distance from the CRC, the Richmond NAACP mobilized its members, to join more radical out-of-towners. Eventually, two dozen white home-owners broke ranks. They wrote a letter welcoming the Gary family to their neighborhood, which Green and Mitford widely publicized.
Community and labor campaigners then demanded that the Richmond city council ban segregation in post-war public housing. A special council session heard complaints about joblessness and other problems facing the city’s non-white residents. The city’s own discriminatory hiring practices came under fire. At the time, Richmond had no nonwhite firefighters and only two black police officers.
Sounding the Alarm, Then and Now
As Kaplan argues, the successful defense of the Gary family showed the potential of “an inter-racial, cross-class, cross-gender coalition” capable of mobilizing at a moment’s notice. This was similar to today’s emergency response efforts triggered by the local appearance of any uniformed thugs from Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE).
A decade after her involvement in Richmond’s most famous fair housing fight, Jessica Mitford became one of the leading “muckrakers” in America. In 1963, she published a best-selling book on widespread consumer rip-offs by the funeral industry. In The American Way of Deathand many related articles, Mitford exposed “corrupt and predatory practices” that exploited millions of poor and working-class people after a death in their families. Her investigative journalism led to major regulatory reforms and positive changes in funeral home behavior.
During her varied late-in-life journalism career, Mitford published multiple memoirs and tackled other topics like prison reform, Nixon Administration prosecution of political dissenters, and the over-medicalization of child birth Mitford’s American Way of Birthwas one of her last works.
Readers will findTroublemaker to be a long read (as in 581 pages worth). But the subject of this autobiography, who died in 1996, was a long-time maker of “good trouble.” Her exemplary activism is worthy of emulation by defenders of civil rights, civil liberties, and immigrants in the East Bay today.
As foes of Trump here and across the country sound the alarm about the menacing arrival of ICE, the Gary family story reminds us about the importance of showing up in time!
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A Few Resources for Current Events
By The Editors
Stephanie Luce at the City University of New York (CUNY) has long been a moving force in promoting best practices in labor. She has compiled a battery of resources that are very useful for labor activists and organizers struggling to find a path for mass action in this moment of resistance to Trump authoritarianism. The Forum is proud to publish her compilation.
1) The Dig, in-depth interview on Minnesota organizing
2) Labor Notes articles:
– “In The Twin Cities, A Massive Strike Against ICE” (Luis Feliz Leon)
– “How to Spread the General Strike Beyond the Twin Cities” (Stephanie Luce)
3) “How to Build a Real General Strike Against ICE” (Eric Blanc)
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Why do you think they call it the “first amendment”?
By Stewart Acuff
They call it the first amendment because without the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment, democracy is impossible:
– Free speech is critical to communicate with anyone and everyone in a free society.
– Freedom of Religion was demanded by the framers who had been persecuted by state religions in Europe, in particular Baptists.
– Freedom of assembly and petition guaranteeing the right of all of us to ask and demand our will to the government.
– Freedom of the Press is another right without which democracy is not possible. It is this freedom of our independent media to cover the news, to let our people know what a free people need to know to govern ourselves that is entirely necessary for democracy or self government. We all must know what is going on to be able to direct democracy.
It is that very Freedom of the Press that President Trump is violating in pursuit of his “Minneapolis Moby Dick” now heaped on the American citizens and their neighbors in that great city. Like Moby Dick, Trump is pursuing an obsession that will turn on him.
Former CNN star journalist Don Lemon was arrested by the FBI for covering a demonstration at a right-wing church pastored by an ICE officer.
What????? Church pastored by an ICE agent? You wonder how he relates to the Lamb of God?
Any city traumatized as Minneapolis has a lot of open sores, and this church that connected the Gospel of Jesus to the murder of peacemakers and healers, was seen as part of the official government oppression of one of America’s great cities, Minneapolis.
There was a demonstration at the church. Don Lemon covered the protest for his podcast and other platforms.
For being at the protest and asking questions that reporters ask, the FBI arrested Don Lemon in an act that undercuts the Constitution.
It still shakes me to watch this failed president undercut, and undermine the Constitution. He ignores court orders and judgements. He has no dignity nor respect for citizens, especially those of color and exercising their rights. He is threatening our cities, and our lives with with squads of troops.
He is committing war crimes and murders, while he ignores the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by his armed thugs.
He is attacking protestors with poisonous chemical agents, and breaking faith with all our global allies. He releases convicted fraudsters, sex offenders and domestic terrorists by dint of the highest bid.
Not only was Don Lemon arrested, but another African-American journalist Georgia Fort was also arrested by the FBI in Minneapolis for doing her job as a journalist.
Trump and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a global sex trafficker, were famous friends for years, and were credibly accused of raping and abusing young women and girls.
Before Trump was elected to his current term, he and his campaign demanded the release of the file compiled by federal law enforcement. After his election, the DOJ refused to release the files until legislation was passed and signed, ordering them to do so. They released a relatively small a portion of the files, heavily redacted.
What a crazy coincidence that during the media focus on Minneapolis, the MAGA Department of Justice (DOJ) released a second tranche of documents from the Epstein files. This release is 3 million plus documents. President Trump’s name is scattered thousands of times throughout the documents.
The DOJ says there are another 3 million documents that they will not release. That is a violation of the law passed by Congress and signed by Trump.
Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia said: “This continues to be a major cover up. Pam Bondi needs to held in contempt.”
The upward pressure on prices, Trump’s tariffs, his deportation of immigrant farm workers, the evidence of pedophilia, the assaults on the people of Minneapolis, squads of heavily armed thugs stalking communities of color, and workplaces – healing the country can only happen when Trump and company is held to account.
This all sets up a doozy of midterm elections in November. Democrats could stop Trump’s march to autocracy and tyranny if they elect a majority in the House of Representatives.
The street side protests, anti-ICE demonstrations and campaigning against the GOP will continue throughout this year.
In fact, the date of our next national No Kings Day has been set for March 28. Please calendar that date.
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The Death, Times, and Legacy of Mike Quill – Labor Champion, Anti-racist, Anti-colonialist
By Patrick Kelly
In the moment we are in when a vicious fascist would be dictator occupies the White House and sends his ICE agents to American cities to terrorize the populace, leadership is called for in the crisis. Rarely has a union leader displayed such courage in the face of repression and the “law” as Mike Quill, the founder and leader of the Transport Workers Union. January 28, 2026 is the sixtieth anniversary of Quill’s death, and my friend Pat Kelly, a retired Teamster leader, has penned a tribute that we are happy to publish on The Forum.
Peter Olney – Co-Editor of the Stansbury Forum
Michael John Quill was an Irish immigrant born in County Kerry in the southwest of Ireland, September 18, 1905, an Irish Catholic farm kid who was IRA all the way. Quill died of a heart attack in New York on January 28, 1966, sixty years ago, right after leading a historic and important strike by the Transport Workers Union. He was jailed for violating the infamous Taylor Law prohibiting strikes by public employees. He died a few days after being released from jail. At the time, many of us thought that Mike had been murdered. The judge knew he had a weak heart and that jail could kill him.
In 1966 I was a college student at the University of Wisconsin and a part-time casual in a Teamster warehouse called Central States Warehouse and Storage in Madison. This was a time of great turmoil and struggle. Malcolm X had been assassinated in February, 1965. James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in the summer of 1964. And Viola Liuzzo was also murdered by the Klan in March of 1965. The war in Vietnam was raging and escalating with 100 or more young Americans dying every day. In the midst of these roiling historical moments I found great inspiration in the actions and leadership of Mike Quill.
On December 29, 1965 Quill announced that the TWU would not bargain with the City of New York after midnight on New Year’s Eve. That afternoon Quill was served with papers telling him he had to explain in court why the union should not be stopped from striking. Quill called the press and went on TV that night and tore the summons up. Quill’s union put over 8,000 workers on the street stopping NYC from moving 6,280 subways cars at 481 stations and over 720 miles of track. He acted in defiance of a court order and went to jail. On Day 4 of the strike Quill suffered a heart attack and was transferred to Bellevue hospital. The strike lasted 12 days and resulted in a great victory. Quill was sent to Mt Sinai after settlement and rested there until he was released on January 25. He died three days later at home.
Mike Quill was one of the strongest and most effective labor organizers in the United States. He militantly pushed for industrial unionism and led many strikes. He was a significant leader of the CIO and of public employees as well as of contracted transit workers. A great advocate for racial equality, Quill was an early negotiator of non-discriminatory language in collective bargaining agreements. His youthful work as a courier for the IRA (Irish Republican Army) showed an early hostility to colonialism, and he remained a lifetime fighter against imperialism. He was an inspiration to thousands of youth and adults. Studying his life and actions will help us deal with the current Fascist threat and Gestapo tactics we are facing in the United States. Viva industrial unionism! Viva Mike Quill!
Learn about Mike Quill:
– Mike Quill Himself: A Memoir by Shirley Quill (his wife and coworker)
– In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966 by Joshua B. Freeman
– A Mighty Union: Quill, Connolly, and the TWU by Lorcan Collins
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Can You Imagine?
By Stewart Acuff
UPDATE: Since this piece was written Border Patrol shot and killed Alex Pretti, 37, as he lay pinned to the ground by a number of brown shirted “officers”. There have been many more demonstrations and community organizing callings for an end to the occupation
Relentlessly the rain fell all day on Saturday, January 10 including during a 200 person protest against ICE in front of the John Brown Courthouse in downtown Charles Town. The crowd stood through the rain totally exposed, smiling but stoic as hell. The ICE (Immigration Customs and Enforcement) crisis of Renee Good’s shooting death by an ICE agent had just landed as our community was figuring out next steps after the ICE crisis at the MiDegollado Restaurant in Charles Town. At Mi Degollado ICE agents had sent customers and staff scattering with a day of business ruined.
Other businesses are being closed, ruined, family resources completely emptied. One small businessman is barely hanging on because of ICE. Even workers with work visas and permits are afraid of coming to work. One of his work leaders for almost 10 years was picked up by ICE, dropped off at the border, went home and was back at work in a month. But with ICE focused on West Virginia because of our red hat maga Gov. Morrissey, the workers even with work permits are afraid to be on the streets. The businessman said most of his immigrant workers have been with him eight to ten years. In his words: “People have settled here. They’ve created home and raised American kids. They pay taxes, go to church and are great workers. Now they’re afraid to go back and forth to work.”
Can you imagine watching the U.S. government chase and hunt your friends and workers and destroy your company and your family’s living?
Community leaders are working to create and streamline support for immigrants who may be vulnerable. Faith leaders are amongst those working to support immigrant working families. Folks are finding ways to communicate urgent news across towns and counties, but the protests after Renee Good’s killing have been the largest expressions of support for immigrants families and working class neighbors.
The next day, Sunday, January 11, there were three more protests against ICE (Immigration Customs & Enforcement) in our area. The sun was in and out, no rain, but cold and windy.
About a hundred protestors gathered in downtown Martinsburg. The crowd spread out along both sides in every direction King and Queen Streets.
As we’ve done this entire last year the crowds were joyful, loud, engaging and spirited. We do our best to remain above the maga juvenile behavior. It is the most raw and on the ground democracy there is. We are literally on the street engaging our neighbors in the greatest challenge of our lives…saving democracy.
Thirty folks gathered that Sunday in Berkeley Springs in front of the Morgan County Courthouse. They have established themselves in a largely red area. Every week some of them meet us in Martinsburg to protest at the offices of Senator Shelley Capito and Congressman Riley Moore. Since Renee Good’s killing they’ve been holding a vigil at 2 pm everyday.
Dr. Eric Schwartz, one of the leaders from Hagerstown, Maryland reported: “We had roughly 80 folks. It was a quiet and reflective atmosphere. Many people were also coming by with clothing and food donations. “
The national news on ICE and their deportation activities has been beyond fast. While courts have rolled back Trump’s ability to deploy the National Guard, the administration has been deploying more and more ICE agents across the United States, across West Virginia and across the Eastern Panhandle. Ironically, more than 50% of Americans disapprove of ICE deportation behavior (Quinnipiac Poll 1/13/2026). Deportation had been the last policy of the Trump Administration that enjoyed public support.
On January 13, CNN reported that six federal DOJ attorneys in Minnesota have resigned in protest of Trump’s pressure to protect the killer of Renee Good.
All of us are tested in this moment that will determine whether we are free or fascist. Nobody can tell you which side you stand on, but you gotta pick a side. Then you gotta live with it the rest of your life…and eternity.
Florence Reece was married to a coal miner and union organizer in East Kentucky in 1933 when Hitler imprisoned unions folks in Germany and American coal miners were on strike fighting for their union.
Florence Reece wrote “Which Side Are You On?”
That is the primary question–the first and most important.
My dad was a Southern Baptist preacher. Like all of us he had flaws, but he taught me that has served as a compass: ” Son, we’re always on the side of the underdog.”
I believe that goes for most of us.
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Originally published in the “Spirit of Jefferson”
Immigrant Stories: Five and Six
By Myrna Santiago
The final assignment for “World History: from 1500 to the present” is an oral history with an immigrant. It is a scary assignment for most of the students; after all, the majority take that class in the first semester of their first year. They were in high school only three months prior. The most frightening part is having to find an immigrant and ask them about that aspect of their life. I do not allow students to interview fellow students. They have to find someone older and with more experience. That makes the assignment nerve-wracking. How do you go up to an “adult” and ask her to talk about such intimate and potentially traumatic time in her life? The oral history is due at the end of the term, after we have reached the twentieth-century in the textbook, with its upheavals, wars, and drastic economic changes. The students know the context for their subjects’ lives and what led them to leave the land of their birth and their communities behind. When it is all done, students are truly glad they did the work. They learn so much from listening to just one person’s story. Their single story puts a human face to the texts they read and the news they hear or see in the media. Migration is not a sound bite anymore; it is real people revealing the reasons why they left behind everything they knew and love to venture into the United States. What you will read here is just a sampling. The compilers of the stories are: Marelize Meyer, Madeline Haun, Riley Drummond, Collin Kopchik, Colin Jones, and Adam Mills. All except for Adam are first year students.
Professor Myrna Santiago
Saint Mary’s College of California
From Central and South America to the Bay Area
I was born October 24 1961. I lived away from my mother in a small village in El Salvador. Not a big city or even what a suburban area would look like in the U.S., but a village, small but home. Most people there made their living by working in small businesses, like selling pupusas and tortillas in food stands or small restaurants. My mother moved to Venezuela early on in my life so I lived with my grandmother and my older sister. Most of my other relatives, like my cousins and my uncle, also lived in other areas around El Salvador. I lived in the village for most of my childhood leading up to high school. However, when I reached high school there weren’t any nearby high schools to go to, the only schools near my village were elementary and middle schools.
However, I wanted to continue my education so I ended up going to a school in another state. I still lived in my village, but now I had to ride a bus for hours to get to school. My sister eventually moved out to start college while I was in high school deciding to live on her campus grounds. I saw a few conflicts such as a short war, only lasting a few days, around when I was six or seven years old. The war was known as the “football war,” a war between us Salvadorans and the Hondurans. I didn’t know much about it at the time, just that it affected me and my family, I was too young to understand.
Then, while I was in high school, the civil war struck. The Salvadoran government started fighting an organization called the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a guerrilla rebel group that was founded to push back against the government’s mistreatment of poor people. The government responded to their formation by attacking the FMLN and killing Salvadoran citizens who supported their cause. Because of the killings me and my family were relocated to an area between El Salvador and Honduras. We didn’t have any houses or buildings there, just tents for a lot of people. So many people were relocated to this area that it was hard to keep track of people once they were there. Family and friends were often separated in the growing crowds, as was the case with my uncle who went missing there. Neither me nor my family ever saw him again.
Me and my grandmother lived in the camps while the war raged on. While we were there we learned that the Salvadoran military was killing college students who supported rights for poor people. Among those killed was my sister. I was 17 back then and she was 19. It was after that when my mother arrived to take me to Venezuela.
I left El Salvador while the war was still in progress. However, my other family members like my grandmother stayed behind. I then stayed with my mother in Venezuela for two years. I decided not to go to college during this time, or any time in the future. After spending those two years in Venezuela I decided to move to the U.S., in October 1988. I was allowed to visit as a tourist and was given a permit to stay for six months. After that I applied for citizenship, which was eventually approved. I often worked as a caretaker or babysitter while I was there. Eventually I had two daughters in the U.S. My first daughter decided to live in the U.S. for a while and then travelled back to Venezuela after growing up. My second daughter on the other hand decided to stay and would eventually have my granddaughter.
Even after the civil war was over there were still problems with the country. I learned that after the war the FMLN became a political party in the Salvadoran government and the government was reformed. However, many who served sentences after they immigrated from El Salvador to the U.S. were deported, so this resulted in many gang members being deported back to El Salvador where they caused problems without the intervention of the government. The two primary gangs were MS-13 and the 18th Street gang, mostly teenagers. Often they would recruit kids that thought they were cool, needed protection, or needed money. On top of killing each other they threatened workers to give them a portion of their pay. So for the food vendors who made their living selling food, now had to give up their money. If they didn’t pay up for any reason, then the gangs would make them disappear or just kill them on the street. This caused even more Salvadorans to come to the U.S. including my cousin, who, on top of having to deal with a large earthquake in 2001 which destroyed a lot of property, needed to provide for her children still living in El Salvador. She had lost everything in the earthquake but still needed to provide for her kids so she had to move here without them and send money back.
At this point in time most of my family was now living in the U.S., however, my grandmother still hadn’t come to the U.S. So after getting U.S. citizenship I wanted to return to El Salvador to see how things were. But as it turned out, my grandmother wasn’t in El Salvador anymore. She had moved to Honduras. And, in between the civil war and the gang violence, all transport to my village was cut off. There just weren’t any buses that could take you there anymore.
I’ve been in the U.S. for 33 years now. At this point I have lived in the U.S. for longer than any other place I’ve lived in, including El Salvador and Venezuela. Most of my family members in El Salvador have immigrated to other parts of the world, mostly to the U.S. My cousin lives close by, still sending the money she earns to her children. She had left them when they were 5 years and 3 years old respectively, now they are full grown adults. And although she knows they are still alive and well, she hasn’t seen them since she left. My second daughter also lives close by with my granddaughter who I sometimes take care of while she is at work.
My mother and first daughter still live in Venezuela, which now has its own problems. Venezuela is under a dictatorship at the current time which makes me worry for my mother and daughter’s safety. But at the present moment they are fine. El Salvador has gotten a new president who is cleaning up the country and taking care of the gang problem by jailing them.
However, there are still gangs in the country and the situation would be unlivable for people like me who would be considered too old for many jobs there. I’ve worked long-term as a caretaker for a family, taking care of their children and their house. I’ve worked for them for almost 20 years, so I’ve gotten to know the family very well. But the youngest is almost old enough to not need my help anymore, so I’ve been working with the family to try and find other potential jobs. Despite that bump, I have been living a steady life with financial or social problems.
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems with this country. The most recent problem for immigrants like me is ICE deporting people like me who can only make a living here. I thankfully have citizenship, but people like my cousin who only have temporary protection status are at risk of being deported if ICE ever comes here. So although I’m not personally at risk of deportation, I am scared that my cousin or other family and friends could be sent to a place where they can’t sustain themselves or their families. Everyone who comes to the U.S. has their reasons and even if they aren’t citizens, it’s upsetting that my cousin who has spent more than twenty years in the U.S. paying her taxes, working, and paying to live here could be at risk. I understand that some people like MS-13 and the 18th Street Gang come to the U.S. and cause more problems than benefits, but people like me and my cousin have sacrificed a lot just to be here to keep our families and ourselves safe. And yet the people here try and force us out back to the wars and the gangs. So although this country lets me and others work and make our living, it’s also the cause of our fear just as the wars and gangs once were. But even after all that was lost and after all who died I still believe that the steps I take and the price me and my cousin pay is worth it.
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My Story Moving to the U.S.
Hello, I am 54 years old. I was born on January 16,1971 and I grew up all throughout my childhood and until I reached the age of 21 in Mexico. But, then in February of 1993 at age 22, I immigrated to Texas. I was not able to migrate until I was of an adult primarily due to my parents residing in Mexico and my mother only having a work visa to come to the United States on provisional status.
I remember my mother saying how wonderful the United States was as a child, and I always wished I could live there but it was not possible as my father was working in Mexico. I finished all the required schooling in Mexico at age 17 and then worked at a local factory where the temperature was extremely hot. I made little money and lived in a small home with my father and other family members. I worked at the factory as I was waiting on a temporary work visa so I could go to the United States. I wanted more opportunities of advancement and freedom and felt that I could have made a better life in the United States.
I had a few family members that already lived in the United States in Texas, so I moved in with them and began looking for employment. The largest problem with coming to the United States is that I did not speak English at all. I had to learn English and if I had known how hard it was, I would have learned that before I came. Unfortunately, I only had a temporary work visa, so not many companies would hire me when I came to Texas, so I worked as a waitress making most of my money from tips at local Mexican restaurants. They want you to work many hours and only for low pay, they tell me that I should be happy to be here since I am only here on a temporary visa. I worked as many hours as I could. Not knowing our income taxes, I made little money after paying social security tax. Mexico does not have social security tax, so this is something to which I was not used to.
American people were not very friendly when they realized I could not speak English. I always felt they treated me meanly and worthless. I know that I could not speak up for myself or even report anything to anyone as I really did not have a voice. It was extremely hard adjusting to how Americans would treat me. My family would tell me it is because I am from Mexico and with not being able to speak English, they assumed I was illegal. I began taking classes at community college where I could afford to go to. Since it is so expensive in the United States I was only able to afford a couple classes that helped me communicate better, but still to present day I cannot speak English fluently. My English is combined with Spanish, and I just apologize when I cannot explain something clearly. My family only spoke Spanish in Mexico so I was just trying to learn what I could in a brief time and it helped a little, but at least I knew how to communicate a little bit. I did know that in order to get a good paying job and really make something of my life I would have to learn and get help anywhere that I could.
I met my husband after eight years of living here in the United States. After marrying my husband and having two children I returned to Mexico to visit my parents after living a total of nine years in the United States. In returning to Texas, I realized that my work visa had expired. Not being able to return to the United States legally, I decided to use my mother’s visa identification to gain entry. I was successful and when I returned to Texas, I began the process for my own documentation for renewal. The documentation process took
almost two years, and I had to save money for the citizenship renewal which cost hundreds of dollars. Upon my appointment with the immigration office, they asked me how I came back to the United States with an expired work visa? I was honest with them and told them what I had done with using my mother’s identification and they said that I will be deported back to Mexico. With my children, I was given four months to leave voluntarily, or I would risk a much larger penalty for falsifying my legal status and possibly never gain entry again to the United States. If I did not deport voluntarily, I would be at risk not being able to come back to the United States for ten years. My penalty was three years, and I could not go back to Texas at all. I voluntarily left the United States with my two daughters (ages 7 and 8), while my husband remained in San Antonio.
Having little money and with the two children, we decided to sell our home in San Antonio that my husband owned, and he moved to Mexico to be with us. We could not be a family for three years, and it is too expensive for him to travel to Mexico and see the children and me. Because of the money that he made from selling the home we were able to eventually build a small home in Mexico, but having to go back was extremely hard on the children and was a big adjustment for us. Again, I spoke truly little English, but my daughters spoke English and now had to learn Spanish. It was hard on them, but they had to learn. The other children made fun of them as they knew they were not from Mexico because from the way they looked, dressed, and talked. My husband who worked in manufacturing was able to work closer to the border to Texas and Mexico so he would visit us regularly and help when he could.
As part of the penalty, I had to stay where I was originally from, so I took my children and moved back with my parents. To watch our daughters struggle the way that they did bothered me the most. They could have stayed with family in Texas that already lived there, but they did not want to, and I did not want that either. I could not imagine not being able to see my children for three years. They now understand as adults why they were treated the way that they were, but as children they never understood. Even though they were Mexican by their heritage, they were not born there and that is very different. The schooling in Mexico is not as good as in the United States so I was worried that they would not learn as much as they did when they were in Texas. I studied with the girls on learning to speak Spanish for school and helped them adjust the best way I could.
As time passed the kids and I adjusted and my husband was making good money in manufacturing, so we were able to build a home in Mexico. It was a smaller sized home, but at least at least my family and I were able to have our own home. We remained in Mexico until I could begin my citizenship renewal and until the penalty was complete. We returned to Texas almost four and half years after I voluntarily deported, now legally back to the United States. I received my permanent resident card which I had to have for five years and then would be able to get my Certificate of Naturalization which took two more years. Our daughters returned to Texas, finished high school as well as graduated from college at the University of Texas. The home in Mexico we still own today to which we visit family and spend holidays there. Both of my daughters now speak fluent Spanish and English which now I am glad for both, but I remember how hard it was for them to learn. With becoming a legal citizen and returning to Texas, I was able to find good employment with larger pay and finding more opportunities than before when I was in the United States. I have all the things I dreamed of: a good paying job, a home, and family support that is always here. I miss my family in Mexico, but we can go see them now freely as we wish to. I tell all my family in Mexico how hard it was to get here and how difficult it is to succeed.
My biggest lesson I learned was learn English before you come to the United States, come here legally, and do not let your documentation expire. I know it would not have been as hard if I had done that myself, but until I went through everything I really did not understand. Getting out of Mexico for the American dream is what I wanted and never had anyone tell me how difficult it would be. My biggest regret is letting my renewal documentation expire but thankful for the opportunity to be back in the United States and living in Texas but my greatest satisfaction is how successful my daughters have turned to be.
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Immigrant Stories: Three and Four
By Myrna Santiago
The final assignment for “World History: from 1500 to the present” is an oral history with an immigrant. It is a scary assignment for most of the students; after all, the majority take that class in the first semester of their first year. They were in high school only three months prior. The most frightening part is having to find an immigrant and ask them about that aspect of their life. I do not allow students to interview fellow students. They have to find someone older and with more experience. That makes the assignment nerve-wracking. How do you go up to an “adult” and ask her to talk about such intimate and potentially traumatic time in her life? The oral history is due at the end of the term, after we have reached the twentieth-century in the textbook, with its upheavals, wars, and drastic economic changes. The students know the context for their subjects’ lives and what led them to leave the land of their birth and their communities behind. When it is all done, students are truly glad they did the work. They learn so much from listening to just one person’s story. Their single story puts a human face to the texts they read and the news they hear or see in the media. Migration is not a sound bite anymore; it is real people revealing the reasons why they left behind everything they knew and love to venture into the United States. What you will read here is just a sampling. The compilers of the stories are: Marelize Meyer, Madeline Haun, Riley Drummond, Collin Kopchik, Colin Jones, and Adam Mills. All except for Adam are first year students.
Professor Myrna Santiago
Saint Mary’s College of California
Boat People Story
I was part of a mass exodus from Vietnam known as the boat people. I was born on in 1973 in Saigon, Vietnam, right at the end of the Vietnam war. I don’t remember the war since I left Vietnam and the war was before I was born. By the time I was two years old, the communist North Vietnamese had full control of the country. My father had fought for South Vietnam, working closely with the U.S. After the Communists gained control of Vietnam he was arrested and sent to a rehabilitation camp with a bunch of other U.S. sympathizers. I can still remember being a little kid, around four or five years old and my mother would take me, my brother, and my sister to go see him in prison. The prison had been an old U.S. military base that was converted to hold prisoners. I can still remember talking to my father through a chain link fence while he was locked away. Besides my dad being in prison, life was pretty normal.
I attended school in Vietnam and although my memory is foggy when it comes to my old day to day routine, I distinctly remember that all the kids in school had to wear matching red neckerchiefs to show support to the Communist Party. I used to walk to school which was quite safe to do. When I was six years old my father was released from the rehabilitation camp. Before the war had begun, my dad had worked as a math teacher. This was a profession he was no longer allowed to pursue because of his connection to the United States. I think that the communists were worried about his stern influence being near the kids. Because of this my father was forced to find whatever job he could, and he got a job as a bus driver.
In 1979, my father had enough. He realized that our family did not have a future in Vietnam. He paid in gold to get our family onto a fishing boat so we could escape. I was told not to tell anybody about our plans to leave. Not even my grandparents could know because if they told anybody, we could all be arrested. We left late at night and went to a small fishing port where we rendezvoused with forty other Vietnamese people who we would be escaping with. My family and I had to wade through mud to get to the boat. Once we got on board we were ushered into the belly of the boat, the area where the caught fish were supposed to go. I remember sitting there anxiously waiting for the captain. We waited and waited but the captain never showed up. We would come to find out that he had been captured by the police on his way to the boat and therefore was not able to make the journey with us. So all we had was the first mate who was not qualified to be driving the boat by himself, and a bunch of civilians desperate to get out of Vietnam. Despite not having a real captain, we left Vietnam that night. I remember we had to hide in the belly of the boat for quite a long time after we left shore. We had to make it look like we were just a normal fishing boat and not a bunch of escaping civilians. For five days we floated on this boat. We had no idea which direction we were headed and we were all just hoping we would end up somewhere safe. And then finally on the fifth day, our boat ride finally ended and we spotted land.
We landed on a small Indonesian resort island and were met quickly by the police. I think they were trying to ask us questions, but I could not understand them because we did not speak the same language. None of them spoke Vietnamese so it was impossible for anybody to communicate with each other. Somehow they came to understand that we were Vietnamese refugees and were looking for help. They drew us a map which directed us to a different island that had a refugee camp on it. But we were scared, we knew that there was food and shelter on the island we had landed on and didn’t want to risk getting lost on the way to the refugee island. So instead of listening to the Indonesians and going to the refugee camp, we decided to take a different route.
Our new captain drove our boat to the other side of the resort island. We all disembarked from the boat and promptly burned it like Columbus! Now we had no way of leaving the island. Not too long after we burned the boat, the Indonesian police showed up shooting their guns in the air and yelling at us. I was terrified, I thought that they were going to kill me, but they didn’t. They calmed down and allowed us to stay on the island while they called the United Nations for help. We stayed on the resort island for twelve days. On the twelfth day the UN boat arrived. I remember being shocked at the size of the boat, it was a massive freightliner. It was so big in fact that it had to anchor pretty far away from the island so as not to get stuck in the shallow water. I remember my family boarding a small boat that the island’s locals had found and being ferried over to the massive UN ship. When we arrived at the side of the UN ship, they threw down a rope ladder and I had to climb up. When I got to the top of the ladder I was pulled onto deck by one of the UN staff members. The freight ship had multiple levels. I remember the level where we spent most of our time looking a lot like a school gym during a natural disaster, one where there are sleeping bags all over the floor and everybody is crammed together. To a young kid like me the entire thing felt like an adventure. But the fun part of the adventure was coming to an end. The freightliner took us to the refugee camp island that the Indonesians had told us about.
The refugee camp was weird. It was definitely not as fun as the boat had been. When we showed up there were hundreds of Vietnamese already there. This number quickly turned into thousands due to the massive influx of people. I went from being around the same 40 people for weeks to suddenly being around a massive amount of other Vietnamese. Because of the massive influx of refugees to this camp, there weren’t enough barracks for all of us. The UN paid Vietnamese men like my father to help build more barracks. He helped build barracks while we were in the camp. We were lucky enough to get a spot in a barracks quickly and that was where we lived for the next seven months. There were new people coming to the camp every day. At its peak there were somewhere between five and ten thousand refugees. Every barrack held only 100 people, so there was a push to build housing fast.
The barracks were very simple longhouses that were built in a cross so that if viewed from above the barracks would look like a + sign. There were four long wooden beds made of smooth wood, each long bed separated by the hallways and could accommodate 25 people. A family of five like mine was allowed a fifth of one of these beds. What separated us from the next family was a simple plank of wood. I remember sitting up in bed and being able to see everybody in our bed, laid out in a seemingly endless row. Despite the dreariness of the camp, it didn’t stop my brother and I from being kids. I remember playing all sorts of games with him. We would make yo-yos out of Coca-Cola bottle caps and would use soda cans to make small boats that we could play with. They were simple toys but we didn’t complain because we didn’t care, they kept us entertained.
During our time at the refugee camp, my father was interviewed by the UN. He told them that he was a political asylum seeker who had aided America during the war. It took the UN quite a while to background check my dad and make sure he was actually who he said he was. When they became sure of my dad’s connection to the U.S., the United States were obligated to take in my family. Funnily enough, my father didn’t want to go to the United States. He had heard that the cost of living was high and he would have preferred going to Canada or Australia. Neither of those countries would take our family, so we went to the United States. The UN found a sponsor for my family, a Catholic church in California.
So finally after seven long months in a refugee camp, my family got on a transport ship and traveled to Singapore. From Singapore we got on a plane and flew to SFO (San Francisco Airport). I still remember arriving in San Francisco on March 24th, 1980.The change in scenery was drastic, I went from living in the rural countryside to flying into a massive city. I had never seen so many lights in my life! They seemed to be endless. We were picked up at SFO by a sister who was affiliated with the church.
She drove us and we were shown to the apartment that would become our home for the next couple years. We arrived at that two-bedroom, two-bath apartment with one suitcase that was being shared by my entire family. Luckily the apartment was already furnished with clothes in the closets for us. We were shocked that we had been given the place. Nobody in my family knew any English except for my father who knew a very small amount. While we were at the apartment, members from the parish would come over to help us. I remember families coming over and bringing their kids who we would play with. Being in such a new country was a culture shock. It was like I had been born again and had to learn everything new. I distinctly remember being taught how to use the toilet because we had never had one before. The Church got my father a job as a janitor in a machine shop and my mother got a job cleaning houses. Me and my siblings began to go to the Catholic school affiliated with the Church. One of the nuns took us aside for two hours a day to teach us English. My parents saved money for three years and were soon able to afford a house. My family couldn’t afford to continue going to Catholic school so I began going to public school.
It took my parents a year or two to get their green cards which allowed them to live and work in the United States, but we weren’t citizens yet. It took five years of working and living in the U.S. before my parents were finally allowed to take the citizenship test. When they passed, we all became citizens. I was eleven years old when I officially became a citizen of the United States. My dad continued to work at the machine shop. He was promoted quickly and was able to work as a machinist instead of a janitor. It was a job he had to adapt to quickly since he had no experience as a machinist.
My mom discovered that she wanted to start her own business. She opened her own beauty salon which she ran for over a decade. When I was in middle school I worked for her every day after school. By that time, I was good enough at English that I could schedule all the appointments. My other job was to clean all the dirty towels at the beauty salon and fold them. My siblings and I never sat around, there was always something to do. My mother had a knack for being good to people and listening. Because of this she had a massive amount of clients.
It was very important to my parents that my siblings and I went to college. It was not something that they ever told us they expected from us. They never said that they wanted us to get straight As but we knew that they wanted us to succeed. I went to UC Berkeley for my undergraduate and master’s degree in engineering. My sister went to UCLA where she majored in Biology and went on to become a lawyer. And my brother got an econ major from UCLA and ended up working for the FBI. We all wanted to work hard and succeed for our parents. I believe that my family achieved the American dream. I feel more connected to America now than I do to Vietnam.
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The Immigration Story of X
The name I go by is X, but that wasn’t always my name. I was born under a different name, a male name, on August 17, 2003, in the Philippines. My story of immigration isn’t loaded with tragedy or misfortune, but it is important. My story is a testament to the expectations of the U.S. given to Third World countries, and the stark difference in its reality.
In the Philippines, I lived with my mother, aunt, grandma, step-brother, and stepfather. My life was simplistic; I would wake up every morning at 5 A.M., leave for school at 6 A.M., where I would attend nine to eleven classes, and after school activities, then go home around 10 P.M. This routine was quickly disrupted when my father, who lived in the U.S., expressed his desire to bring me into the country. I was left mostly out of the conversation as I was still a minor; however, arguments ensued between my mother, who wanted me to stay, and my father. My father wanted me to have better opportunities than could be given in my home country, especially a better education. My mother just didn’t want me to leave her.
I personally was excited at the prospect of living in America; it was completely glorified in the Philippines. For context, Manuel Quezon, the second president of the Philippines, established good relations with the United States, which influenced the representation the U.S. received in the Philippines. Most popular media followed American trends, celebrities, and culture. English was even placed into our curriculum, and spoken colloquially. There was also
this held belief stemming from our glorification of America that whiteness was greatness. In 2016, Rodrigo Duterte was elected into office and turned the tide on relations between the United States and the Philippines, and strengthened our relationship with China, which also greatly influenced aspects of Filipino culture. However, America remained idealized, prompting my excitement for emigrating. While my dad worked to get me to America, my mother was simultaneously working towards emigrating us to Japan. She had permanent residence in Japan, and my brother and I had been staying with her for a month. She was working out the details, trying to get us enrolled in school, and adjusting to life in Japan, when my father surprised us by filing a petition for me. I was set to go to America.
In April of 2021, I made my move to America in the sunny city of San Jose, California. I had assumed when I got there that my transition would be seamless, but I was very wrong.
Immigrating to the United States during COVID-19 was detrimental to my transition. At the time, socialization was at an all-time low, and despite the regulations for COVID being looser in the U.S., very few people wanted to interact with me. There was also an influx of racism towards Asians, making my transition even harder. I also struggled with letting go of the ideas ingrained in me surrounding race, a hard lesson I had to learn as someone who went to a predominantly Mexican school. I eventually adjusted, and five months after I immigrated, I came out as transgender.
Coming out changed everything. My dad didn’t accept me for who I was, and society accepted me even less. It was times like this when I missed home. The Philippines is surprisingly transgender inclusive. I attended a private Catholic school and was devoutly religious. Yet, the nuns who taught me were more accepting than my peers, even before I put the pieces together about my identity. This was my greatest shake-up in the picturesque view of America I had. I did have a sense of pride about my transness in some aspects of my life, especially being a transgender immigrant. I had also hoped my story would get me into higher education, but COVID had hit my dad and me hard financially, and with his unacceptance of my identity– which led to his refusal to pay for school– going to college just wasn’t an option. Slowly, my American dream was crumbling.
My story ends back where it started, my home. Last year, I spent a month in the summer visiting home and seeing all my friends and family. I hadn’t realized how much I missed home until I came back; it was almost like I never left. My friends and I picked back up from where we left off immediately, my family accepted me with open arms, and I was seen as me, as a woman. It was shocking to me how open and accepting everyone was, and for a moment, I could imagine my life if I had stayed in the Philippines, going to the same university as my friends, being around an accepting family. The moment I arrived in the Philippines, my mom greeted me at the airport by grabbing my face and telling me how pretty I was. I felt truly accepted then; I felt truly at home. The whole month I was there, my family tried to get me to move back, saying I could go to university with my friends and be with my mother, but I declined.
I couldn’t bring myself to completely hate my decision to live in the United States, despite the wildly skewed ideas I had gone in with. It wasn’t as free or accepting as made out to be, or really all that great, but I had built a life here with new friends and new opportunities, things I can’t just leave behind.
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The last two in this series on Monday
Immigrants Stories: One and Two
By Myrna Santiago
The final assignment for “World History: from 1500 to the present” is an oral history with an immigrant. It is a scary assignment for most of the students; after all, the majority take that class in the first semester of their first year. They were in high school only three months prior. The most frightening part is having to find an immigrant and ask them about that aspect of their life. I do not allow students to interview fellow students. They have to find someone older and with more experience. That makes the assignment nerve-wracking. How do you go up to an “adult” and ask her to talk about such intimate and potentially traumatic time in her life? The oral history is due at the end of the term, after we have reached the twentieth-century in the textbook, with its upheavals, wars, and drastic economic changes. The students know the context for their subjects’ lives and what led them to leave the land of their birth and their communities behind. When it is all done, students are truly glad they did the work. They learn so much from listening to just one person’s story. Their single story puts a human face to the texts they read and the news they hear or see in the media. Migration is not a sound bite anymore; it is real people revealing the reasons why they left behind everything they knew and love to venture into the United States. What you will read here is just a sampling. The compilers of the stories are: Marelize Meyer, Madeline Haun, Riley Drummond, Collin Kopchik, Colin Jones, and Adam Mills. All except for Adam are first year students.
Professor Myrna Santiago
Saint Mary’s College of California
From Odessa to the United States
I was born on October 18, 1985, in Odessa, a city on the Black Sea in Ukraine. My family is Ukrainian and of Russian descent. Most of my early memories are from daily life with my family. My parents both worked hard. My father was very loving and supportive. He was a policeman and now retired, and my mother stayed home to take care of us. I grew up with my older sister, who has always been one of the closest people in my life. My childhood felt ordinary in the best way. I went to school, I played some sports, and had friends. I learned Russian and Ukrainian at home, and later I picked up some Romanian, English, and German at school. I never imagined how important languages would become for my future.
Before I left Ukraine, my life was stable. I lived in a nice, pleasant, and small apartment with my husband. My family lived nearby, so it was very easy to see them often. After finishing school at university, I first worked as an assistant at the local college, and later I took a job at a shipping company doing accounting work. That was where I met my future husband. My husband and my sister eventually became professors. She taught at the local university, and he taught at the local college. I am proud of them both. Our life was predictable, which I appreciated. We had routines, gatherings, holidays, and the traditions that make up the culture I grew up with. Nothing felt fragile at the time, and I think that made the changes to come harder to accept.
Even before the war reached our region, there were signs of instability. Everyone talked about Russia’s aggression becoming more dangerous and even though Odessa wasn’t affected immediately, the way some eastern cities were, the tension was weighing over everything. When the war escalated in 2022, the feeling of uncertainty became more intense. I didn’t want to live under occupation, and I became more worried about my son. His safety was my priority and I knew his opportunities would be limited if we stayed. Many educated Ukrainians were already leaving because they didn’t see a future for their children at home. I understood why.
The hardest part was realizing I had to leave what I knew behind and without my husband. We had many conversations about it, but the truth is that I can’t fully describe how he felt. We both just knew it was necessary for our son, and that understanding helped us through the hardest part. Still, leaving my home, my husband, my parents, and my sister was very painful. I kept thinking about everything I was giving up, but I also reminded myself why I was doing it. My son didn’t speak Romanian, so even though my company could have transferred me, that wasn’t a real solution for him. I wanted him to have a real future, one not shaped by bombs or fear.
I arrived in the United States in June 2022. The exact day is a little blurry. There was so much happening. The journey didn’t feel real until I was halfway through it. I flew through a small airport in Romania, then had a very long layover in Germany, it was Munich to be exact, before boarding the eleven-hour flight to California. I was exhausted, terrified, and very unsure about my English. I had only my son with me, and every hour felt heavier because I was responsible for both of us. Waiting in the airports was very confusing, and at times very frightening, but I kept reminding myself that someone I trusted was waiting for us when we landed. We just had to get there. That thought helped me stay focused and hopeful.
When we finally arrived in the United States, I felt overwhelmed by the size of everything.
The roads, the noise, the spaces; it all felt huge compared to Europe. The United States is just so big! I have seen maps but I still can’t believe how large the country is. I also didn’t really understand how different the states could be culturally and politically. I learned what it meant to be conservative and liberal. I learned I was fortunate to be going to a state that was more accepting of immigrants. At the time I understood America was more welcoming of immigrants than other countries. I didn’t know California was known for being more welcoming too.
Everyone seemed friendly, especially seeing my young son with me, which helped very much, but I could not stop feeling unsure if I was understanding everything correctly. It was very hard to grasp the language completely and I felt that way almost all the time.
I remember I wanted to sleep for days, but life here began right away. The hardest adjustment was definitely the language barrier. Even though I knew some English, speaking it every day was stressful. I worried constantly about misunderstanding something important or making the wrong decision for my son because I didn’t know the right words. There are so many words in English that mean the same thing or can have another meaning entirely even when those words sounded similar and that has taken some time to understand. But my son adjusted very fast. He is 13 and thankfully smart. He likes the American customs, the food, and the safe community where we live. He made friends very quickly. He now speaks both Russian and English fluently, and he feels very at home here. We also met other Ukrainian and Bulgarian families through school and some County services. There is an organization called Project Second Chance and it helped us build a small but strong community, and that support has mattered more than I can say. It keeps me and my son connected to Ukrainian and Russian culture. It can be very comforting to me.
I stay in touch with my husband and the rest of my family through phone calls and voice messages. The time difference makes it difficult, but hearing their voices, especially my sister’s, keeps me steady. I listen to her and it helps me feel connected to the life I left behind.
Today, my life looks very different from what I imagined years ago. I work at a daycare center, which was not what my education originally prepared me for, but I find happiness in it. The children make me laugh, and the families have been kind. The owner has helped me very much. I also rent my home from her, and her support has made my transition easier. I have improved my English through work and working with a tutor I have with Project Second Chance. I think it’s funny to learn American expressions, like “easy peasy, lemon squeezy,” that don’t seem like real sayings, but when I said that one time that person understood what it meant and laughed that I knew it. Work and community have been so important to my life here. I know I am more fortunate than others. And I am thankful. But even with this stability, I still worry about deportation. My son and I are here under temporary protected status, and the future feels uncertain. I check updates online every day and throughout the day and talk to others in the same situation because I want to understand what might happen. My visa is up for renewal, and I don’t know what the next steps will be. That uncertainty is always on my mind.
What I want most is simple: I want to stop feeling like I’m in survival mode. I want a stable, peaceful life for my son. I want him to grow up safe, educated, and able to choose his own future. I hope one day we can all be together again, my husband, my parents, my sister, and me, but I know that may take time.
Leaving Ukraine has taught me that life can change without warning, but also that people can change in ways they didn’t know could be possible. I am not the same person I was before the war. I’ve learned to navigate fear, distance, and uncertainty. I’ve learned a new language, built a new life, and watched my son grow stronger because of everything we’ve been through. I am so proud of him.
What I want others to understand is my situation was probably different from other immigrant stories. My husband’s best friend had immigrated with his wife to California many years before I came here. They helped me understand what to do about school and how to find healthcare. I was very lucky to live with them for a year until I got a stable job and found a place of my own. I learned so much from them. I look back and think about what I left behind: my home, career, family and my culture and it was so hard, but I know others had it worse. As immigrants we all carry a lot inside us that we don’t always show.
If l could offer one message, it would be to hopefully treat people with patience. You never know what they have survived, or how hard they’re trying to rebuild. My hope is that our future becomes a little more secure each year, and that someday I won’t have to worry about papers or borders. Until then, I will keep working, learning, and taking care of my son, because he is the reason I started this journey and the reason I keep going.
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Migration Story from Russia
I was born on March 3, 1980, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. I entered the world just as the final curtain was coming down on the Soviet era, and I spent my entire youth navigating the chaotic, unpredictable aftermath, the true dawn of a new Russia. What defined those years wasn’t a clear political doctrine; it was a constant, relentless uncertainty. I suppose that feeling of deep, inescapable instability is the core reason I eventually decided to leave.
My childhood was a study in contrasts. I remember the simple, enduring comforts, the taste of sunflower seeds bought on the street, the familiar rumble of the tram cars, the camaraderie of playing football after school in courtyards surrounded by old, solid buildings. But these moments of normal life were just windows in a house built on sand. Below the surface, the adults were terrified. As the old Soviet framework dissolved, hyperinflation devoured people’s life savings. Crime rose quickly, and basic things, like stable pensions, just disappeared. Even as a child, you absorb that fear. You can sense that the floor is about to fall out.
My parents were tireless professionals, my mother a nurse, my father an electrician. They worked their full schedules, but in the late 1990s, their salaries were constantly devalued by inflation. It felt like running on a treadmill. You earned your wages, but before you could spend them on anything meaningful, their value had halved. I remember the financial strain being a constant, low, exhausting dread in our home.
When I finished school, I decided to pursue computer science. My thinking was simple: technology was new; it was modern. Maybe it was a place where corruption and economic collapse couldn’t reach. I graduated in 2002, fully qualified, yet the job market was a broken landscape. I could only find piecemeal, low-wage work, repairing networks, setting up personal computers. I had a valuable degree, but I couldn’t secure the one thing that defined success: a predictable, stable career path. My life was not about moving forward; it was about surviving the current month.
The decision to migrate was triggered not by a single financial crisis, but by witnessing the total collapse of the social contract. In 2006, I saw something in public that I can’t forget. Outside a busy area, a young man was violently attacked by several men, some of whom were clearly posing as police, because he refused to pay what everyone knew was “protection money.” The true, visceral shock was the crowd’s reaction. Total, absolute silence. No one moved. No one dared to call the real police, because they might be involved. In that moment, I realized the full, terrifying truth, you had zero institutional protection, and you had no communal support. Fear was the only thing governing public life.
This realization, combined with the fact that several friends had already successfully moved to places like Canada and the UK, forced my hand. I wasn’t motivated by grand political ideals; I was motivated by an existential need for peace and stability. I needed a country where my effort would actually translate into a secure life. Leaving Russia became a necessity, the only way to exchange a chaotic, high-risk existence for a stable, growth-oriented one.
In 2008, I submitted my application for a work visa to the U.S. I wasn’t running from persecution; I was running toward possibility. When the visa was approved in early 2009, I was stunned. It felt like an impossible lottery win. I arrived in the United States on September 12, 2009, landing at San Francisco International Airport. I had a single bag, six hundred dollars, and a fear so deep I couldn’t name it. My first language was Russian; my second was survival.
That first year in America was a brutal lesson in humility. I worked crushing hours, cleaning offices, repairing electronics late into the night, just to cover the rent. Everything was unfamiliar: the language, the expectations, the way people interacted. I felt displaced and profoundly exhausted. But over time, through sheer persistence, I secured an IT support job, finally using my skills. The most significant shift I experienced wasn’t the external one of changing countries; it was the internal, psychological one. In Russia, my mind was always on guard. I was cautious, suspicious of authority, and constantly alert to danger. Here, I slowly, cautiously, began to let go of that burden. I was learning to trust institutions, something entirely foreign to my experience.
The moment that perfectly illustrated this change was my first visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). I went in prepared for the inevitable bureaucratic snags and braced myself for the subtle, or not-so-subtle, demand for a bribe to speed things up. When the workers simply performed their duty and processed my paperwork efficiently and honestly, I was truly astonished. It was a tiny, mundane interaction, but it signalled a massive truth: the system was designed to serve, not to extort. This allowed the constant tension in my mind to finally dissipate.
The culmination of my entire migration story arrived in 2016 when my son was born. Holding him, I understood the profound responsibility I now carried. My purpose shifted entirely from just securing my own life to ensuring his future was built on a foundation free from the instability and constant fear that had shaped my own childhood. Migration was not the end of my story; it was the essential tool I used to create a new, stable legacy for my family. I want him to inherit opportunity, not caution.
My story isn’t about escaping a war zone. It’s about facing the broken realities of modern life, economic chaos, systemic corruption, and the feeling that your life’s efforts could be nullified by forces beyond your control. Leaving was not an act of betrayal. It was an act of profound, existential hope for stability.
My identity did not shrink when I came here; it expanded. I remain Russian, I speak the language, I cook the food, and I miss my city’s beauty, but I am also someone who made a deliberate choice to build my future on stable ground. That single choice reshaped my life, my opportunities, and the entire trajectory of my family.
If I could speak to my younger self, I would say this:
You are not abandoning home.
You are carrying home with you into a better future.
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Next two stories on Thursday
How Vets in Labor Have Joined Fight Against Trump
By Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon
“The government needs to keep the promise it made to veterans. We served our country, and now they’re breaking their promise to take care of us. We can’t accept that.”
James Jones, a FUN member and Gulf War veteran from Boone, North Carolina
In the U.S., seventeen million people, across multiple generations, have a shared personal identity based on their past military service. About 1.3 million former service members currently work in union jobs, with women and people of color making up the fastest-growing cohorts in their ranks. According to the AFL-CIO, veterans are more likely to join a union than nonveterans. In a half dozen states, 25 percent or more of all actively employed veterans belong to unions.
In the heyday of industrial unionism in the 1950s and ‘60s, tens of thousands of former soldiers could be found on the front lines of labor struggles in auto, steel, meat-packing, electrical equipment manufacturing, mining, trucking, and the telephone industry. Many World War II vets became militant stewards, local union officers, and, in some cases, well-known union reformers in the United Mine Workers (UMW) and Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers.
According to labor consultant and author Jane McAlevy, the post-war union movement better understood the “strategic value” of veterans than organized labor today. In her own advice to labor clients about contract campaign planning, she recommended the enlistment of former service members whose past “experience with discipline, military formation, and overcoming fear and adversity” could be employed on picket-lines and strike committees.
In addition, the high social standing of military veterans in many blue-collar communities can be a valuable PR asset when “bargaining for the public good” or trying to generate greater public support for any legislative/political campaign.
A D-Day Rally in DC
The wisdom of that advice has been confirmed repeatedly since January of this year by the front-line role that veterans in labor have played in resisting Trump Administration attempts to cut government jobs and services and strip federal workers of their bargaining rights. At agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), more than 100,000 former service members have been adversely affected by these right-wing Republican attacks.
In response, the Union Veterans Council of the national AFL-CIO brought thousands of protestors to a June 6 rally on the Mall in Washington, D.C., to hear speakers including now retired United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts, a Vietnam veteran.
With local turnout help from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), National Nurses United, and the Labor Notes-assisted Federal Unionist Network (FUN), other anti-Trump activists participated in 225 simultaneous actions in locations around the country, including in red states like Alaska, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Idaho, Kansas, and Kentucky. Some “watch parties,” organized for real-time viewing of the D.C. event, were held in local union halls to highlight the labor-vet overlap.
James Jones, a FUN member and Gulf War veteran from Boone, North Carolina, traveled all the way to D.C. on the 81st anniversary of D-Day because he wanted Congress to understand the importance of VA services to veterans like himself.
Jones now works for the National Park Service and belongs to AFGE. He’s urging all his friends who are vets, fellow VA patients, and federal workers to start “going to rallies, and join these groups that are really fighting back. The government needs to keep the promise it made to veterans. We served our country, and now they’re breaking their promise to take care of us. We can’t accept that.”
VA Not For Sale
Private sector union activists, like CWA Local 6215 Executive Vice-President David Marshall, a former Marine and member of Common Defense, the progressive veterans’ group, have also been rallying their fellow veterans, inside and outside the labor movement.
Marshall has joined rank-and-file lobbying in Washington, D.C. against Trump-Vance cuts in VA staffing and services, calling them “a betrayal of a promise to care for us.” Supporters of Common Defense’s “VA Not for Sale” campaign fear that privatization of veterans’ healthcare will destroy what Marshall calls the “sense of community and solidarity” that VA patients experience when they get in-house treatment, as opposed to the costly and less effective out-sourced care favored by President Trump. “Regular hospitals don’t understand PTSD or anything else about conditions specifically related to military service,” he says.
An AT&T technician in Dallas, Marshall was also a fiery and effective speaker at that city’s big “No Kings Day” rally last June, when he explained why he and other veterans in labor are opposing MAGA extremism, political and state violence and related threats to democracy.
“We’ve seen peaceful protestors met with riot gear, and we’ve heard the threats to deploy active-duty Marines against American citizens,” he told a crowd of ten thousand in Dallas last June. “Let me be clear: using the military to silence dissent is not strength; it’s tyranny. And no one knows that better than those who have worn the uniform.”
Veterans for Social Change
Marshall is a third-generation union member born and raised in southern West Virginia. His father and grandfather were coal miners; his grandmother Molly Marshall was active in the Black Lung Association that helped propel disabled World War II veteran Arnold Miller into the presidency of the UMW in 1972. During his own 25- year career as a CWA member, Marshall has served as a safety committee member, national union convention delegate, and now officer of his local.
Marshall belongs to CWA’s Minority Caucus, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and the NAACP. Along with Britni Cuington, a Local 6251 steward and Air Force vet, he attended a founding meeting of Common Defense’s Black Veterans Caucus at the Highlander Center in Tennessee.
Both Marshall and Cuington have since lobbied against the re-districting scheme concocted by Texas Republicans to secure more House seats in mid-term voting this year. Testifying at a public hearing on behalf of the Texas AFL-CIO, Cuington pointed out that “minority veterans already face barriers to access to the services, benefits, and economic opportunities we have earned.” She condemned the state’s new district lines as racial gerrymandering in disguise that will disenfranchise “veteran heavy, working class neighborhoods.”
In his role as a CWA organizer, Marshall has signed up thirty Common Defense field organizers around the country—almost all fellow vets—as new members of his local. He’s now helping them negotiate their first staff union contract. In addition, Marshall encourages former service members in other bargaining units to participate in the union’s Veterans for Social Change program, which has done joint Veterans Organizing Institute training with CWA.
One fellow leader of that rank-and-file network is Keturah Johnson, a speaker at the 2024 Labor Notes conference. She got a job at Piedmont Airlines in 2013 as a ramp agent, after her military service and then become a flight attendant. A decade later, she became the first queer woman of color and combat veteran to serve as international vice president of the fifty-thousand-member Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.
A National Guard Casualty
One CWA member much in the news lately because of his current National Guard service is 24-year old Andrew Wolfe, a lineman for Frontier Communications in Martinsburg, W. Va. He was seriously wounded—and a fellow Guard member killed– in late November after being sent to patrol duty in Washington, D.C. (His assailant was a mentally ill, CIA-trained former death squad member from Afghanistan, relocated to the U.S. after the collapse of the U.S. backed government there in 2021.)
According to Marshall, “it’s shameful that they were ever put in that position,” by a Republican governor going along with Trump’s federalization of Guard units for domestic policing purposes. “It’s all political theatre,” he says. “They were just props, just standing around, with no real mission.” Along with Common Defense, Marshall praises the six fellow veterans in Congress whose recent video statement reminding active duty service members of their “duty not to follow illegal orders” led President Trump to call them “traitors” guilty of “seditious behavior” that should be punished by hanging.
“We have to stay in lock-step with them and show everyone following the Constitution that we have their back,” Marshall says.
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Attack on Venezuela: Democracy Demands Solidarity With People—Not States
By Clifton Ross
The Jan. 3 attack on Venezuela has exposed faultlines in the Bolivarian project and possible fractures in the ruling clique of the messianic Bolivarian revolution. The whole affair poses serious challenges to us as internationalists. Which side can we support, if any?
If we believe in democracy, the people of Venezuela have already answered that question for us. On July 28, 2024 they elected opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia with 66% of the vote. More than 90,000 people volunteered as poll watchers and millions took to the streets to defend that election. Nicolás Maduro ignored the results of that election with the full cooperation of government institutions.
Now González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado are being sidelined by both the Donald Trump and the new Delcy Rodríguez regimes. Although González remains the only legitimate ruler, it appears unlikely, if not impossible, that he will be able to return to Venezuela from exile in Spain. Trump has taken out the dictator and his wife, but has left the dictatorship intact.
“An internal coup facilitated by imperialism”
As I’ve been unable to safely return to Venezuela since 2013, I rely on scholars, analysts and reporters, most of them Venezuelans, who I know I can trust from my years of writing on the subject. To get perspective on the current situation, I first checked in with Rafael Uzcátegui, sociologist, activist and former national coordinator of Venezuela’s oldest and largest human rights organization, PROVEA. Rafael sees the capture of Maduro as an “internal coup” and the events surrounding the military operation that took out the Venezuelan dictator indicate that he may be right. In his piece posted on Facebook from Mexico City where he now lives—in forced exile like roughly one quarter of the Venezuelan population—Rafael warned readers against “becoming the useful fools of the (left-wing) oligarchy.”
While recognizing that the Jan. 3 attack was “worthy of condemnation from many angles,” Uzcátegui notes that current information indicates this was “an internal coup within Chavismo, facilitated by ‘imperialism.’” Now-President Delcy Rodríguez’s actions since the attack give weight to his argument.
Rodriguez, the former vice-president, was in Russia at the time of the attack, even though Venezuelan airspace had been declared a “no fly zone” by the US. She could only have managed to leave the country, then, with the help or assent of the US. According to Anatoly Kurmanaev and others reporting for The New York Times (Kurmanaev is another excellent source on Venezuela), Delcy Rodríguez had been chosen weeks earlier as “an acceptable candidate to replace Mr. Maduro, at least for the time being.” When one asks, “cui bono?” and observes the complicated dance that she did in the aftermath of the attack, her role becomes clearer.
Right after the attacks, the new President of Venezuela condemned the action and engaged in the appropriately anti-imperialist rhetoric of the Bolivarian aristocracy. Rodríguez condemned the attack and declared that “there is only one president in Venezuela and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros.” When Trump threatened her with an even worse fate than Maduro’s, she backed down the following day and offered a conciliatory message that Uzcátegui posted on his page with the words, “draw your own conclusions.” In her message, which also began with a nod to the anti-imperialists, she said “We extend the invitation to the US government to work together on a cooperation agenda aimed at shared development, within the framework of international law and to strengthen lasting community coexistence.” Most telling was the fact that in her message there was no mention of having Nicolás or Cilia returned to the country.
According to the Venezuelan constitution, when a president is removed from power, whether by death, abdication or, in this case, a kidnapping, elections are to be held within 30 days for a new president. The Bolivarian government has long since decided to ignore any inconvenient requirement of its own constitution (initiated by Hugo Chavez in 2000) and Rodríguez no doubt knows that Maria Corina Machado (MCM) would easily beat her in an electoral contest. So there has been no mention of elections, and Trump himself declared that Machado, the Nobel winner who called on him to intervene in the country and has flattered him and promoted his policies incessantly since winning the Prize last year, “has no respect in the country” of Venezuela.
Prospects for the democratic opposition and social movements
Despite Trump’s ignorant assessment of MCM’s role in Venezuela, she continues to be the most popular leader in the country, but the opposition that supports her has been neutralized. While as much as 85% of Venezuelans consider Maduro to be illegitimate, based on his theft of the July 28, 2024 election, an equivalent number of Venezuelans see Urrutia as the only legitimate ruler. Nevertheless, it’s now clear from the lack of opposition to Maduro’s capture, the conduct of the operation, the way the Bolivarians have regrouped around Rodríguez, and Trump’s own statements, that neither the perpetrators nor co-conspirators in the Jan. 3 attack have any interest in allowing liberal democracy to return to Venezuela.
Unfortunately, prospects for the opposition to reorganize itself now are fairly bleak. Not only has MCM allied herself with the traitorous Trump, but there is very little left in the country from which to build a democracy after 25 years of Chavista rule. Hugo Chávez began destroying the institutions and rewriting the history of the Venezuelan Democratic Revolution of 1958 from the moment he came to power. No sooner had Chávez been buried in 2013 than the years of battling Madurismo began, first with the student revolt of 2014. Those protests continued, almost daily, for years, followed by massive daily demonstrations against the Maduro dictatorship throughout the spring and summer of 2017. Then came the Juan Guaidó* fiasco of 2019, and the repression in the aftermath of the theft of the 2024 presidential elections. Every attempt to bring about real democracy has been crushed and now most of the leadership of the liberal democratic opposition is either in jail, in exile or in hiding.
There is a growing awareness on the left in the US and other areas where populist fascism is growing that a liberal democratic order is the only environment within which social movements can be organized and competing parties can arise to challenge dictatorial power. Until we experienced the first taste of fascism, many of us had been convinced by Leninist ideas and the rhetoric of authoritarian left regimes, like those of Chávez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. We never imagined that we in the US would be in the situation of the Venezuelan opposition and social movements.
Indeed, the coup that captured the Bolivarian leadership completes a strange cycle. Chávez was the harbinger of the wave of populism that has swept the world since 1999, and now at its apparent zenith, that wave completes a circle from left to right with Trump’s attack on Venezuela. Trump has at once brought the Bolivarian Revolution under his control, for the moment, and assumed its mantle. The enantiodromia—the process of things turning into their opposites—from left to right is culminating in this dramatic moment, and it therefore is crucial that we understand the process and rethink everything we once believed we knew.
Solidarity with people, not states
Throughout this first quarter of the 21st century political activists have continued to judge things by the ideological frame of left and right, an antiquated frame that goes back to the French Revolution. But more and more thoughtful people on the left and the right are recognizing that the actual political poles today are the authoritarian kleptocrats versus the populations they rule. It’s now apparent that authoritarian kleptocrats can be found across the political spectrum, and their rhetoric is merely a matter of culture and style. Here it’s urgent that we follow Uzcátegui’s advice to “Search, contrast, connect the dots, ask yourself questions… And, above all: think for yourself.”
If we step outside of our ideological frame, let go of our ideological loyalties just long enough to consider an objective analysis of our situation and the situation of the people of the world, we might recognize that the only object of our solidarity should be the subjects under the rule of the criminal networks taking over the world. In each instance this international crime syndicate comes to power with its own national character and rhetoric to mesmerize the population. It manifests as here as populist capitalism, in Venezuela as socialism and in Europe as varieties of fascism, but in every case the results are the same: the demise of liberal democracy, rule of law, separation of powers, and the institutionalization of dictatorship, economic decline, rampant corruption, repression and fear.
In the US many of us in the struggle for democracy are recognizing the need to build alliances with the former Republicans, the Never-Trumpers and other elements of the Right to fight the fascist forces of MAGA. We need to take that coalition-building international and acknowledge and support democratic forces around the world, regardless of the political stripe of the states they oppose. Democracy is about the demos, the people, all of us, left and right, of all races, nationalities, tribes and ethnicities. The thousand or so political prisoners of Maduro have now been transferred de facto to Rodríguez, and while they may be construed to be “right wing” prisoners of a “left wing” dictatorship, authentic internationalists need to see them as allies in a common struggle for democracy against the world-wide force of populist fascism.
The piece is edited by: Marcy Rein
* Juan Guaidó was the opposition President of the National Assembly of Venezuela who was technically made president of the country in a parliamentary maneuver to depose Nicolás Maduro. He led a brief failed insurrection and soon was forced to leave the country. He now lives in exile in the United States.
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