We All Bleed the Same
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LISTENING: to my air purifier work
FEELING: excited about a crafty 2026
SEEING: my desk finally neat-ish
Wednesday marks the first anniversary of the Los Angeles wildfires. The flames killed at least 31 people. The new year started with the U.S. violently striking several states in Venezuela, killing at least 56 people. Now, as I write this newsletter, news has broke that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis. She has finally been identified as Renee Nicole Good, a mother, a wife, a fighter for her community.
I'm not sure where to begin. This is a climate and environmental justice newsletter. My goal, always, is to amplify the voices of the most vulnerable — to shed light on the possibilities that lie where crisis and community meet. I'm not sure that I've ever witnessed a more heightened period of crisis. President Donald Trump is lighting fires everywhere he goes — in my beloved Latin America and in the American cities where my people live.
So I don't want to tell you all what you already know. That Trump wants Venezuela's oil. That recovery in L.A. will take many years to come. That this ICE killing isn't the first, and it won't be the last. Instead, I want to point you to the miraculous ways communities have come together despite an ever-increasing hostile environment that the U.S. government is creating.
In Los Angeles, survivors have come together to launch an art exhibit that tells their stories in their own words. Art won't bring back the homes and memories lost, but art can heal. It can empower.
Across the globe, protesters have taken to the streets to denounce U.S. imperialism. Sure, some Venezuelans are celebrating the downfall of dictator Nicolás Maduro, but many others are sounding the alarm of dangerous U.S. foreign policy, whose history has often failed the people of the Global Majority. I'm not finding much evidence yet, but mutual aid networks are the ones who tend to pick up the pieces after such attacks. I'm looking forward to reading the stories of the people of Venezuela who resist and build new movements as a result of this madness.
In Minneapolis, people have quickly mobilized to gather where ICE killed a legal observer just blocks away from where police killed George Floyd in 2020, spurring one of the greatest moments of U.S. revolution. The community has already put up a memorial with candles and flowers to honor the woman who remains unnamed. People threw snowballs at the police.
All of these issues are connected. ICE is looking for undocumented immigrants, but what pushes people to flee their countries and try their hands at a life in the U.S.? Extreme weather events, like the fires in Los Angeles, displace people. So does war and conflict, like the air strikes in Venezuela.
Ultimately, the people of the world can't spend energy trying to reduce emissions or cut plastic out of their lives when they're simply trying to survive or find a semblance of peace. What they can — and must — do, however, is lean on one another.
And in every disaster I've followed, be it weather- or war-related, that's what pushes people forward: the love and care they have for each other. 🌀
MISSED MY POSSIBILITIES '25 PLAYLIST? HERE IT IS. SAVE IT :)
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