MISSSEY

We have already seen the brutal impact of the aggressive immigration enforcement across the country. Too many have lost their lives. Too many have been torn apart. But other effects are slower to show up.

Lost income, instability, survival economies, and increased vulnerability.

History reminds us that when systems push communities into precarity, young people carry the consequences for years. Even now, our communities are still reeling from the war on drugs.

This war on immigrants, too, will have lasting effects. That is why we need to act now. To show courage in protecting one another and making sure the young people in our communities know that they can rush to us in moments of crisis.

We are opening this year at a moment that is asking something of all of us.

Courage doesn’t always look loud, and it doesn’t mean putting yourself in harm’s way. Courage looks like standing taller than fear.

Over the last year, and again this week in Minnesota, communities facing violence and intimidation meant to silence them have refused to disappear. They have borne witness. They have documented. They have stayed rooted in truth.

This courage is practiced. For many of us who have survived exploitation and violence, it is something we learn over time: how to name harm, how to interrupt abuse, how to link arms and protect each other.

Still, this year will test us — politically, socially, morally. The question isn’t whether harm will exist. It’s how much of it we are willing to tolerate, ignore, or normalize. And how tall we are willing to rise together — undeterred, powerful, and committed to protection in the face of state and interpersonal violence.

At MISSSEY, we have returned from our break ready to show up. To stand in. To protect our communities and the young people in them.

We open this year committed to courage that is collective, intentional, and rooted in care.
What about you?