My bullet journal tells me I haven’t posted in a while. I wanted to write about teaching today, about a particular topic that I’ve been thinking about interesting ways to teach. Honestly, my heart is not in it. My heart feels broken.

McAllen, Texas is the biggest site of the horrific child and infant detention centers, which will soon be expanded to keep families together…in jail. It’s where thousands of kids lie on concrete floors unsure of when they’ll ever see their families again. It’s also the town adjacent to the one I grew up in (Pharr, TX). My family is there. I shop there. I eat there. I hang out there. My heart is there, and my heart hurts.

Readers of this blog know that my first son Connor was unexpectedly stillborn, and I bring that up not to elicit sympathy for myself, but to say that having experienced that pain of not being able to hold and keep safe the child you were meant to protect is shattering. Those mothers and fathers are having their hearts ripped out and their children are being terrorized by this administration. It’s cruel, inhumane, horrific, and I don’t know what else. There isn’t a word harsh enough to describe the world right now. In the faces of those children I see my sons, my nephew, myself and my sister, my cousins and my friends, all of whom have the privilege of being born brown on this side of the border. I 100% identify with those parents just trying to find a better life for their children, who they love more than anything in this world.

So, like many of you, I do what I can to help support children and families and encourage others to do the same. Donate to RAICES, KIND, and NETA. Help REFORMA help children. Buy books for my amazing colleague, Lisa Cruces’ book drive. Vote. Protest. Call all those assholes in office. Basically stay human in the face of inhumanity and fight against it.