WEBVTT - Civic Cipher 091920 ft. Alejandra Pablos 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:06.039 Yes, yes, y'all, welcome to another installment of Civic Cipher. 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:10.479 I am your host, rams' Jah, and true to form, 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:16.479 we have another special guest in the building, another freedom fighter, 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:25.880 another social justice warrior, and someone that I really think 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:32.320 needs to get a message to you. Your life is 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.080 going to be better hearing what she has to say. 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:41.559 Her name is Alexandra Pablos. And let's see. I'll talk 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.479 a little bit about what I know of you, but 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.960 you're gonna have to fill in the gaps because I've fortunately, 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.040 I've been able to meet you a few times, and 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.560 of course I've been very inspired by you and your 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:57.520 message and what you stand for. But so I know 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:02.400 that you were born in Mexico and you came here 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:03.160 when you were very young. 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:05.840 That's right, baby, baby. 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:10.559 Okay, And I want to say you spent some time 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:15.240 in Tucson, right, Okay, you grew up in Tucson. Okay, 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.440 but you were you did go to California when you 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:19.160 first came out of right. 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.959 Yeah. So I was in California when I was until 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.000 I was fourteen fifteen, and then I moved to Tucson. 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.840 Okay, Okay, very good. So there are some routes in 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:31.040 the West coast of the United States and in Arizona, 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:36.399 of course. And you know, I think the way the 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.600 story goes is you kind of got in some trouble 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.360 when you were a teenager, and that's kind of been 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:46.000 held over your head by the government and policing agencies 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:48.680 and things like this. And I don't want to tell 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:49.920 too much of the rest of the story because I 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.360 really do want to hear it from you. But I 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:57.720 think it's very important to tell your story before we 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.880 get to what you're doing now, Just your story as 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:04.360 a human being growing up in those circumstances, and how 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.160 maybe some of the things, some of these conditions have 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.040 been used against you or to profile you, or whatever 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.399 the case is. So just talk a little bit about 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.440 growing up and kind of how you kind of got 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:15.320 started on this path. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.840 Sure, thank you for your kind of words. 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:19.480 Of course. 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.280 My name is Alexandra. Folks who know me call me Alee, 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.079 and I am a community organizer. I do a lot 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.560 of national work. By work, I mean a lot of 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:37.320 storytelling work, a lot of organizing relations because we know 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.520 that the only way to really change things right is 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:45.280 to really shift culture. And by shifting culture, it's by 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:49.360 really getting to know one another right and really, you know, 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.639 having joy and who we are instead of criminalization for example, 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:55.880 that might be a new word for folks, and I 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.120 can talk a little bit more about that. But I'm 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.919 a community organized the first and foremost. I'm a storyteller. 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.280 I share my experience in order for you know, to 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.240 make space for other folks to be able to share 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:11.040 their story. And in the world that we live in, 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.600 sometimes storytelling is not a thing that happens. I know 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:20.959 for myself, as a Mexicana immigrant family, working family, family 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.560 that comes with a lot of intergenerational trauma, we didn't 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.560 we don't do a lot of storytelling. So I found 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.160 that when I started doing community organizing work after I 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.920 was incarcerated, I was introduced to Injustices Right, and I 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:35.720 was upset and I was angry, and I was like, 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.240 I need to organize these feelings. So I got introduced 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:40.880 to the movement, and I think through the movement, I 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.520 found the power of storytelling. So I started to share 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.240 my story, my many many stories, right, because my life 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.440 is multiple identities, it's intersectional. I not only care about 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:57.480 you know, education or injustices or racial justice or queer justice. 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.560 I care about all of the things right, humanity rights. 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:07.800 So what happened to me a closer, So what happened 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.760 to me was, honestly, the United States happened to me. 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:14.640 You say, like, I got into some trouble, and I'm like, oh, 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:20.400 I got into this country. This infrastructure already built on racism, right, 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:26.039 rooted in senophobia, right, fear of people, built on lies right, 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:30.040 and what we now see white supremacy built into our peacemakers, right, 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.479 which is the police. So growing up, I didn't really 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.560 care about my immigration status until somebody told me I 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:38.640 was an illegal person. 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:39.240 Right. 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:41.720 I was a legal permanent resident. My mom is a 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.240 naturalized citizen. Most of my family was born here. But 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.159 I have a lot of folks that we're from a 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:50.440 mixed status family. That's what you call, right, folks that 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.000 are not citizens. And I had an opportunity probably at 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.320 some point to become a citizen. But I also never 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:58.799 really needed to write I was a legal permanent resident, 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.800 which sometimes folks call that a green card. You hear 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:05.159 a lot of folks that are documented right or getting DACA. 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.480 Those are folks that are also undocumented but have this 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:12.200 very short term ambiguous kind of protection right now by Obama, 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:14.280 the president, right, And they're DAKA students, so they have 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:16.159 permission to work, they have permission to be here. Promise 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.080 that they won't be deported, right, that they won't be 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.600 actually haunted, like isis haunting people right now. So you 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:24.440 have those folks, right, you have folks that maybe or 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:26.480 state visas. Right. You have folks that have had some 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.560 sort of legal status but over state or myself right, 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.400 committed something that to the US government is deportable, right, 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.040 which minds you in Arizona DUIs are deportable in California 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.040 that are not, for example, So we live in a 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.640 in a state one of the high like the most racist. 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.120 Obviously we know our Pio. We know we come from 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.640 the regime of our Pio. And those are the things 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.520 that inform me, right, racial profiling folks just for being 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.040 for looking like they might be immigrant folks, migrant folks. 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.680 Right, That brings to mind SB ten seventy. 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.200 Right, So we come from that. We're still seeing the 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:00.800 harms of that. 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:01.040 Right. 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.520 People fought, communities fought really hard. I mean, you had 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:05.440 ice out there just like you know, doing the same 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:07.920 shit that cops have been doing. Right to black communities. 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.080 We know as in documented people, as people who've been 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.360 criminalized that you know, like I said, I've been I've 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.720 been formally incarcerated because of a DUI put in deportation 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.440 proceedings for things I already went to through the system, right, 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:21.680 the criminal justice system, which I can now call the 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.640 criminal injustice system. But anyways, when that happened to me, 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.240 that kind of changed my life. Right, I went, I 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.800 got picked up on probation. I was on probation. Ice 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:31.840 picked me up and I just they were like, oh, 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.360 you're going to Mexico. I mean, little do they know 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.560 what they do, because that's you know, they're just jobs. 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:38.920 People don't need to really understand the system. They're like 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.240 oppressing others for right. They have a good job. It's 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.680 probably the only jobs that have good health care, right 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.680 and good benefits. As why all of our people are 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.080 also cops and those are things we also have to battle. 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:52.680 But yeah, so you know, I got I got picked 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.039 up by ICE and then two years spent in in 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.000 our backyard. An now we're away from here. There's an 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.960 immigration center called the Alloyd Detention Center, one of the biggest, 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.240 one of the nastiest. They're all nasty. They're all literally 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.800 a threat to autonomy. Right, just because you were deemed 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.720 and labeled illegal and documented, you can literally be locked 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.280 up for no reason, just for that reason. So when 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:16.160 I was there, it opened up my eyes to like, holy, 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.400 there's a whole lot of other injustices happening, right, and 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.600 it woke me up. Twenty eleven, I began organizing from inside. 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:25.160 I was already before that, Like you, I know, you 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:27.440 asked me who am I before that? And I was 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:29.720 already a teacher. I was already going I had graduated 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:30.880 from the U of A. I was doing a lot 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.760 of community organizing in the school. I used to be 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:39.400 a teacher for the emotionally disabled students, the multiply disabled students, 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.080 so I was in the special ed department. Words that 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.000 I feel like are should be more updated, and there 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.520 probably are. I'm not working in the public schools anymore. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.640 So I think I brought those skills naturally when I 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:51.800 went inside, right when I had to be there. I 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:54.559 started teaching classes in there. I started, you know, leading 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.960 all the conversations with the women, translating, interpreting from them, right, 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.120 like really defending people at the moment, because they we 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.480 would get we would get offered dirty bloody clothes, underwear 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.240 like used underwear that was already used I was expected 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.920 to wear. I fought that because I spoke English, right, 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.360 people are they were? Actually people inside were like why 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.160 are you in here? And I'm like, well, because I'm 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.480 not a citizen, right and you know so far or whatever. 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:21.320 So I started to really see that people that are 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.120 inside are not people that are doing nothing right. I 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.120 should not be here either, nobody should be. There was 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:32.920 people surviving domestic violence, poverty, right, you know, abuse, all 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.000 of this stuff. And then I'm then I started to 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.199 see how bigger it was than us. It was like, oh, 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.839 this is like that the world governments are doing right. 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.200 So then I started to really just yeah, I didn't 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:45.160 want to let it go. I came home. I was 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.880 there for two years and I was only like released. 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.440 I'm still in deportation proceedings as somebody who's lived here 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.360 my whole life. And let me not get into the 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.800 point of like, oh the border cross does and this 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:57.360 used to be in Mexico. You know, this is a 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.560 this is all this indigen is obviously native land, but 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:04.679 as also like a Mexican woman, right, and we are 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.920 fighting identity crisis as well as generation in general. But 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.600 as Mexican people were like, you know, Mestizo people were mixed. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.120 We have some wine in us too, so we come 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:18.600 with that intergenerational trauma. But it's complicated. I've been fighting 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:20.760 for nine years now. It's going to be nine years 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.439 September twentieth when I just picked me up and handcuffed 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:25.319 me and didn't let me go for another two years 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.440 until we fought to come home. After going through many courts, 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.760 spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars for things. 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.280 I've already gone through the system that's supposed to just 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:36.719 be the system. You're supposed to go through it rehabilitated. 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.520 We didn't get I didn't get that benefit of the doubt, right, 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.680 I didn't get to rehabilitate. Yeah. The last thing that 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.800 happened in my immigration court cases, actually I went through 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:48.920 the last court. I saw a judge and the judge 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.120 told me to my face, like, you haven't rehabilitated yet. 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.800 The community turned in over three hundred letters of like character, right, 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:59.559 over one hundred and fifty individual letters mad people outside 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.880 the core right just hala attention, you know, mass attention, 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:08.280 national attention. My case were really viral, and they still 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:10.200 looked into my eyes and said, like, you deserve that 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.480 those charges. You deserve what's happening to you, and you 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:17.040 didn't her rehabilitate. So just that hypocrisy, right, because again 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:22.280 laws are here for black and brown indigenous people. People 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.160 are above the law. The cops are here to protect them, right, 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.760 they take them down peacefully, and they shoot us at 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.840 just by the color of their skin or how we look, 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.880 we're a threat. Right. So I started to grapple with 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.880 those things and just started sharing. I mean I came 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.160 out organizing, volunteering, doing what I could. I actually you know, 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.720 met you, originally doing some just community work, right, because 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:48.880 that was important to me. But I started to just 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:52.040 get real, real politicized because I understood that the things 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.520 that I actually also stood by, I think the identities 0:10:55.559 --> 0:11:01.200 I led right were criminalized, you know. So yeah, so 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.080 I think fast forward, I started to share my story 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.439 maybe three years after being released out of prison, and 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:10.640 I just started to share my story and I started 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:12.920 to see that, wow, people are receiving it really well. Yes, 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.000 I have some people that don't like it that. You know, 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.520 possibly sometimes even some of my own peers, right or 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.960 maybe cringe that I'm just too unapologetic or just really 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:29.880 open and just complicated and unapologetic about it. And I think, yeah, 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.160 I think it's been it's been a long journey. But 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:34.480 I started to share my story and that's what I became. 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.960 I became kind of also like doing some writing, right. 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.000 So I think my organizing work is like around building relation, 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.480 sharing my story and like building with people and creating 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.400 new projects and sustaining ourselves. Is really complicated when you're 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:52.360 going through immigration proceedings, Folks sometimes can't work, sometimes you 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.640 can work. You know, those things are considered, right, those 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.720 things follow you that you've been criminalized into the criminal 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.480 justice system. You know, I've been arrested for being at 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:08.480 protest right profiled in Virginia doing reproductive justice work in DC. 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.000 I was doing that kind of work in the DMV 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.720 area as well, and like being at protests fighting Ice 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.360 over there, being arrested, being brought back over here, been 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.560 asked to turn myself into Ice. Imagine we here you 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.080 know here today. I don't know if you've heard, but 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:29.760 Ice was doing allowing hysterectomies, right, literally taking you know, 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.640 you know the womb out out of out of migrant 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.840 women that were entertained without consent. Right. So those are 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.400 the people that, like I've had to go in and 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.920 out repeatedly just because ICE feels like it, right, just 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.640 because they say they have some risk assessment tools, which 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.840 are the same tools that like say that people in 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.360 certain zip codes right in certain neighborhoods are already like 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.960 maybe gang related. Right again, that kind of like those 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.600 algorithms of the cops us right to bring people in 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:59.160 to say, oh, you're going to be a risk, right, 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.320 things that follow peop outside of when they are done 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.880 with their prison time and they go into probati risk 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.480 management assessment. Always it is just criminalization from prison to 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:11.439 prison to prison pipeline, right, there's like really no true freedom. 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:13.840 So yeah, I think for me, it's just been about 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:18.200 talking about those those that state sanctioned violence, that mass incarceration, right, 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.120 Like that's just huge as that's how we are building 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.760 the back of the United States right now. Right, we 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.040 talk about it happened with enslaved people before, it's happening 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.600 right now with people in prisons. All that free label right, 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.719 all the labor. We see the fires in California, all 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.040 those folks that are out there firing the fires, yet 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.120 they can't come home and be firefires. 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:37.480 Right. 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.280 You will always be a felon, You will always be disposable, 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:44.240 you will always be criminalized. And I said, I said, no, 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.080 I'm nine. I'm going to bring joy int who I am, 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.600 and I'm going to share, and I'm gonna you know, talk, 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:50.360 and I'm going to do the things that I want 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.240 to do, which is like, you know, transform with my 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.480 community alongside of my community, right, think of new things, 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.000 invest in new things, because it doesn't work, we've seen it, right. 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.720 But I think again we are the people speaking up. 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.400 Is a smaller amount of people, right, a smaller percentage, 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.240 and it's about mass shifting, right. So I think that's 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.160 why it's super important to bring these conversations to like 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.480 wider like platforms, right, wider communities, and maybe not so 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.520 much folks and the movements. Sometimes we preach to our 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.880 own a lot. Yeah, And you know, mad respects to 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.200 all the community organizers doing work right now with nonprofits, right, 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.840 and they do their part, right. The folks doing electoral work, 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.239 they do their part is so important to get Trump out, absolutely, 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:33.560 but we understand that that, you know, Trump just really 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:36.960 put America's dirty laundry, the United States dirty laundry out 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:37.440 in the open. 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:38.200 Right. 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.520 We've known that we didn't we don't sustain communities that 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.360 care about support, about care about food and housing. You 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.840 know that we both met right when we were at 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.480 hashtag lunch bag right doing you know, giving back community 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:53.200 to the community. That's what we do, right. Those are 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:55.440 mutual aid groups and that's what we do as well. Right. 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:57.800 We make sure that the people that we're organizing with 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:00.360 have all of those things. And it's a halliss type 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.520 of organizing, right. It's also you know, collectively for us 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.720 to heal and empower our like you know, agencies together 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:08.920 and that's when we're going to really like shift stuff, right. 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.800 And I think for me it's been important to get 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.080 people to understand my story because I'm not the only one. Right, 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.960 people are really scared to become you a citizen still, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:20.880 and so they are at risk or deportation. Everybody who's 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.560 not a citizen is at risk of deportation no matter what. 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:27.120 You can't be doing anything right if you are if 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.400 you have a traffic topic and put you in deportation 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.640 proceedings at this point. So it's really really like wild 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:35.280 to see people just I don't know, if you saw 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.720 Immigration Nation, you got to see that. It's so wild. 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:40.360 I was like kind of like, don't see it. I 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.520 don't want to see trauma porn. But Immigration Nation really 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:47.000 like highlights how nasty ice agents are these cops and 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.960 what they're doing their tactics to literally like follow people 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.840 around to arrest them. Seventy or eighty percent of the 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.080 people they arrest is like collateral, like they were looking 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.640 for someone else, but everybody else just happened to be undocumented, 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:01.600 so they're writing everybody up, building up those bets in 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:02.960 the mass incarceration system. 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.720 Let me ask you this now, of course I know 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.520 the answer, but what do you say to someone who says, 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:13.520 if you want to come to this country, just do 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:15.960 it the right way. Because that's a popular thing, that 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.960 a popular rebuttal whenever you try to point out these injustices. 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.280 So if someone were to say to you, just come 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.040 to this country the right way and there's no problem, 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:25.840 what do you say to that? 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.480 Oh? Man, Well, first I say, got a lot of 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.240 work to do. We still got a lot of work 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.960 to do as organizers and obviously people in general, because 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.720 if you really really looked into it, you really cared, 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:44.080 you really wanted to have an answer for that, because 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.280 I feel like it's a very lazy answer. I think 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.360 it would be that there is really no right way. 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.760 My Diah, my mom's sister, has been waiting for any 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:59.840 type of legal legality and it's been over twenty five. 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:00.840 Years exactly right. 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.320 You know, we see the racism in who gets to 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.159 be allowed you have a list of like you know, 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.200 and also because Mexicans are right next door, we're also 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.760 like really low priority on any really relieves or like 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.000 applicants to come and you know, there's like lotteries and 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:20.080 all this, like Mexicans Filipinos, right the worst of the 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.720 worst are of course like not you know, they don't 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:24.480 get a lot of lottery tickets or you know, it's 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.800 really it's really complicated. But it's again, we got to 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:29.919 look into that. We can't just say, oh, do it 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:31.919 I legally do it the right way. There is no 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.520 the right way when literally the system is like is 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.520 racism itself? Right? When right now we're seeing literally right 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.840 now we're seeing a lot of white immigrant people getting 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.600 more permissions to come, right when we're having bands all day, 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.119 when we literally right now at the border of the 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:53.040 United States at Mexico, there's a refugee camp, the worst 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.760 of these kinds of the world, and we have it. 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.960 And of course the administration of the media. Right that's 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.200 that's right wing, because right wing owns the media. That's 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:03.000 why it's important for you to have this radio show, 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.520 for us to create more programming around this, for us 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.480 to have our own media centers, to talk about our 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:10.280 own and have our own analogus because one day they're 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:11.960 going to take off the Wi Fi and we need 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:13.679 to make sure we know how to put a radio 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:19.520 radio right literally on the antennas. But right now, literally 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:26.200 a refugee camp at the porter people are literally being raped, robbed, hungry, 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:33.159 intense in summer intense, right, And we've denied them the 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.800 human right to ask for asylum. And he and and 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.640 literally this administration and Trump is above above the law. Right, 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.480 So people say, I've broken laws? What the fuck? What 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.600 the what is literally happening? And but we get criminalized, right, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.520 I'm disposable. So I think it's a mass shift on 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.840 like you know what this is both? Right? Like yeah, 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:57.400 like what is this democracy? Who's a part of it? 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.080 The constitution? Who are these men? Nearly not us? Not 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:05.359 people of color, black and brown and indigenous men? You know, 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.320 So you start really to think like what the heck 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.199 is going on? And you start so I think for 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:11.719 those people, it's just like, yo, it's time to do 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.679 some real work, real research, right, And like if you 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.280 have that much privilege to be such away from communities 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.199 that you know that you really don't understand why we're 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.800 where we're at. Right. White people are desperate? Right, White 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:24.880 people like clearly why we're begging for fifteen dollars an 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.239 hour when we know that burgers are fifteen books? Right? Like, 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.159 if you really like have that privilege, then it is 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.879 going to be difficult for those folks to open up. Right. 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:35.320 But are we talking to those folks? 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:36.160 Right? 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:38.639 Is that my audience? I can't turn everybody to do, 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:39.919 you know what I mean? I got to talk to 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.639 our people, right, our people that are right? There still 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.520 are people next my neighborhoods that are calling the police, right, 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:47.520 my own people, my own family members that are pro 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:49.960 cops or pro ice agents. You feel me like, we 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:51.760 got a lot of work to do. The revolution starts 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:53.800 at home, met in our communities. 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.440 So I want to if you're just tuning in, were 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.280 our guests today on Civic Cipher is Alejandra Pablos, I 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:05.200 want you to talk a little bit about me Hinte 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.639 and your work with me Hinda Dope. 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:14.639 Mihinte is a Chicken eggs LATINX digital organizing hub, a 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:23.720 network of super dope healers, organizers, artists, you know, just activists, advocates, 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:29.160 pro black, pro worker, promohad, pro queer, all of these 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.640 pros right because we need to say them. We need 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:33.000 to say them right, and we need to be out 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:34.639 loud about it, and we need to bring join all 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.919 of our identities. So it is an organizing hub. Is 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.320 my political home, one of many of my political homes, 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.360 but also one of my favorites, and it's where I've 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.320