In my mind are millennia of all manner of migrations. The myriad of natural and unnatural circumstances that motivate living beings to change locations. The vastly disparate ways we tell stories of what migration means, depending on the migrant. 

 Liberation includes freedom of movement. 

Iterations of this essay were drafted before Thanksgiving, attempts at interrogating my ancestors’ many migrations set against the current terrible attacks on certain types of immigrants. 

The Thanksgiving holiday was created almost 250 years after the event it highlights. It was an effort to pedestal the English pilgrims while ostracizing other ethnicities.

The veneration of the pilgrims is relevant to me, a direct descendant of those early puritan settler colonizers. The irrational demonization of more recent immigrants is also relevant, as my life is deeply enriched by my relationships with people from across North, Central, and South America and beyond. 

Did you know that the pilgrims did not actually invite the Wampanoag to their 1621 harvest celebration, despite all that members of that tribe had done to help them survive? That dynamic feels all too familiar.

Liberation requires reciprocity. 

In the process of pondering the pilgrims and inaccurate tales of “Thanksgiving,” I read the following essays by Indigenous writers, which I am grateful for: 

The myth of Thanksgiving is as American as it is wrong by Rebecca Nagle

The Convenient Fallacy of Thanksgiving and the Coddling of White America: AKA – America needs to wake the F*ck Up by Sean Sherman

In terms of this topic, I’d rather share their powerful words than any more of my own. I encourage you to read them.

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Now Christmas is around the corner, and we’re into another batch of mixed up stories and selective truths. Though the central figure in our country’s dominant religion (aka “the reason for the season”) was an immigrant who championed the oppressed, these facts are unlikely to impact policy.

As products from other countries cross our borders at ridiculous rates this month, this is doubtful to cause those in power (who are profiting from consumerism) to question the use of violence to control which people can do the same.

Not to mention forgetting the pagan roots of the holiday, and mostly ignoring the celebrations held by minority religions throughout the year.

The puritan pilgrims came here for religious freedom, yet their ideologies have been imposed on us without consent.

The contradictions can be crushing. 

So I turn my heart to miracles, like the milagro of our Lady of Guadalupe whose day, el Día de la Virgen Guadalupe, is today, December 12.

The story of her appearance to Cuauhtlatoatzin (San Juan Diego) is beautifully told by Marisol Jiménez here. As Marisol writes, Tepeyac, “the hill where the Indigenous goddess was worshipped, a Christian basilica was built shaped in the Christian practice and absorbing the goddess Tonantzin into the Mother Mary figure and renaming her Our Lady of Guadalupe – a fate of erasure shared by countless Black and Indigenous goddesses for millennia.”

 “Still,” she continues, “the people remembered and have fiercely loved their Goddess of the Americas as the protector of our people, of our children, and of our movements for social justice. To this day, people travel by foot and on their knees for miles to make pilgrimage to Tepeyac and honor Tonantzin – Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

“It is a complicated and beautiful story of power and oppression and resistance and rebellion and what it means to believe in the voices of our people.”

Liberation is fertilized by faith. 

The winter solstice, and the miracle of the return of the light, is upon us. A reminder to hold on to hope through the darkness. 

Every day I am amazed by the miraculous achievements of organizers in our community. Taking the loose threads of this messy world and weaving them into webs of protection and possibility. Amidst trauma and terror, seeds of solace are sown. 

In the spirit of planting the seeds of future miracles, I invite you to make a donation to Semilla de Vida (Seed of Life), a Latina and youth-led grassroots initiative helping Latinx and Black communities recover their ancestral agriculture knowledge and build awareness about food justice, climate change, and mutual aid.

Liberation is love. 

Liberation is love. 

Liberation is love. 

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