Sitting in silence. A world on the cusp

 

You may have noticed my posts have slowed. This is intentional. I am sitting with the state of our country right now, and while there are positive distractions all around us, plenty of beauty, plenty of light, for me it does not feel appropriate to post in a "business as usual" manner, as if nothing is happening. I have been deeply affected by what is happening to immigrant communities in the United States and am cautiously watching how it unfolds here in the Rio Grande Valley. This place is not an abstraction. It is neighborhoods, schools, markets, churches, bus stops, border checkpoints, and kitchen tables where people are trying to decide what to do next.

As a researcher, as a forever student of anthropology, and as a relatively new member of this region, I am in a liminal state. Not quite insider, not quite outsider. Watching history write itself in real time. Watching policy turn into lived experience. Watching rumor, fear, hope, and resistance move through communities faster than any official statement ever could. I cannot bring myself to write about other cultural moments without acknowledging that we are living inside one of those moments that future stories will circle back to. These are the kinds of years that become reference points:

Before this. 

After this.

As someone who studies people, community, and the way society shapes stories and oral narratives, I keep wondering. How will we talk about these moments in 10 years? In 20? What words will people use when they tell their children where they were, what they did, what they stayed silent about? How are we talking about it now? Some are loud and grieving in public. Marching, organizing, documenting, posting, calling representatives, showing up to meetings and court dates. Some are silent, not because they do not care, but because they are tired, scared, undocumented, or simply trying to keep their families afloat. Many are in disbelief, caught between headlines and the normalcy of having to go to work, make dinner, help with homework.

Anthropology teaches us that crisis does not just live in big events. It lives in the small adjustments people make every day. The new route someone takes to avoid a checkpoint. The way a parent starts carrying documents in a plastic folder. The hushed conversations at school pickup. The way certain topics suddenly go quiet in public spaces. These are data points, yes, but they are also human adaptations to uncertainty.

I have seen many Indigenous groups rise up, and instead of saying "we told you so", they are saying we understand, we are here, do not give up the fight. There is a long memory there. A lived archive of removal, surveillance, family separation, and cultural endurance. What I am witnessing now echoes histories that were never really past, just unevenly distributed. I see people fighting for their morals, their way of life, their sense of right and wrong- whether I personally agree with them or not. I see faith communities offering sanctuary. I see organizers translating legal information into plain language. I see young people learning words like asylum, due process, and deportation far earlier than they should have to. And I also see what I think of as corporate candles in the dark. Carefully worded statements, polished graphics, brands signaling concern while continuing business as usual. Small flames that look like light but do not give off much heat. 

In contrast, the real light right now is coming from people who have very little power on paper but are still showing up for one another in tangible ways. Rides to court. Shared childcare. Food dropped off quietly. Phone trees. Group chats. This is community as infrastructure. We are at a critical tipping point. You can feel it in conversations, in the pauses before people answer certain questions, in the way eyes scan a room before someone speaks. So for now, I am sitting in silence. Watching. Observing. Trying to understand my own perspective and how it might cloud or skew what I think I am seeing. Trying to be responsible with the stories I will eventually tell.

That being said, if there are events you think I should witness, movements I should be paying attention to, spaces where people are gathering, learning, resisting, or simply holding each other up, I am listening. Part of this work is knowing when to speak. Another part is knowing when to sit in the dark a little longer and let your eyes adjust.