Learning to Organize From the In-Between

By Lizette Gonzalez (she/her)

The first time I attended a rapid response training, I remember scanning the crowd and realizing something both empowering and deeply unsettling: many of the organizers were people like me, first-generation college students, children of immigrants, and young people from mixed-status families. We were leading chants, coordinating logistics, and speaking through megaphones about policies that directly shape our families’ lives. Yet when the protest ended and we return home, the distance between those two worlds, the world of organizing and the world of home, felt vast and burdensome. It stretched far beyond than I wanted it to, like a gap I was constantly trying, and failing, to close with my family. 

For students from mixed-status families, activism is not simply political. It is personal survival, emotional labor, and identity all together. It means navigating the indescribable disconnection between the community you come from and the spaces you now occupy as a college student and advocate. It means constantly asking yourself when to step forward, when to speak, and when your voice carries responsibilities beyond yourself. This tension is not unique to me, but it is rarely acknowledged in conversations about what it means to organize. 

On my campus, organizing often feels urgent and collective. In moments of crisis, when rumors spread about a raid or when a policy announcement puts entire communities on edge, organizing becomes immediate. Messages circulate quickly. Volunteers coordinate transportation. People hold space to process. Or, we simply show up to bear witness.

This causes personal life to become secondary to the urgency of the moment. Burnout becomes a real possibility as a student, an activist, and as a daughter, whose actions constantly feel modeled for younger siblings. Yet outside those organizing spaces, the emotional weight of that work is difficult to articulate. A sense of guilt often silences me. These all lead into moments of confusion and exhaustion. Yes, there are moments when activism brings empowerment: standing beside others who share your story or when realizing that collective action can transform fear into solidarity. But, there are also times when political battles stretch on year after year, it becomes easy to wonder whether anything is actually changing. Watching the same injustices repeat themselves can make even the most committed organizers feel hopeless.

The emotional toll accumulates quietly. Rage, frustration, and grief need somewhere to go. For many students, organizing becomes that outlet. It is a way to channel anger into action. But that outlet also creates a complicated relationship with home. My parents see and understand the work I do and my passions, but their understanding of it is shaped by a different set of experiences and expectations. For them, the idea of protesting or publicly challenging institutions can feel risky. They come from a world where staying quiet was often the safest option. Their priority has always been stability: working, providing, and protecting ourselves. 

When I talk about organizing meetings, protests, or campaigns, I sometimes see a mix of pride and worry in their responses. Pride that their daughter cares about the community. But, I also see their worry that speaking out might bring attention we cannot afford. And then that’s where my spiral kicks in: am I jeopardizing those I love? 

Those conversations reveal a generational divide that many first-generation students recognize. College exposes us to new frameworks for understanding power, inequality, and history. As a Chicanx/Latinx Studies major, my education has given me a language to share what I have lived but never fully named. But gaining that language through my education has also deepened that sense of distance. It’s given me tools to name and analyze the injustices shaping our lives in ways that my family, despite living them, hasn’t had the same access or opportunity to articulate. That same education both empowers me, on a personal level,  and it creates a growing gap between what’s being understood or taken seriously at home. 

Many times my parents tell me they don’t know what I do or study, and that is not a bad thing, but more, is a reflection of the same cycles of power. One begins to move between two worlds that rarely overlap: the academic environment that encourages critique and activism, and the family environment that prioritizes safety and stability. Suddenly, “home” feels more complicated than it once did. Going away to college does not mean leaving your community behind. In many ways, it means seeing it more clearly, its beauty, its resilience, and the structural barriers it faces. Yet that clarity also creates tension. 

Activism demands time, energy, and emotional investment. Late-night meetings, planning actions, coordinating campaigns, and responding to crises can easily consume your schedule and life. At the same time, college is supposed to be a place for friendships, exploration, and personal growth. So what do we do? We show up because the issues are not theoretical. Immigration enforcement, displacement, and racial inequality shape the lives of their families and neighbors. We organize against immigration raids and advocate for community protections because we are defending people we know -- not statistics. That is why some of the most powerful movements in recent years have been led by us first-generation students and children of immigrants. Our activism emerges from lived experience.

However, the broader public often misunderstands this work. Student activists are frequently portrayed as overly ideological or disconnected. But, we are actually navigating the opposite problem. We are connected to the realities of our communities while trying to survive in institutions that are not designed for us. We are not only students, but also translators, advocates, and intermediaries for our families. We step in to navigate systems our parents cannot safely access, whether that means working to support our households, running errands, or speaking on their behalf in spaces where their voices have been constrained or silenced. For me, the journey between these worlds continues. Some days the distance between campus and home feels small; other days it feels enormous. I still struggle to explain to my family what organizing means to me, despite the fact that they are the reason why I am in spaces where communities demand for change. Organizing means bringing my family everywhere I go and my desire for their stories to not be in vain.

At home, my parents often remind me to be careful about the work I do by warning me not to draw too much attention, worried about what could happen if I speak out too loudly. But one day my sister told me she had helped organize an anti-ICE protest at her school. At that moment, I could see something different in my parents’ reactions. Their eyes looked softer when telling my sister they were proud of her. And their voice didn’t question her like they have had with me in the past before. 

Even beneath their worry, there was pride: pride that their daughters were brave enough to speak out, and that the courage I was learning to carry had become something my sister felt strong enough to claim for herself. She mentioned her plan in the most calm way as if doing so was expected. 

This made me wonder if this had to do with a generational shift that has allowed this door to open for my sister. A door that shows our parents that resisting isn’t something we can’t do. Our activism is not just about policy change. It is about bridging worlds that have long been kept apart. It’s about showing our own families that they deserve to dream of a world where we take up space.  That tension begins to deconstruct itself slowly, and it is one that begins at home as at the end of the day, the care, passion, and love we demonstrate as children of immigrants is learned at home.

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Lizette Gonzalez is a first-generation college student at Pomona College studying Chicanx/Latinx Studies. Raised in Inglewood, California, she was a Young Eisner Scholar and attended The Archer School for Girls on a full scholarship. Grounded in her identity, family, and community, she is committed to advocating in spaces where access has historically been limited. She has worked with the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, where she gained insight into community impact within the sports industry, and she currently serves as a research and teaching assistant to Professor Arely Zimmerman. Her personal research focuses on intergenerational Mexican migration, transnational mutual aid and community care, and migrant home-making practices in Inglewood and Lennox, California. She aspires to bridge research, education, community organizing, and community relations in sports to create meaningful, community-centered change.