Redirecting The Fight: Editor's Note

By Angie Barrios Mackepeace (she/they), Editor-In-Chief of Gente Cuaderno

Modern American discourse is wavering on conflicting ideas of how our country’s history, institution, and fundamental ideals formulate an American identity. Ideals that have become like ammunition in the fight, are confounded within narratives. Attending a protest in Downtown Los Angeles, I read signs. Signs that act as signifiers for the culture (immigrant, Latino, Mexican… whatever you’d like to call it) holding up the message against hypocrisy. Some signs were held up with wooden rulers, taped, and others were less obvious. An older couple walked in front of me, holding a rosary between their interlocked hands. They walked in-line with the hundreds of other protesters and presented a beautiful humility in their dedication to the cause. I read this proposition of love, fear, and bravery, and determined that this was the narrative I’d wanted to take home with me. 

Narratives are told. They are heard. Then, in times of hostility, they are fabricated on all ends. Narratives can appear to be violated and mistreated but what we would like to communicate to you, is that what has been robbed, hidden, left-for-dead, is the truth. We might be nostalgic for the illusion that truth once guided our politics and our ideals as Americans. We might be idealistic in a country that begs us to be pessimistic. Whatever the hope is, it is genuine and it is truthful.

This project hopes to consolidate the truths that work to project a stronger united front of the people. The archive that the Gente Cuaderno becomes will tell many narratives, but also produce one that represents the heart of its people. I welcome all to the collective work that a narrative, a voice, entails, with excitement and confidence. 

In-Time

Popular coverage of the series of protests in Los Angeles and across the United States has painted a violent and disruptive picture for the public. The media outlets that control the story by deciding what their audiences do or don’t see are pushing fragmented narratives that confuse viewers and hinder the positive effect of the growing movement.

Hundreds of protesters crowded the streets, responding to the ongoing intimidation efforts threatening undocumented immigrants everywhere. Images of the smokey streets, masked individuals, and dozens of Latin American flags crossed with U.S flags are convoluted signs of the message for the government, and the public deserves a clearer statement. 

Through reflection on the actions of protestors and the language of a population full of heart and hurt, our roles as witnesses, participants, and storytellers dictate and guide the development of history, as a literature and truth and can impact matters more than we assume. 

Compartmentalizing the “movement”

The sum of issues and offences at hand are difficult to decipher as a bystander, but they are also overwhelming to grasp as a member of the affected communities. This fight has decades of struggles behind it and a range of avenues, today. We can work with these approaches and even use the interconnectedness of this movement to our advantage when engaging in discourse with our community members. Furthermore, we can strive to unveil the layers of injustice, humility, and history that sit at the core of this movement. We can help divert the message from empty, distasteful statements and remind the public that everything has a reason and nothing is black and white. 

Narrative: a way of presenting or understanding a situation or series of events that reflects and promotes a particular point of view or set of values

(“Narrative.” Merriam-Webster.com). 

The reality is that there is no absolute truth when recounting the convoluted stories of oppressors, the targeted, and the witnesses. In the case of the Los Angeles and local protests, we should focus on a narrative that promotes the underlying reality and the deep-cutting causes and effects, anchored by a strong moral definition that can sustain the anti-immigrant rhetoric and pronouncement. 

Injustice turns to enragement, turns to demonstration. In DTLA, the wronged and the morally opposed join each other to protest and demonstrate such frustrations and are captured by the handheld devices in the hands of every other body there. Each camera pointed at the thousands of protest signs is trusted with recording and dispensing an enthralling truth which is that the people are showing up.

“RESPECT OUR EXISTENCE OR EXPECT OUR RESISTANCE”

Protestor’s sign, Downtown Los Angeles 6/14/2025

Outsiders, unbeknownst to the millions of lives that each sign and each body represents, won’t be touched by the volume of this demonstration. The demonstration is not only of hurt and injustice, but the pride and resistance that follows. Outsiders of this community and its allies will come to understand the need for resistance against threats on people they don’t recognize if we present the very rights that are under constant threats through this targeted attack. 

The inciting incident of protests is rarely a solitary event. Thinking back to the Black Lives Matter protests, outsiders and uninformed witnesses will credit George Floyd’s arrest and untimely death as the incident that sparked the movement. Insiders, protestors, and informed citizens know that the fight for equality and against racism or legislation that targets Black Americans stems from a deeper prejudice and injustice that has tormented the Black community for centuries. That is the truth they carry with them everyday and are tasked (some might say unfairly so) in spreading to others.

The injustice that trembles in the hearts of protestors today stems from years of discrimination towards Latino immigrants. The fight feels familiar to the immigrants who journeyed to the States decades ago because they’ve lived under the same conditions that feed anti-immigration ideologies and allow their existence in this country to be unrepresented. Individuals have long believed in excluding immigrants from legal discourse and American society based on the belief that their status as undocumented makes them outliers and should be treated as such. 

“We wave the Mexican flag to represent the people you’re targeting- NOT because we forgot where we are.”

Protestor’s sign, Downtown Los Angeles, 6/14/2025

This ideology is founded on a vision for the United States, far removed from the inclusivity and diversity that are this country's biggest assets in innovation and the formation of a national identity. An ideology that comes to life via individual beliefs about how our country should look, is not an ideology that projects the best principles for our legislation or even our public discourse. 

A major part of learning to compartmentalize the movement is separating the ideologies behind each statement, comment, protest sign, news article heading, and piece of legislation that we come across. Not everything aligns with the foundational ideology of the United States that we know.

The “unlawful,” lost on application, has been a recurring theme across discourses. The people have evidence to present a critical opposition to their government’s unlawful action, and it is plentiful. On the other end, the Trump administration has continues inciting the discourse of immigrants as unlawful persons. “Illegals” that must be inhumanely imprisoned and sent to any country that isn’t this one. Within this reckless narrative, there are allusions of truth, backed by the rules that were made years ago to ensure the enforcement of borders and exhaustive citizenship processes. There is also the irony seeping through every Execute Order, every news title, every harmful sentiment hurled at a hard-working immigrant. Our very laws, new and old, are not reflective of the lawful state that once pertained to its people first. 

What has disturbed Americans since the start of the ICE raids and the beginning of this administration is the abrasive impulse behind Trump’s E.O.s and messages to the public. His audience, in favor or against and everything in between, can’t help but pay great attention to his language, his threats, his presumptions, his visions. How we internalize the words of our President says a lot about our ability to participate in our government.

We must, and will, learn how to detail the infringement on our constitutional rights and the rights that American freedom was built on, because this discourse lives beyond what is lawful and what is illegal now. Arguably, the most important truth is the one this country was founded on: Freedom. 

History will repeat itself, and in cycles of great volumes. No Kings is another loaded demand for our government, but, moreso, it is a warning for the generations that have to watch the government be stormed by a regime in all branches and avenues. The narrative that is the United States of America is facing a severe test of character. Amongst the signs that protested the deportation of family members and destruction of communities, held up high by the hands of Americans with a strong taste for anti-fascism, were all-too familiar reminders of what an early onset dictatorship looks like. ‘No Kings’ for America is a crucial cautionary narrative that encapsulates what it means to be an American. The picture here is powerful.

“FAUX-KING JOKE” and a picture of Donald Trump

Protestor’s sign, Downtown Los Angeles, 6/14/2025

As American history will show you, the people don’t just resent undemocratic government action, they fear and loathe it. Everyone in the crowds know what they’re fighting for something bigger than the right to live without ICE on their streets. They know that the threat of Trump’s leadership is to the fabric of the United States’ legacy as a democratic nation. In one way or another, the protestors are fearful of what will become of their home if the wishes of the one come to overpower the will of the many. 

The language of the Constitution of the United States has historically been subject to interpretation because, fundamentally, law and government are meant to serve the people of each era. Generations ago, the Constitution was used to protect the rights of the population under different threats, with different questions, it was interpreted and made effective for and by the people of that era. Law, like society, evolves and adapts to the time. The times, now, are of significant division, partisanship, and political unrest. The Trump Administration has interpreted the law, and by extension, its authority, as a means to their favorable end. 

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

U.S. Const. amend. XIV

The Trump Administration’s stance on birthright citizenship is a clear example of the fluctuating perspective on the interpretation and authority of the Constitution. People have started families in the United States while living here undocumented, that is a truth. They’ve started a new life in the U.S and had the same goals of having children to provide for and help succeed that any other American is entitled to as a human right. These same individuals are being accused of abusing this system. 

The origin of this opposition to an otherwise accepted and familiar right comes from an alternate interpretation of the amendment that prioritizes exclusivity and limits diversity. An amendment that is not based in “Freedom” with a capital “F,” but “freedom,” the subjective state of being free. Once again, there is no single truth about what Americans believe they are free from or free to do. One might pursue freedom from undocumented neighbors and claim that it is their right to do so. Another might revel in the freedom to pursue financial freedom, unencumbered by the obstacles in their birth country. As witnesses to these pursuits, we can work to find the truth that these two arrive, disenfranchising any that does not pertain. Truth of American Freedom should include the freedom to embrace an identity as an America, as is the foundational truth of this country’s origin, and the freedom from enemies of democracy, the system of government we claim as our own. 

“NOS QUITAROS TODO HASTA NOS QUITARON EL MIEDO”

Protestor’s sign, Downtown Los Angeles, 6/14/2025

Truth is not only a function of freedom, it is an emotion. To feel free from cloudy recollections, inauthenticity, and illusions is to feel unburdened by the systems of your life. The truth of the ongoing events in the United States fluctuates with the time period and people involved. Considering today’s players and settings, we must redirect the narrative that asserts “truth” to reflect the most truthful national identity. Reframing the ideologies that dominate narratives could be (part of) the solution to our qualms. Leaving un-American ideals behind, embracing the ones that make us feel free, is part of the uncomfortable journey to uniting the fight.