What’s giving you hope?

(Raleigh, NC – December 12, 2025) For many advocates across North Carolina, this year, and especially these last few weeks, has been emotionally shattering. ICE raids have returned to communities that have already lived through a decade of fear. Families are once again creating emergency plans for the worst-case scenario. Communities are canceling medical appointments, skipping work, and not taking their children to school. The fear is loud. And the silence is even louder. 

As the daughter of immigrants, the scapegoating we are witnessing is not new. History is repeating itself, again, and the familiar narrative has returned: blame immigrants for every systemic failure in this country. I have spent these weeks supporting families who remind me so much of my own, and the weight of memory sits heavy. I know too well what it means to live in the shadows. To move in silence. To hope that if you stand still enough, maybe the world won’t notice you. 

My own family’s journey is a reminder of how fragile safety can be. Under the previous Trump administration, my mother lived undocumented in rural North Carolina, and every knock at the door felt like a threat that could change our lives forever. Today, she is a U.S. citizen. That transformation should feel like a triumph. But the truth is, even citizenship does not erase the trauma, exhaustion, and vigilance that immigrant families carry. Right now, the fear persists for one painful, clear reason: it does not matter if you are a U.S. citizen. ICE has shown, repeatedly, that citizenship does not protect you from racial profiling. We’ve seen them target anyone with brown skin, arresting first and asking questions later. 

But, in the past three weeks, I have seen something extraordinary, something beautiful rising out of the chaos. The raids have awakened a sleeping giant. People who once felt untouched by policy decisions are realizing that no one is far beyond reach. From public education to Medicaid access to the rising cost of living, people across North Carolina are feeling the consequences of policy choices they were told would “restore order.” But instead of shrinking back, people, especially young people, are standing up. 

What gives me hope?

 

It’s the walkouts spreading across the country. It’s the teenagers in Wilson County who are making protest signs on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s the look on their faces when they realize they are fighting for something bigger than themselves. As I watched them, one of them asked me, “Are you okay? You look uncomfortable.” And, at that moment, I understood why. 

When I was their age, I held my first protest sign begging this country to see my undocumented mother as a human being. I begged for safety. For acceptance. For the right to exist in the only home I had ever known. I never imagined I would see young people, almost a decade later, fighting a different version of the same battle. 

It was like watching a circle close, one I never wanted them to inherit. And yet… they are lifting their voices. They are demanding change. They are refusing to disappear.

Their courage gives me hope because they are not just protesting; they are organizing. They understand something powerful: real safety is not created by fear-based policies. It is built by community power. And across North Carolina, that power is growing. 

From rural towns to urban centers, we are seeing neighbors step up to learn their rights, volunteers joining rapid response networks, families challenging unjust detentions, and local leaders pushing back on policies that make our communities less safe. We are also watching coalitions deepen between immigrant communities, Black-led organizations, educators, and faith leaders. These relationships, these bridges, are the true infrastructure of collective safety. 

The work ahead is hard. The gaps exposed by the raids: legal support, language access, transportation, mutual aid, childcare, accurate information, crisis response, trauma-informed care, among many others require more resources, deeper coordination, and political courage from those in power. We need policies that invest in community well-being rather than criminalization: expanded funding for legal defense, true sanctuary policies at the local level, higher wages so people can afford the basics, stronger protections for tenants, and access to healthcare regardless of immigration status. These are not radical ideas. They are necessary ones. 

But despite the uncertainty, I remain hopeful, not because things are easy, but because I’m watching the next generation rise with clarity and conviction. 

They remind me of the fire I once carried before too many defeats dimmed it.

I see that same fire burning across North Carolina right now. In Wilson, where history is shifting as we elect our first Latine leader to public office. In rural towns, where local leaders are mobilizing to build the infrastructure their communities need, not just for this moment, but for the future they deserve. In the coalitions of solidarity forming across counties and cultures. In the families who refuse to disappear. And in the young people who refuse to inherit silence. 

Hope lives there. 

And as long as we keep building power, across communities, across languages, across counties, the shadows will never be able to swallow us again.