IANA Blog-June 2025

 Blog

Happy June,

Well, I can’t lie…it’s been a wild June. For members of IANA who don’t know, I was born and raised in California…we also have members of IANA that are born and raised or living in Los Angeles…and we’ve been seeing a lot of raids of immigrants coming from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) led by Donald Trump. They are raiding several locations in Los Angeles, capturing “illegal” immigrants and kicking them out, and they are not just targeting “illegal” immigrants, but also immigrants that came here legally. Honestly, they are targeting everybody. There have been several protests in L.A. over these ICE raids. Many have been peaceful protests, although the media has only been covering the riots, (like I expected). There have also been several protests here in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially in San Francisco and in my city, Oakland.

Let me say that I’m in solidarity with the families affected by the ICE raids, the families that had family members taken away by ICE and the people that are fighting back against ICE, because obviously, I’m the son of two immigrants, I come from an immigrant family, I’m a Nigerian born and raised in Oakland, California,  so it only makes sense for me to be in solidarity. It sounds cliche to say, but how can anyone be “illegal” on stolen land? The history of the United States of America has been distorted. We should all know that this nation was built off the genocide of the Native and Indigenous Americans, the backs of stolen Africans, and the exploitation of Latinos, Asians and poor White people. If anyone says Christopher Columbus discovered it, they’re either misinformed or lying.

Unfortunately what really has been frustrating me about what’s going on with these ICE protests is not the protests at all…if anything it’s the people who choose to be silent or who choose to not care about the ICE raids. Just like how I wrote about Palestine in my October 2023 blog, I see some Black people, not all, but some saying, “This is not our fight,” and I’m over like…yes, it is. Anyone saying otherwise is delusional, because the same people that train the US police, ICE and other law enforcement officers are trained by the IDF. Also, not to mention, ICE isn’t just mostly focusing on Latino immigrants, they are also focusing on Asian immigrants, Indigenous immigrants and Black immigrants. I also noticed some Black people who say “it’s not our fight” forget that Haitian immigrants and Haitian Americans were being targeted and attacked last year after Trump made up some BS about them “eating cats.” I feel like those who say “it’s not our fight,” haven’t done anything to help Black people here in the U.S. and should be the last people trying to speak for Black people, let alone, for the ICE situations. Did I forget to mention that the whole narrative is just another way of playing “divide and conquer.”

Let me say this…I understand why some Black people may feel this way, especially because of the antiblackness that keeps showing up in Latino communities, either through the disrespect/discrimination of Afro Latinos in real life or the media, or the constant gaslighting when it comes to involving Black people in their social issues (but not being able to speak up for Black people when we’re dealing with social issues), or their constant use of the N-word, and antiblackness definitely needs to be called out more, not only in the Latino communities, but other non-Black POC communities, because we all know it’s not just a problem in the Latino communities. In my opinion, I feel like this is because of how the media and the people at the top love to create false narratives to have everyone fighting each other. I wouldn’t be surprised that the media created so many false narratives about Black people, that everyone will believe it. They don’t want to see unity, especially Black and Brown unity.

Plus, we’ve seen examples of Black and Brown unity in real life. The Black Panther Party worked with Chicano organization, the Brown Berets (who were influenced by them) and Puerto Rican organization, the Young Lords. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the National Farm Workers Association worked together to combat racial segregation and fight for economic rights of farm workers. After the L.A. Uprising in 1993, Black and Brown communities started working together to rebuild their neighborhoods.

Luckily for me, I have to say that one thing I always appreciated growing up in Oakland was the diversity. I had plenty of friends that were Black, White, Indigenous, Asian, Polynesian and Latino, so I had more positive interactions than bad ones. I remember even when I got in a fight in high school as a freshman, one of the older Mexican students had my back. Plus, I got to work and collaborate with Latinx and they also fought against antiblackness and spoke on issues involving the Black community, which is needed.

I also think that coming from an African immigrant family is enough reason for me to be in solidarity. In my opinion, I feel that members of IANA should definitely be in solidarity as well, because we all can relate, being from immigrant families/being immigrants ourselves.

But that’s just me. How do y’all feel about the ICE raids that have been happening? Let me know how you feel.