Fire & ICE
One weekend. Two Cities.
My last days in the USA are becoming a blur of suppressed emotions. Feelings too complex and deep to acknowledge without the time needed to decompress, dissect, accept and address. I stay in the busyness of jumping from providing Volunteer Coordination for Rooting DC, an incredible, year tradition in DC, the largest gathering of Urban Farmers in our region. Over a thousand people packed into Eastern HS through a day of resource sharing, community connection and learning. We gave out thousands of free, organic seed packets for people to take home to then handle the interpretation for the Healthy Homes Fair with Electrify DC which also brought as many people, they were amazing!
I have two calendars and a timer going on in my head at all times. Even when I sleep I see these items in my dreams, they remind me of the sense of urgency and loll I feel in the awake world. Dread and excitement, Unafraid and Scared… I hold so many contradictions within me currently. Besides the regular calendar, which is full, as my life has never been so busy doing amazing things from cool parties to healing events in nature, interviews and high level public speaking engagements… I’m in my bag! For so long I bemoaned and wished to become the type of artist that does not need to self-promote, network, be gate-kept in or out of the fine arts world that I did not realize that I did not need that to succeed, I made things happen! From co-founding my first gallery at 25, having my work featured in an exhibition curated by Yoko Ono, opening the door for undocumented artists, getting one of the most prestigious arts fellowships I can think of, having my art reach millions of Americans, being selected as an artist for an independent arts fair during Art Week Miami, all of these things I did on my own, with help from friends and community.
The other calendar has a timer going on at all times. seconds whiz by and turn to minutes, counting the time I’ve been here and counting me down the time I have left til ‘mid- September’ which is my way of saying I am waiting and seeing if I am in imminent danger and should leave yesterday or if I can thug it out one more month, so I can fulfill my obligations, see more friends, make a little more money. Either way, I am working on my self deportation, hoping to leave in my own terms by the end of the year.
Since May I been working toward World Pride as a volunteer and interpretation coordinator for DC Latinx Pride. With a small team of people we are pulling off 35 events ranging from healing in nature events, to great parties and walking tours of the LBGTQ Latinx that made history in DC. The past month has been party, bus, club… you get it, on top of that, I took a quick trip to the Virginia mountains to speak at the Choose Clean Water Conference and was a featured speaker for the World Pride Human Rights Conference. Truly a highlight to be invited to speak on my first global stage.
A few months ago, I was not sure if I’d do pride this year, from feeling unsafe as this person I am, a known undocumented and unafraid leader to hating the concept of cops and corporations rainbow-washing capitalism. I think I even wrote here my ideological opposition to the concept of pride as the co opting of our movements and although I keep all the cringey things I wrote years ago, I don’t go back and look for ’em. For so many reasons I did not feel like a parade was what we needed.
I am glad these opportunities came through and that I decided to join. “Doing it scared” is a trademark of mine but this was different, because the world would be coming to my city, and watching. As Queerness continues to be vilified and legislated out of existence, one state at a time in this country, being afraid right now felt like a survival tactic and so we planned as much as possible to keep people as safe as possible and to be as impactful as possible. Ahead of our float, amongst the walkers carrying Latin American flags representing their countries, with rainbow colors, we had siblings carrying giant signs demanding our gay brother Andry Jose Hernandez Romero a man that was kidnapped by ice and human trafficked to a concentration camp in El Salvador. During my speech at the Human Rights Conference I encouraged the world watching to fight for him, and called out the mayor over our sanctuary city status.
This weekend I realized that I needed to be in this work, I needed to speak for the undocumented Queers that cannot, to meet new Elders that helped me see the fight in other Elders, people that in my own youth I did not truly appreciate because I expected perfection from imperfect people that are like me, trying to survive genocide. I learned to appreciate and love deeper and less judgmentally. I needed to spend my last Pride in the USA and hopefully my first World Pride of many, in community, with my friends and family working towards my People’s visibility in spite of the chaos and hate. Even with all that hard work set backs presented themselves, from rain and tornado watches, scheduling errors to song and dance between federal and city authorities around the closure of the iconic DuPont Circle, at the end of the parade a shooting and stabbings marred the festivities. Weathered targeted hate or just the city being the city, the world came to DC to see how we live and they did, with joy and fear. Running away from danger and toward liberation. We hold so many contradictions.
I am tired of posturing from every side on behalf of marginalized people. From the right wingers hunting us down in the streets, harassing our business owners and workers everyday to downright killings, to the liberals missing brunch and leftists refusal to admit that they too are complicit in the mess of it all, we believed right wing propaganda too, spread misinformation that ultimately deterred people from voting. Being trans, undocumented and unable to vote but deeply committed to reminding Americans of their duty to vote and the power of a somewhat less oppressive and chaotic empire to fight against was met with vitriol, leftists even told me that they simply did not give a shit if Trump actually went through with well, what is happening now. Democrats are no better, catering out a chicken truck outside the white house while unhoused people starve in the streets of DC is insensitive at best, trolling is not going to win elections and unseat a literal dictator. Make no mistake tho, this violence is not the same as the violence under Biden and it is disingenuous to assert Kamala would have been exactly like this. At the same time that these shit shows of bad takes of whom should be out there helping the people being hunted down for sport by literal insurrectionists happen online, real people are out here, fighting like hell against whatever empire throws at them in an attempt to keep their city safe. I watched from my phone as street vendors venture amongst protesters from all walks of life providing food, workers leaving their jobs to run ice out of LA. I watched women of color legislators struggle to breath as they tried to do their job of protecting the People. While the governor of California beats his chest and challenges our overlord to a fight or to be arrested. Knowing damn well that although a great gesture, an empty one, when the guy can afford bail, lawyers and protection, the reality that he has had the power to make systemic changes that protect everyone in the city and hasn’t, just like our own Mayor in my own city. Out here for their own political points.
Leonina Arismendi is an award winning Uruguayan artist, human rights advocate and environmental justice activist in the process of rematriation from living in the USA for 25 years back to their Motherland of Uruguay. Support their safe transition: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-arismendi-family-in-their-return-to-uruguay
