Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” - Matthew 19:14
I was born into two worlds, the Indigenous and the Latino, mostly left to fend for myself in discovering the hateful blows and punches that both are routinely served in America. Having been mostly dormant for a year, when I was sent information about a protest against the opening of concentration camps (Editor's note: cue semantics debate in comments) at Fort Sill—one that affected Natives years ago and one that will affect Latino children in a few weeks—I decided to end my forced retirement.
Known famously for imprisoning the Indigenous leader Geronimo and over 400 Apache, including women and children, in the late 1800s, as well as housing numerous Asian-Americans during the infamous internment polices of the 1940s, under Trump’s rule, Fort Sill will now intern a large number of children and teen refugees—separated from their parents, mind you—in the continuing effort against anyone and anything with Latin blood.
The protest against the reopening of these concentration camps was held this past Saturday at Shepler Park in Lawton, Oklahoma. It was organized by Tsuru for Solidarity, a Japanese American organization dedicated to ending the detention and separation of families, along with many elders who had lived in the Japanese internment camps; they were all coming to Fort Sill to have their voices heard. By the time I got there, a couple hundred protestors had already shown up, a number that kept growing throughout the day.