What you are about to read is an excerpt from WOMN, a collaborative effort of the women of Minnesota who kept showing up during Operation Metro Surge, holding the grief, the rage, the tenderness, and the fierce love that women know so well.
If you see yourself in these pages,
Pass it to the person next to you.
Sasha is standing at the entrance to a mobile home park with five other women, wearing reflective vests over their winter gear and whistles around their necks.
Sasha is the first one to see them pull up. She puts her whistle in her mouth and blows, pointing at the two ICE vehicles parking at the entrance to the mobile home park. Sasha watches a mother with her second-grader turn around and run back to their trailer. The other women blow their whistles as the ICE agents get out of their SUVs.
The two elder women of the group move forward to meet the four ICE all carrying the recognizable ICE energy, cold, fierce, and uncompromising. Sasha holds her position a few steps back, blowing her whistle with every breath. Sasha’s mom, Amber, and another woman start filming on their phones.
“Do you have a warrant” one of the elder women asks calmly.
“DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE PROTECTING A RAPIST!?” the first ICE agent yells
“What’s your authority to be here?” the other elder woman asks.
“YOU’RE STOPPING US FROM ARRESTING A CHILD MOLESTER!” the second ICE agent hollers while walking right past her.
“Do you even know whose trailer you’re approaching?” the first elder woman asks, her voice still steady and calm.
The agents don’t respond, but they stop walking before they get to Sasha and the women filming. Sasha can’t hear any more of what they are saying because the whistles are too loud. She watches their body language instead.
While the two elder women stand still, unwavered, the ICE agents can’t be still. They shift their weight and pace. One almost slips on the ICE and the whistles all screech with laughter breaths.
After a few minutes, in a surprising move, one of the agents holds out a hand to one of the elder women, offering a handshake like men do at the end of a negotiation. Maybe they didn’t know what else to do with their hands. Maybe somewhere inside the gear and the masks there was a muscle memory of humanity that responded automatically to the women’s calmness.
The woman accepts his handshake, and all four agents turn and strut back to their vehicles. They drive away, and then circle back, pausing at all the cars parked along the cul de sac, presumably writing down the license plate numbers.
“Petty,” one of the elders says as she walks towards the home where the mother went running back.
“I don’t know how many families we have saved by doing this, but moments like this make it all worth it,” Amber says as she puts her phone back in her parka pocket.
The buses came.
The kids got on.
The women stay until the bus is out of sight.
This is an excerpt from WOMN- a book about the women of Minnesota and what Operation Metro Surge made of us.
It’s a mutual aid effort — written by us, for us, moving hand to hand the way love does when it’s real. New excerpts will be released as I write them, every Tuesday, here on Fierce Love. When the manuscript is complete, I plan to release it the grassroots way. Self-published, and supported by grief at grounding community gathering events and independent bookstores.
If this chapter found you, it found you for a reason.
If you want to support this effort, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers will receive full chapters (not just excerpts) with my author’s commentary about my process and experience at least once a month.
Please add your voice by sharing in the comments. I’m listening. We all are.
That’s how this works.
That’s how we work.
I love you fiercely,
TeriLeigh 💜
ICE is asking "Do you know you are protecting a child rapist?" Why not turn that statement around Mr ICEman--Do you know you are protecting a serial rapist?
The gall of these hired thugs.