Know Your Neighbors – Red Wing’s Teens
While ICE’s Operation Metro Surge has had drastic impacts on Minneapolis-St. Paul, its effects have so far been subtler in Red Wing. Some locals have scarcely noticed a change. But for Red Wing’s Hispanic population, the consequences have been seismic.
“We’ve become hostages in our own houses,” says Natalie, a fifteen-year-old local student. “It’s completely changed how we live. Every time my dad goes to work, he has to make sure there’s nothing outside, no one waiting for him. I’ve never seen him so scared. My mom is in due process right now, and every time she leaves for a meeting, she hugs us so tight, and tells us that if something goes wrong, to help each other.”
Sofia, a Red Wing seventeen-year-old, has had similar experiences. “This has put a 360-degree spin on my family,” she says. “Now when my mom goes to work, I go with her, to help get the job done faster. We have to have volunteers escort us, driving behind us, because there’s fear that we’ll be followed. Other than that, my mom can’t go out at all.”
Many of Red Wing’s Hispanic students have lived here for most—or all—of their lives. Some have family members on work visas or seeking asylum. Many are citizens.
All are scared.
Emma, fourteen, is less fearful for her own family, whose status is more secure. “But I see my friends, how scared they are, things they aren’t able to do… They’re locked in their home. They’re stuck. I can’t even imagine the kids being separated from their families, how scared and lost they must feel.”
The surge’s effect on younger children haunts many of Red Wing’s teens.
Eighteen-year-old Ava works for Hispanic Outreach’s Summer Academic Enrichment Program, and plans to become a therapist or child psychologist. “I keep thinking about the children I work with,” she says. “I can’t imagine how they’re feeling, if I’m feeling this way, and I have a better chance of surviving with my family intact than they do. That feeling, that fear: It’s very heavy, which doesn’t let me focus on school. I try to, but it’s just…that feeling.”
For Natalie, a big sister to two younger siblings, the impacts are ever-present.
“My little brother can feel the air change in our house,” she says. “He’s really quiet, not the cheerful toddler he always was. And I’ve never seen my sister so down. She can’t sleep at night. She just sits and looks like she’s staring into space, and I’ve never seen that version of her before.”
The students live in a constant state of heightened awareness. For some, there have been close calls.
Fourteen-year-old Benjamin, who made a long and life-threatening journey from Central America with his mother, has seen ICE agents searching near his home. “They didn’t knock, but they were all around our house,” he says. “My mom said to turn the lights off, be quiet. It wasn’t the first time that they’d come by.”
Natalie and her family had just gotten doughnuts from a local bakery when her grandmother spotted an ICE officer walking past. The group of them huddled behind their car, holding their breaths. Luckily for them, the agent didn’t turn their way.
If they had been confronted, they know legal status is no guarantee of safety.
“I carry my passport with me everywhere, to make sure no one is going to come up to me and take me away,” says Sofia. “Even someone who’s a citizen, like me—people are being taken and have no chance to do anything about it.”
This is something they wish others would understand: That Hispanic residents are being targeted regardless of criminal history or legal status. And reactions from their own peers have sometimes been an additional wound.
“It’s not fair for people, or politicians, or ICE to say that they’re catching criminals and drug dealers when they’re catching innocent children, like Liam Ramos,” says Ava. “I hope that this dehumanization will stop, and that people will stop turning a blind eye to what immigrants go through in order to come here so their children can have a better future.”
“People will say, ‘Go back to Mexico, go back to your country,’” says Natalie. “My parents were escaping a bad life there.”
Benjamin has heard the same words, often from fellow Red Wing students. “Some people say, ‘Send them back to their country.’ But it’s not easy. The journey we make to come here—they don’t know everything we have to go through.”
These stereotypes and misunderstandings fit into a familiar pattern.
“This situation—if I can call it a situation, when it has happened over and over throughout history—it’s so disappointing, because we can see that we haven’t learned anything,” says Sofia. “We can see that people don’t recognize the sacrifice it takes to leave your family, to learn a language, to become accustomed to a place that’s completely foreign to you. But you do it so your kids will have a better life. Everyone says that they would do anything for their kids, but they can’t recognize a parent who has given everything for their kids.”
That’s something else the teens agreed on: The debt of gratitude they feel toward their parents, and the courage and sacrifice they’ve witnessed firsthand.
They hope to repay this debt by helping others, by offering justice, education, and care. Emma wants to be an elementary teacher. Benjamin hopes to become a mechanic, and to help provide safety and security for his mom. Both Sofia and Natalie plan to be attorneys, working in immigration and criminal justice, respectively. And Ava is about to begin college, where she will study psychology. She’s looking forward to a campus tour in St. Paul.
For her family’s safety, her parents will not be able to come with her.
Some comments have been edited for clarity. Names have been changed to protect the students and their families.
