Egg on My Face
First instincts aren’t always the best
This morning when I woke up, I learned that a couple we know recently received a knock on their door. Four agents from the Department of Homeland Security were asking to speak with the husband regarding some opinions he had shared online. This man has served our country, and the wife serves their community. They have young children who were home to witness this amicable yet undisguised intimidation.
Like the majority of United States citizens, this family has an immigration story to tell—albeit one that traces back to the Mayflower and our nation’s founders. Unlike most of our country, the husband knew to ask the unexpected visitors for identification. He knew enough to invoke his Fifth Amendment, and to defer conversation until a lawyer could be present. When the agents left, the family knew friends who could connect them with legal advice.
I began to process this information as I got up and began my day. In the shower, I imagined answering our door to government officials. (I have taken no action that would warrant this, but neither had this couple—nor had Rumeysa Ozturk, nor Xiao Liu, nor…the list is long, and growing.) Would I, I wondered, have thought to invoke the Fifth? Would I, conditioned to be warm and welcoming to those who serve our country, have had the foresight to demand identification? Do I have the strength and sense to refuse agents entry to my home? Do I know somebody who can help me through this kind of emergency?
Do any of us?
When my youngest came down to make his eggs a short while later, my instinct was to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and ask why he has not yet had his passport photo taken. It’s an errand we have been discussing for months now, because his current passport (one for minors) expires this June. In the dark of night I have imagined him with no escape from a chaotic version of our country that populates my worst nightmares, one in which children and parents disappear from view—and from each other—without notice or due process. This morning the line between that nightmare and reality blurred.
His old passport photo shows someone completely unrecognizable; the person making eggs in front of me is now a young man preparing to fly the nest. The photo was taken before he grew another foot; before his cheekbones and jawline sharpened; before he became old enough to vote (or be conscripted). My fear for him as a young adult rises in my chest yet, in a feat of self-control, I do not actually shake my son. In fact, as he makes his eggs in peace, I move away and get ready for work. I brush my teeth; I take a multivitamin. I gather my things, scoop up my keys, and—on the way out the door—I say, “When is your free period today?” I suggest, a little too casually, that he use it to run over and get his passport photo taken.
He knows why I ask. Without the eye-roll or tone of studied patience for which I brace myself, he just nods and smiles. He says, “Sounds good.” And though he’s left the house again before I return home from work, my son’s new passport photos are there to greet me in his place.
I don’t believe in telling scary stories to amplify fear. I believe in action and choice. I believe in education and information. I believe that when we build community, we are stronger.
It’s natural to react in fear and self-protection. In fact, that’s what this administration encourages. Still, I’m not proud that my first response to our friends’ story was to ask: How can I protect my loved ones? How can I keep them from danger?
If that becomes my ONLY concern, I will be using my privilege to slam a door on those at greater risk. That’s not the person I want to be, and that’s not the legacy I want to leave. I am thinking hard now about how to overcome those fears and channel them into productive action. I want to embody my professed core values when I’m challenged. It seems we all must ready ourselves for that—sooner than we thought.
Some resources for fellow Americans:
The 5 Calls app is a really helpful tool for sharing your position with elected representatives. It collates updated info, suggested language, and contact into one interface—you tell it a location, it tells you your reps and their numbers, you call. Simple and effective.
50501 is a national movement focused on “the fight to uphold the Constitution and end executive overreach.” Use it to locate peaceful protests, learn your rights, and find out about digital safety.
So many nonprofits need help right now, if you’re able. It can be overwhelming to decide where to volunteer or send support in the face of so much need, but I have found real comfort in donating to World Central Kitchen (with international impact) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (fighting hate in the US). Consider also the local nonprofits within your own community, where your impact may be enormous and also desperately needed. You can search Great Nonprofits or Charity Navigator for ideas. Know that it feels good to do good.
Reach out to disconnected friends, and find ways to meet new people. Exposure is the antidote to fear: the more we extend our own communities to include others, the stronger and safer we will be.
Be kind to one another. Be kind to yourselves. 🧡
I don't think you have to regret this impulse: "Still, I’m not proud that my first response to our friends’ story was to ask: How can I protect my loved ones? How can I keep them from danger?"
I think this is fundamentally hard-wired in all of us, you know? I think that the trick is we to reframe it. The answer to that question is, "by making everyone more safe" and "by making communities that are safe and supportive of everyone."
The idea that isolationism will protect us is ludicrous. It's why the construct of the tariffs is, in its current iteration, nonsense. There is no such thing as isolationism; we inhabit a shared earth. The idea always makes me think of the early 80s when there was a non smoking and a smoking section in every restaurant, as if we weren't all breathing the same air. Oligarchs can build bunkers underground, sure, but to what end? What is a life spent living underground when the rest of the world is destroyed? There is no end logic here.
We help ourselves when we help others and we help others when we help ourselves. The myth of American individualism is absolute bollocks. No American did anything by themselves - not the revolutionaries, not the pioneers, not the suffragettes, not the abolitionists, not the civil rights movement, and definitely not the oligarchs. No one is "self-made." We all benefit from the work and ingenuity and help of others.
So I think of course we start with protecting our family, knowing that the best thing we can do for them is to protect our street, and then our village, and then our state, and then our country, and then our world. And it's not even linear like this formulation implies. It's all the things, day by day, each one adding up to more than the whole.
Here's a link to the "know your rights" cards: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1877146343/red-card-5pcs-know-your-rights-cards
There are lots of outlets for them!