Read this if you’re doing everything you can and it feels like it's never enough

Written for upcoming zine by a fellow Minneapolis community member "Survival Magic: Book for Bad Times"

Dear relative,

I can only write from my own experience, so I offer you the vulnerability and afford you the trust to share space and perspective. This letter is meant for my fellows in organizing and action. “Co-strugglers” to borrow the term from Kelly Hayes.

For much, much longer than my short 24 years, we have collectively watched tragedy after crisis after horrific deed after tragedy. I was born to a mother who immigrated here at 4 years old, post Vietnam War, escaping a fascist takeover and enduring through assimilation, all the other chaos of life, single parentage, and finally became a citizen in her middle age, and a father whose ancestors have lived on this land, here in Minneapolis specifically, for 10,000 years, whose mother fought for rights of water and the dignity of Indigenous peoples, whose religious trauma stems not just from the inherited generational trauma from colonial violence (which persists today) but also from personal experience. I have only known a post-9/11 America, hell-bent on its War on Terror (read: War on Immigrants). I am lucky to have relatives so deeply steeped in truth and sharing that truth so that I, in turn, could be so thoroughly steeped in organizing and community to be able to cope with the truth. 

I am writing to you from Minneapolis, in the beginning of February 2026, amid the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) “Operation Metro Surge”. I was born here and have lived here my whole life. My job, as a Youth Civic Engagement Organizer for Great Plains Action Society, is to disseminate information and try to make you an informed voter. I got into organizing because I wanted to save the world, or at least, build the future my parents should have had and this community has fostered that in me. I've wanted that for so long, it feels like my responsibility now. 

My neighbors are being kidnapped. Two members of my community have been publicly executed. More have been harassed and assaulted for the crime of being in the way or being too brown. People have rallied, and protested, organized safety watches, mutual aid, and built stronger community ties and infrastructure like we’ve never had before. 

I happen to be disabled. I can’t go to marches or protests, or participate in patrols or rapid response. I can help run supplies (rarely) and write and collect information and disseminate it and organize my community. As a native person, I’m vulnerable to profiling and being kidnapped by ICE so my loved ones insist that staying inside is for the best. As a child of an immigrant, I’m in constant fear for my relatives’ safety. As a physically disabled person, I can’t do the physically cathartic thing of throwing my body on the front lines, despite how strongly I feel the need to protect my neighbors, my family, my friends, my city. It is for these reasons I often feel like I’m not doing enough. 

I’ve been holding space for myself, some of my neighbors, my friends who are on the front lines, my family when we feel brave enough to risk a phone call. I make sure they are warm, comfortable in my home, fed, and get to vent. I’ve held their fear, anxiety, anger, and resentment and I do my best to honor the grief where we need it and to offer hope where I’m capable. I’ve been giving updates to my friends and colleagues in other states, trying to offer clarity. It’s been frustrating how my loved ones want to keep me safe, indoors and away from windows, and I feel like I can’t keep them safe in return. In fact, even more frustratingly, I want to protect more than just my loved ones. I want to steal the entire city away and tuck it somewhere safe until this blows over. Create my own bottle city of Kandor hidden in a fortress of ice away from ICE.

But I know it won’t blow over.

Maybe you too feel helpless to stop the fascist takeover of your city. Maybe you too are disabled and it limits the ways you can be involved. Maybe you're just far away and have no idea what you can do. Maybe you too are organizing and writing and running errands and holding space for people and it just doesn't feel like enough. They’re still kidnapping us.

Pause. Check the facts. Have you checked on your loved ones? That's community care. Have you held space for folks to vent their frustrations or do art or express themselves or just feel safe in the presence of a friend/family member/neighbor/colleague? That's emotional labor. Have you gathered supplies? Did you deliver them to people in need or to the folks who know how to get them to the people who need it? That's physical labor. Have you rallied, protested, or patrolled your neighborhood? That's physical labor. Did you make tea for or feed someone who did go to a protest when you couldn't? That's physical labor and it's caretaking. Did you attend or teach a seminar on street medics, observing, or digital safety? That’s intellectual labor. All of this and more is mutual aid and under fascist rule, this community care and persistence is resistance. 

Part of this work has been learning to do what’s sustainable. Sustainability, especially as a disabled person, is vital, occasionally unpredictable, and entirely dependent on the individual, the day, and your personal circle of support. We cannot effectively organize or protect ourselves if we’re burnt out. We cannot do everything alone and expect to not burn out. Measuring what you’re capable of doing long term is a learning process and a skill. Do not feel bad if you’re bad at it right now. This is a skill you can hone. A skill that takes time and patience to hone. It is not an innate property of the universe.

Much of the work behind resisting fascistic rule begins with learning skills. Both the emotional— effectively communicating, advocating for yourself and others, having compassion for people you don't know, putting aside pride for the sake of uplifting others, taking pride in your accomplishments— and logistical—  how to disseminate information, identifying and meeting the needs of the situation, pivoting when circumstances change, street medic training, how systems of power work. This is all honed with practice. Then you get into direct action: this is effective protest, sit-ins, civil disobedience, targeted and focused boycotts, strikes. This is what people think of when you mention political activism and its the overt displays of political and economic power from the people. Mutual aid has been the popularized term for the supportive work that maintains society and uplifts people oppressed by systems of oppression. This is your food shelves, your benefit shows, bail funds, gathering materials to keep your neighbors warm and fed, carpools and caravans for getting folks care in other states or escaping violence, supply runs for neighbors in hiding, patrolling known areas where prisons dump newly released detainees without resources, neighborhood watches, aftercare for victims of assault and violence and prison systems. Even the invisible labor of holding space is vital to the longevity of any movement: these are the people who feed the activists, people who hold space for friends or community to meet and talk, people who take on and assist with funeral preparations for the fellows we’ve lost, the people who mediate when conflict arises within our own ranks.

You are not meant to do all this work alone. In fact, none of the actions here are meant to be organized and run and carried out by a single person. Communities are made of dozens, if not hundreds of people. Organizations, no matter how grassroots, rely on multiple members all playing different but incredibly important parts. Our power is not individual, it's in collective care. Trust when your body tells you you’re doing enough, because I promise you are. 

In love, solidarity, and collective power,

Tobias Soudaly-Espinosa

supply runs • community dinners • board game nights • learning • community watch • mutual aid • community care • coffee with friends • holding space • food shelves • benefit shows • gathering supplies • teaching truth • street medics • event planning • grief support • bail funds • mutual aid funds • victim aftercare • caravans • rallying • art • protest songs • sit ins • patrolling • mediation • disseminating information • boycotts • zines • caretaking • banner drops • letter writing • voting •