Opening note

This week, I kept thinking about what happens when the government gives someone a status, a label, or a right—and how different that can be from actually feeling like you belong.

In one piece, I wrote about immigrants being visibly marked by ankle monitors and what happens when government suspicion follows someone into work, school pickup, the grocery store, and the rest of their daily life. In another, I wrote about my own experience becoming eligible for citizenship at eighteen but not understanding until years later that voting was something I was meant to participate in.

They are very different stories, but I kept coming back to the same question: Who gets to feel like they belong here, and what teaches us that we do?

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This week’s conversation

There is a difference between being legally included and actually feeling that you have a place in a country.

An immigrant can be allowed to remain in their community while being required to wear a device that publicly marks them as someone under government surveillance. A naturalized citizen can have the legal right to vote without anyone ever teaching them how elections work or helping them see themselves as a voter.

Both raise questions about belonging that go beyond what the law says.

What happens when the systems around us tell us, directly or indirectly, that we are still being watched, evaluated, or treated as outsiders?

And what does it take to move from simply having rights to actually believing those rights belong to us?

For immigrants, belonging is shaped by more than citizenship papers or immigration status. It is also shaped by whether we can move through our communities with dignity, whether our voices are taken seriously, and whether we are treated as participants in American life rather than people standing outside of it.

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ICYMI: Everything I shared this week

Each piece approached belonging from a different direction. Here’s what I published this week in case you missed something, or want to return to a conversation that stayed with you:

ICE Isn’t Just Tracking Immigrants. It’s Marking Them.

How electronic surveillance turns immigration enforcement into public stigma—and creates profit from the people being watched.

An ankle monitor does more than tell ICE where someone is.

Because these devices are already associated with criminal punishment, they can change how an immigrant is seen by employers, neighbors, strangers, and even their children’s communities before anyone knows the circumstances of their immigration case.

I looked at the growing use of electronic monitoring, the stigma that comes with making surveillance visible, and the private companies making money as these programs expand.

The question I kept returning to was simple: If people are already complying with immigration requirements, what problem is this level of surveillance actually solving?

View the post →

The Ballot Is More Than a Right. It Is a Place to Belong.

I came to America at five, became eligible for citizenship at eighteen, and did not begin voting until my twenties.

I spent most of my childhood in America, but politics never felt like something I was supposed to participate in.

Even after becoming eligible for citizenship at eighteen, I did not immediately become a voter. No one had taught me how local elections worked, why primaries mattered, or how much of everyday life was decided further down the ballot.

For years, I felt embarrassed that I had not understood it sooner.

Now I see it differently.

Legal eligibility and civic belonging are not the same thing. A country can give you a ballot without ever teaching you that your voice belongs on it.

That experience is part of why I joined 1000 Miles to Memphis, a 36-day, 1,000-mile solidarity march focused on voter registration and civic engagement.

Because registering people is important. Helping people see themselves as participants in democracy matters too.

View the post →

Being Welcomed Is Not the Same as Belonging

A welcome can open the door. Belonging lets us walk through it without leaving our language, culture, or identity behind.

Some of my earliest lessons about becoming “American” came from children laughing at my accent and making fun of my eyes.

I learned early that being allowed into a space did not necessarily mean I could show up there as my full self.

In this piece, I explore the difference between adapting to a new culture and feeling pressured to erase the parts of ourselves that make us different. Immigrants should be able to learn new languages, embrace new traditions, and become part of American culture without treating where we came from as something we need to leave behind.

Being welcomed says, “You can come in.” Belonging says, “You do not have to disappear now that you are here.”

View the post →

Most immigrants aren’t asking for special treatment

Most immigrants are looking for the same things most people want: safety, stability, opportunity, and the chance to build a life.

Too often, immigration conversations reduce people to policies and headlines. This post was a reminder to look beyond those debates and remember the people, families, and lives behind them.

A question for the community

Can we stop reducing people to how they entered a country?

This post sparked agreement around a simple point: a person’s humanity, dignity, and worth should never be defined by their immigration status or the circumstances of how they arrived.

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Reader response and community reflection

“You would think with so many historical examples of the playbook that society would be at large more understanding of the situation we find ourselves in.It’s either that or enough people are truly horrible enough to not care and welcome it”

— David Harrison Greis, @the_fishkeeping_teachers on Threads

This stayed with me because it points to something we have seen before: dehumanization does not happen all at once. It becomes easier when we reduce people to labels, immigration status, or the way they entered a country instead of seeing the human being first.

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What I’m carrying forward

I keep coming back to the difference between being allowed to belong and actually feeling that you do.

Citizenship can give you the right to vote. A country can allow you to live, work, raise a family, and build a life within its borders. But none of those things automatically create belonging.

Belonging happens when you know your voice matters. When you are seen as a participant rather than a problem to be discussed. When you do not have to prove that you deserve to be here before you are treated as fully human.

That is the question I’m carrying into next week: What would change if we stopped asking people to prove they belong and started building a country where they already know they do?

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Why your subscription matters

Independent media only exists when readers choose to support it. If you believe immigrant stories deserve more complexity, beauty, and humanity, please subscribe to Beauty of Belonging.

A free subscription will bring new essays, profiles, interviews, and community stories directly to your inbox. Upgrading to a paid subscription will help support the time required to research, write, interview, edit, publish, and grow this work.

Paid support allows Beauty of Belonging to remain guided by its readers and its mission—not by advertisers, political campaigns, billionaires, or algorithms. You are helping create space for stories that might otherwise be ignored, flattened, or told without us.

You are helping build a publication where immigrants do not have to perform trauma or exceptional success to be seen. A place where beauty and injustice, ambition and rest, cultural pride and personal freedom can exist in the same conversation.

Please subscribe, and if you are able, upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support will help turn Beauty of Belonging into a lasting home for fuller immigrant stories.

Your support means the world. It means we are more than welcome here.

Gwen Lane is a Filipina American immigrant, writer, founder, and cultural commentator behind Beauty of Belonging—an independent publication exploring immigrant identity, beauty, ambition, cultural power, and what it means to feel at home. Subscribe, share, and upgrade to a paid subscription to support independent immigrant-led media that centers immigrant identity, dignity, and belonging.

Subscribe now

As an alternative to a paid subscription, you can make a one-time contribution to support Beauty of Belonging at any amount, from $1 and up. Your contribution helps fund independent immigrant-led storytelling, cultural commentary, and fuller stories about identity, dignity, and belonging.

Make a one-time contribution

My earliest lessons about becoming “American” did not come from a textbook, they came from children laughing at my accent.

They came from being made fun of for the way I spoke and from hearing a racial slur used to describe my eyes. Kids called them “chinky,” turning a feature of my face into evidence that I was different—and that being different made me available for ridicule.

I was a child. I did not yet have words like racism, assimilation, or xenophobia.

But I understood the message: you are here, but you are not one of us.

That may have been one of the first times I learned that being allowed into a place is not the same as belonging there.

I was physically present in the classroom. I attended the same school and learned the same lessons. I was being raised in America, surrounded by American culture, and slowly learning how everything worked.

In that sense, I had been welcomed. But belonging would have meant that my voice did not become a joke the moment I opened my mouth.

It would have meant that my face was not treated as something foreign enough to mock. It would have meant being able to enter the room without first calculating which parts of myself might make me a target.

Support independent immigrant-led media that centers immigrant identity, dignity, and belonging by becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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What an accent really carries

An accent is often treated as evidence that someone does not know enough. But an accent can also be evidence that a person knows more than one way to speak, listen, think, and understand the world.

Many immigrants speak two, three, or even several languages. They cross borders and begin learning new vocabulary, new social rules, new humor, new systems, and new ways of communicating.

Then someone who speaks only English hears an unfamiliar pronunciation and decides the immigrant is the one who lacks intelligence. There is an obvious irony in that.

But I do not want to defend immigrants only by pointing out how impressive it is to speak several languages. Multilingualism deserves recognition, but it should not become another test immigrants must pass to receive respect.

An immigrant who speaks five languages deserves dignity.

An immigrant who speaks one language also deserves dignity.

An immigrant who is searching for the right English word, mispronouncing it, or asking someone to repeat themselves deserves dignity too.

The problem is not simply that people underestimate how capable immigrants are.

The deeper problem is the belief that a person must demonstrate exceptional intelligence, fluency, productivity, or adaptability before others will treat them as fully human.

My accent did not mean I had less to say. It meant that my voice carried the evidence of another place.

The cruelty was not that other children failed to recognize this as an accomplishment, it was that they believed difference gave them permission to make me feel ashamed.

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Learning a culture without disappearing into it

Immigrants are often spoken about as though assimilation is the obvious and uncomplicated goal.

We arrive, learn English, understand the customs, follow the rules, and gradually become indistinguishable from everyone who was already here.

But many immigrants do want to assimilate, at least in some sense.

We want to understand the country where we are building our lives. We want to communicate with our neighbors, participate in our communities, succeed in school, find work, make friends, understand the jokes, and know which unwritten rules everyone else seems to have learned years ago.

There can be curiosity and even joy in that process.

Learning a new culture does not always feel like surrender. It can feel expansive. It can introduce us to traditions, possibilities, relationships, and ways of living that become genuinely ours.

The problem begins when participation requires disappearance.

There is a difference between learning how a place works and being told that your original self is the price of admission, between choosing to adapt and realizing that people will treat you better when you hide where you came from.

There is a difference between learning another language and becoming ashamed of the one that first taught you how to name the world.

We should be able to embrace new traditions without abandoning old ones, to change without pretending we arrived empty.

We should be able to become American without accepting the idea that American identity has only one face, one accent, one family history, or one way of being.

Culture is not preserved by keeping it untouched. It changes as people carry it into new places, pass it to their children, combine it with other traditions, and decide what they want to continue.

But change should be ours to participate in—not something demanded of us as proof that we deserve to stay.

Welcome can still keep you at a distance

Welcome is often offered on someone else’s terms.

You are welcome as long as you are grateful. You are welcome as long as your English is easy to understand. You are welcome as long as your food, clothing, customs, opinions, or family practices do not make anyone uncomfortable.

You are welcome as long as you do not criticize the country that welcomed you.You are welcome as long as you remember that you are still a guest. That kind of welcome may open a door, but it never allows you to forget who owns the house.

Belonging is different. Belonging means having enough safety to speak without rehearsing every word in your head first.

It means being able to make a mistake without having that mistake blamed on your culture. It means your ideas can influence the room rather than your presence merely making the room appear inclusive.

It means having the right to question, disagree, and criticize—not because you hate a place, but because you are invested in what it becomes.

It means knowing that your culture is not an inconvenience other people are gracious enough to tolerate.

Real belonging does not ask immigrants to remain permanently grateful for being admitted. It recognizes that we are not simply entering American culture. We are also creating it.

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The lessons children carry forward

When children made fun of my accent and my eyes, they were doing more than hurting my feelings. They were teaching me which parts of myself the world might punish.

A child may not understand the history behind a racial slur, but she understands humiliation.

She understands the laughter that follows her voice. She understands when a feature she inherited from her family is being treated as a flaw. She understands that safety might be found in becoming less noticeable.

Many immigrants and children of immigrants become careful students of the room.

We learn when to explain ourselves and when to stay quiet.

We learn which foods might invite questions, which names will be mispronounced, which family customs require a long explanation, and which parts of our histories other people are willing to hear.

We learn to make ourselves understandable.

Sometimes that skill helps us move through the world. It can make us observant, adaptable, and able to connect across cultures.

But it can also leave us wondering whether people love who we are or simply appreciate how easy we have become for them to understand.

That is the distance between welcome and belonging.

Welcome says, “You can come in.”

Belonging says, “You do not have to disappear now that you are here.”

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More than welcome

I cannot change what those children said to me. But I can refuse the lesson their words were trying to teach.

My eyes were never the problem. My accent was never evidence that I had less intelligence, less value, or less right to be heard.

The cultures immigrants carry are not obstacles standing between us and American life. They are part of American life.

We can learn new languages without silencing our first ones. We can participate in a new culture without treating our own as something embarrassing.

We can change, adapt, and grow without allowing acceptance to depend on how completely we erase the evidence of where we began.

Being welcomed may mean that someone has opened the door.

Belonging means we can enter with our full selves: our faces, voices, languages, memories, questions, criticism and contributions as well as the ordinary parts of our lives that contribute nothing except our presence.

We do not find belonging by becoming less of ourselves.

When have you felt welcomed but still expected to change something about yourself to be fully accepted?

Why your subscription matters

Independent media only exists when readers choose to support it. If you believe immigrant stories deserve more complexity, beauty, and humanity, please subscribe to Beauty of Belonging.

A free subscription will bring new essays, profiles, interviews, and community stories directly to your inbox. Upgrading to a paid subscription will help support the time required to research, write, interview, edit, publish, and grow this work.

Paid support allows Beauty of Belonging to remain guided by its readers and its mission—not by advertisers, political campaigns, billionaires, or algorithms. You are helping create space for stories that might otherwise be ignored, flattened, or told without us.

You are helping build a publication where immigrants do not have to perform trauma or exceptional success to be seen. A place where beauty and injustice, ambition and rest, cultural pride and personal freedom can exist in the same conversation.

Please subscribe, and if you are able, upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support will help turn Beauty of Belonging into a lasting home for fuller immigrant stories.

Your support means the world. It means we are more than welcome here.

Gwen Lane is a Filipina American immigrant, writer, founder, and cultural commentator behind Beauty of Belonging—an independent publication exploring immigrant identity, beauty, ambition, cultural power, and what it means to feel at home. Subscribe, share, and upgrade to a paid subscription to support independent immigrant-led media that centers immigrant identity, dignity, and belonging.

Subscribe now

As an alternative to a paid subscription, you can make a one-time contribution to support Beauty of Belonging at any amount, from $1 and up. Your contribution helps fund independent immigrant-led storytelling, cultural commentary, and fuller stories about identity, dignity, and belonging.

Make a one-time contribution

I wish I could tell you that becoming eligible for citizenship immediately made me a voter. It did not.

I came to the United States from the Philippines when I was five years old. America shaped nearly every part of my childhood, but I was not eligible for citizenship until I turned eighteen. Even then, I did not start voting right away.

I did not grow up in a household where we talked about elections, political parties, registration deadlines, or what appeared on a ballot. No one taught me how local government worked or explained why voting in a primary could matter as much as voting for president.

Politics felt like something happening around me, not something I was meant to participate in. I did not begin voting until I was in my twenties.

For a long time, I carried some embarrassment about that. I wondered whether I should have understood the importance of voting sooner. I had waited years to become eligible for citizenship. Shouldn’t I have known exactly what to do with it?

What I understand now is that legal eligibility and civic belonging are not the same thing. A country can give you a ballot without ever teaching you that your voice belongs on it.

Support independent immigrant-led media that centers immigrant identity, dignity, and belonging by becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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The distance between citizenship and participation

Immigrants often talk about citizenship as though it is a finish line. You complete the process. You receive the documents. You gain rights that were previously unavailable to you.

But citizenship does not automatically create political knowledge, confidence, or a habit of voting. It does not erase the years you spent understanding yourself as someone who could live in the country but could not formally shape its future.

For many immigrants, the path to citizenship is already long. After naturalization, voting requires another process: registering, learning the system, understanding the candidates and issues, and trusting that participation is worth the effort.

That distance is visible in the numbers.

Nearly 24 million naturalized citizens were eligible to vote as of 2022, representing about one in every ten eligible voters in the United States. Their numbers had grown 32% in a decade. And despite the way immigrants are often described as perpetual newcomers, nearly three-quarters of naturalized eligible voters had lived in this country for more than twenty years.

We are not standing outside American life. We have been living here, raising families here, working here, building communities here, and watching decisions made here shape nearly every part of our lives.

Still, eligibility does not always become participation.

In the 2022 midterm election, naturalized citizens represented 10.2% of the citizen voting-age population but only 8.1% of those who reported voting. Census Bureau estimates translate to a turnout rate of about 41% among naturalized citizens, compared with about 53% among native-born citizens.

I do not see that gap as proof that immigrants do not care. I see it as a reason to ask better questions, such as: Who is teaching new citizens how elections work? Who is reaching families that do not regularly discuss American politics? Who is explaining that the ballot includes judges, school boards, city councils, county officials, amendments, and decisions that affect our daily lives?

Who is telling naturalized citizens, clearly and repeatedly: This belongs to you too.

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Why I joined 1000 Miles to Memphis

This is why I joined 1000 Miles to Memphis. This project is a 36-day, 1,000-mile solidarity march from Nashville to Memphis, traveling through Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

Its goals include registering 100,000 voters, strengthening civic engagement in rural and underserved communities, supporting grassroots organizers, and bringing greater attention to the people already doing this work throughout the South.

What drew me to the march was not the idea that I have always been politically engaged or that I have never missed an election.

The opposite is true: I joined because I remember what it was like to have the right to vote without fully understanding my relationship to it.

I joined because voter registration is important, but registration alone does not close the gap. People also need education, conversation, encouragement, and a reason to believe that their participation matters.

I joined because democracy cannot be something we are expected to understand instinctively. It has to be taught, practiced, protected, and passed on.

We are discussed as a border issue, an economic issue, a security issue, a demographic shift, or a campaign strategy.

We are spoken about as though we are the subject of American politics rather than participants in it.

Voting changes that relationship, it allows us to move from being discussed to helping decide.

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The vote I cast now

I cannot go back and cast the votes I missed in my early adulthood.

I cannot give my younger self the political education she did not receive.

But I can understand her with more compassion.

She had grown up in this country without fully realizing that its political future could belong to her. She had received a legal right before she developed a sense of civic ownership.

Now I vote because I understand that the ballot is more than a piece of paper.

It is one way of saying that I am not a guest in the country where I have built my life.

It is one way of honoring the people whose rights were restricted, challenged, or denied.

It is one way of helping determine what our schools teach, what our communities fund, whose safety is protected, whose families are recognized, and what kind of country we are becoming.

And now I am joining 1000 Miles to Memphis because someone else may be standing where I once stood: eligible, but uncertain; affected, but disconnected; living here, but not yet convinced that their voice belongs here.

The right to vote matters.

But the deeper work is helping people recognize themselves as voters.

The ballot is more than a right. It is a place to belong.

And we belong there.

Who taught you how to vote—and when did you first understand that your political voice belonged to you?

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Why your subscription matters

Independent media only exists when readers choose to support it. If you believe immigrant stories deserve more complexity, beauty, and humanity, please subscribe to Beauty of Belonging.

A free subscription will bring new essays, profiles, interviews, and community stories directly to your inbox. Upgrading to a paid subscription will help support the time required to research, write, interview, edit, publish, and grow this work.

Paid support allows Beauty of Belonging to remain guided by its readers and its mission—not by advertisers, political campaigns, billionaires, or algorithms. You are helping create space for stories that might otherwise be ignored, flattened, or told without us.

You are helping build a publication where immigrants do not have to perform trauma or exceptional success to be seen. A place where beauty and injustice, ambition and rest, cultural pride and personal freedom can exist in the same conversation.

Please subscribe, and if you are able, upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support will help turn Beauty of Belonging into a lasting home for fuller immigrant stories.

Your support means the world. It means we are more than welcome here.

Gwen Lane is a Filipina American immigrant, writer, founder, and cultural commentator behind Beauty of Belonging—an independent publication exploring immigrant identity, beauty, ambition, cultural power, and what it means to feel at home. Subscribe, share, and upgrade to a paid subscription to support independent immigrant-led media that centers immigrant identity, dignity, and belonging.

Subscribe now

As an alternative to a paid subscription, you can make a one-time contribution to support Beauty of Belonging at any amount, from $1 and up. Your contribution helps fund independent immigrant-led storytelling, cultural commentary, and fuller stories about identity, dignity, and belonging.

Make a one-time contribution

I keep thinking about where an ankle monitor sits on the body. It is low enough that people may pretend not to stare, but visible enough that they usually notice.

It can show beneath a dress, above a shoe, at work, at school pickup, during a medical appointment, or while someone is standing in line at the grocery store.

A stranger sees it and may immediately decide they know something about the person wearing it.

That is why I do not believe immigration ankle monitors are only about tracking someone’s location. They also create a public label—one that follows a person into every room and encourages others to see criminality before they see a human being.

That concern feels especially urgent after recent reporting from Ohio. At least a dozen Haitian immigrants from Springfield were reportedly summoned to in-person check-ins in Blue Ash and fitted with ankle monitors.

A private immigration matter was placed directly onto their bodies for the public to see.

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Surveillance that announces itself

ICE calls electronic monitoring part of its Alternatives to Detention program, which allows certain immigrants to remain in their communities while their immigration proceedings continue. The agency can require different forms of supervision, including office visits, phone reporting, digital check-ins, and GPS monitoring.

But an ankle monitor is not socially neutral.

In the United States, people generally associate ankle monitors with criminal punishment. They see the device before they know whether the person has ever been convicted of a crime, missed an appointment, or posed any threat at all. The device speaks first.

It tells an employer that this worker is under government supervision. It tells a neighbor that this person is being watched. It tells a stranger that suspicion has already been attached to them, even when that suspicion has little to do with their individual conduct.

Recent reporting has described asylum seekers and other immigrants being fitted with monitors despite years of attending required check-ins. Wearers and their attorneys have reported physical discomfort, interrupted sleep, employment problems, shame, anxiety, and the stress of never knowing when the device may alert authorities or require charging.

This means the surveillance does not remain between ICE and the person being monitored. It brings employers, neighbors, customers, classmates, and strangers into the process.

Your immigration case becomes public before you choose to share it. Your body carries the announcement.

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Is this level of monitoring even necessary?

The government often presents electronic monitoring as a practical way to ensure that immigrants attend court hearings and appointments. But a 2021 report from the Cardozo School of Law’s Immigration Justice Clinic, Freedom for Immigrants, and the Immigrant Defense Project challenged the assumption that ankle monitors are needed to produce compliance.

The report, Immigration Cyber Prisons, drew from surveys of approximately 150 monitored immigrants, information from legal-service providers covering nearly 1,000 cases, and qualitative interviews. Its authors described physical injuries, psychological distress, employment consequences, privacy concerns, and racial disparities associated with electronic ankle monitoring.

The report also cited a 98 percent appearance rate for immigrants released without electronic ankle shackles. In other words, people were overwhelmingly attending immigration court and required appointments without having a GPS device locked to their bodies.

There may be individual cases in which officials argue that closer supervision is necessary. But mass expansion is not individualized decision-making. It places the burden on immigrants to live under constant surveillance even when they have given the government no reason to assume they will disappear.

In June 2025, an internal ICE memo reportedly instructed officers to dramatically increase ankle-monitor use among people enrolled in the agency’s supervision program. At the time, roughly 24,000 people were wearing the devices, but the directive could have extended them to most of approximately 183,000 program participants.

By early 2026, the monitored population had already risen substantially, with reporting indicating that ankle-monitor use had nearly doubled within months.

This does not look like a carefully limited response to individual risk. It looks like a system choosing the most visible and restrictive option because it has the power to do so.

The stigma is not incidental

I keep returning to the visibility of the monitor because it changes the experience from being tracked to being marked.

A phone check-in can still be invasive. An app that requests a selfie can still violate privacy. Digital surveillance can still follow someone through their daily life.

But the ankle monitor carries an additional social message because the public already reads it as a sign of punishment.

A Haitian parent may know they have followed every instruction. Their child’s classmates do not know that.

An asylum seeker may understand that their case is still pending. A hiring manager may only see the device.

A person may know they have never been convicted of a crime. The stranger staring at their ankle may assume otherwise. The monitor gives the government’s suspicion more visibility than the person’s actual story.

This is how stigma works. It replaces complexity with a symbol and invites everyone else to respond to the symbol.

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The historical pattern we should not ignore

I hesitated before writing about the historical pattern because comparisons involving the Holocaust require care.

An ICE ankle monitor is not the same as the yellow badge that Jewish people were forced to wear under Nazi rule. The histories, intentions, scale, ideologies, and consequences are not interchangeable, and presenting them as identical would flatten the specific horror of the Holocaust.

But refusing a false equivalence does not mean refusing to learn from history.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum explains that governments and religious authorities used identifying badges to mark Jewish people for centuries. Under Nazi rule, the badge became part of a systematic campaign to identify, stigmatize, segregate, control, deport, and ultimately murder European Jews.

The comparison is not that today’s policy has reached the same endpoint. The warning is about the mechanism.

A government chooses a marginalized group. It requires members of that group to carry a visible marker. The public learns to associate the marker with danger, inferiority, criminality, or exclusion. Treatment that once might have seemed shocking begins to look administratively normal.

Visible markers do not merely identify people. They can train the public to see those people differently.

That is what concerns me about ankle monitors being placed on immigrants who are living in their communities, raising families, working, attending appointments, and waiting for their cases to move through a civil legal system.

Once someone is visibly marked as suspicious, surveillance feels justified. Employment discrimination becomes easier to rationalize. Humiliation becomes a private inconvenience instead of a public concern.

Cruelty can hide inside paperwork and technology. History does not repeat itself in exactly the same form. That is why we have to recognize patterns before they reach the same conclusion.

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Someone is profiting from all of this

There is also a financial story behind the expansion of immigrant surveillance.

ICE’s supervision program is operated in part by BI Incorporated, a subsidiary of The GEO Group, one of the federal government’s largest immigration contractors. GEO provides detention, transportation, electronic monitoring, and other services to ICE.

According to Sahan Journal, BI received a two-year federal contract worth more than $1 billion to continue monitoring immigrants. The publication also reported that each person under supervision generated approximately $3.70 per day in revenue for GEO, while individual app-based check-ins could generate additional payments.

Those amounts may sound small when attached to one person for one day.

Multiply them by tens or hundreds of thousands of people, every day, and surveillance becomes a business model.

The Washington Post reported that the proposed expansion to roughly 180,000 ankle monitors could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the contractor operating the program.

That financial incentive matters.

When a private company makes money each time another immigrant is added to a monitoring program, expansion is not only an enforcement decision. It is also a source of recurring revenue.

The government gains control. The company gains income. The immigrant absorbs the physical, emotional, professional, and social consequences.

We should be skeptical of a system in which a person’s restricted freedom becomes a profitable subscription.

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The monitor cannot tell us who someone is

An ankle monitor cannot tell us whether a person is dangerous.

It cannot tell us why they left home, what they survived, whether they have followed every instruction, or how many years they have spent trying to navigate a complicated immigration system.

It cannot tell us whom they love, what kind of parent they are, what they hope to build, or where they are trying to feel at home.

It tells us only that the government has chosen to watch them.

Yet immigrants are already reduced to categories before many people hear their stories: documented or undocumented, admissible or removable, useful or burdensome, deserving or undeserving.

A visible monitor adds another label.

Beauty of Belonging exists because immigrant lives are larger than the systems used to classify them. We should not have to prove exceptional achievement, economic usefulness, perfect behavior, or endless gratitude before others agree that we deserve dignity.

And we should not have to wear the government’s suspicion on our bodies.

I do not want us to grow accustomed to seeing immigrants visibly marked by the state. I do not want a piece of plastic locked around someone’s ankle to decide how we see them before they have the chance to speak.

The monitor is designed to make government power visible. Our responsibility is to keep the immigrant, the human being, visible too.

What happens to a community when government surveillance becomes something everyone can see—but few people are encouraged to question?

Why your subscription matters

Independent media only exists when readers choose to support it. If you believe immigrant stories deserve more complexity, beauty, and humanity, please subscribe to Beauty of Belonging.

A free subscription will bring new essays, profiles, interviews, and community stories directly to your inbox. Upgrading to a paid subscription will help support the time required to research, write, interview, edit, publish, and grow this work.

Paid support allows Beauty of Belonging to remain guided by its readers and its mission—not by advertisers, political campaigns, billionaires, or algorithms. You are helping create space for stories that might otherwise be ignored, flattened, or told without us.

You are helping build a publication where immigrants do not have to perform trauma or exceptional success to be seen. A place where beauty and injustice, ambition and rest, cultural pride and personal freedom can exist in the same conversation.

Please subscribe, and if you are able, upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support will help turn Beauty of Belonging into a lasting home for fuller immigrant stories.

Your support means the world. It means we are more than welcome here.

Gwen Lane is a Filipina American immigrant, writer, founder, and cultural commentator behind Beauty of Belonging—an independent publication exploring immigrant identity, beauty, ambition, cultural power, and what it means to feel at home. Subscribe, share, and upgrade to a paid subscription to support independent immigrant-led media that centers immigrant identity, dignity, and belonging.

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As an alternative to a paid subscription, you can make a one-time contribution to support Beauty of Belonging at any amount, from $1 and up. Your contribution helps fund independent immigrant-led storytelling, cultural commentary, and fuller stories about identity, dignity, and belonging.

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I started writing when I was five years old, shortly after immigrating to the United States from the Philippines. I had spent those first years living with my grandparents in Manila while my parents lived in Los Angeles and waited for my residency to be approved.

When I finally joined them, I was surrounded by family, but I was also entering a home and a country that felt unfamiliar. I was lonely and scared, so I wrote stories and filled journals with the feelings I did not yet know how to explain.

Writing became a place where I could understand myself. In many ways, it gave me somewhere to belong before I understood what belonging meant.

I have been writing and creating ever since. In 2018, I started my first blog, The LA Girl, which I later sold after moving to Minnesota, and I have spent more than a decade building businesses, advising founders, and creating content online.

Lately, I have felt called back to the reason I began writing in the first place: to make sense of what it means to live between worlds and to put language around experiences that are deeply personal but rarely given enough space.

That is why I created Beauty of Belonging.

Support independent immigrant-led media that centers immigrant identity, dignity, and belonging by becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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The stories that are missing

Immigration is constantly discussed in political speeches, campaign ads, news coverage, policy debates, and social media arguments. Yet immigrants themselves are often flattened into crises, threats, workers, victims, statistics, or symbols.

Even when immigrants are celebrated, the stories usually focus on sacrifice, resilience, assimilation, and exceptional success. We are praised for working hard, building businesses, earning degrees, overcoming impossible odds, and remaining grateful for the opportunity to be here.

These stories can be meaningful, but they also create a dangerous expectation: that immigrants must prove their worth before they deserve safety, dignity, or belonging.

What about who we are when we are not working, achieving, struggling, or defending our right to exist?

What about the beauty rituals passed through our families, the names we shorten, the accents we soften, the careers we choose out of obligation, and the loneliness of feeling foreign in more than one place?

Those stories are part of immigration too, but they are rarely given the same attention.

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What Beauty of Belonging will do

Beauty of Belonging is an independent publication exploring immigrant identity, beauty, ambition, cultural power, and what it means to feel at home. It will tell fuller stories about the lives immigrants and children of immigrants build across countries, cultures, families, and identities.

You will find personal essays, cultural commentary, profiles, interviews, and community stories. We will talk about beauty, skin, colorism, language, family expectations, cultural inheritance, burnout, professional ambition, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and the ordinary objects and rituals we carry across borders.

This publication will celebrate immigrant achievement and cultural contribution, but it will never argue that either is the reason immigrants deserve dignity. Immigrant achievement deserves celebration; immigrant dignity should never depend on it.

Why I am building it

I am a Filipina American immigrant who was born in Manila, grew up in Los Angeles, and now lives in Minnesota. I know what it means to arrive, adapt, build a life in a new place, and still wonder where home truly is.

I also know the worlds of media, business, branding, and storytelling. I have spent more than a decade creating content and helping founders grow their work, which has taught me how narratives are created, repeated, packaged, and amplified.

I want to use what I know about storytelling and media to challenge narratives that reduce immigrants to political arguments, economic contributions, or inspirational examples.

I am not approaching these questions from a distance, and I do not have a perfect definition of belonging. I am still living these questions, examining what I inherited, deciding what I want to carry forward, and learning how to build a life without becoming less of myself.

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What I believe about immigrants

Immigrants do not belong because we built the biggest company, earned the most impressive degree, hid our accents, shortened our names, or made ourselves easier to understand. We do not belong because we became exceptional.

We belong because we are human.

We carry more than luggage across borders. We carry language, recipes, beauty rituals, faith, humor, grief, family expectations, ambition, and memory.

We build homes in places that may still call us foreign. We raise children between worlds and learn which parts of ourselves are celebrated, questioned, or expected to disappear.

But belonging should not require disappearance.

Immigrants are not standing outside culture asking to be included. We are already creating it, shaping it, and helping determine what comes next.

Why your subscription matters

Independent media only exists when readers choose to support it. If you believe immigrant stories deserve more complexity, beauty, and humanity, please subscribe to Beauty of Belonging.

A free subscription will bring new essays, profiles, interviews, and community stories directly to your inbox. Upgrading to a paid subscription will help support the time required to research, write, interview, edit, publish, and grow this work.

Paid support allows Beauty of Belonging to remain guided by its readers and its mission—not by advertisers, political campaigns, billionaires, or algorithms. You are helping create space for stories that might otherwise be ignored, flattened, or told without us.

You are helping build a publication where immigrants do not have to perform trauma or exceptional success to be seen. A place where beauty and injustice, ambition and rest, cultural pride and personal freedom can exist in the same conversation.

Please subscribe, and if you are able, upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support will help turn Beauty of Belonging into a lasting home for fuller immigrant stories.

Your support means the world. It means we are more than welcome here.

Gwen Lane is a Filipina American immigrant, writer, founder, and cultural commentator behind Beauty of Belonging—an independent publication exploring immigrant identity, beauty, ambition, cultural power, and what it means to feel at home. Subscribe, share, and upgrade to a paid subscription to support independent immigrant-led media that centers immigrant identity, dignity, and belonging.

Subscribe now

As an alternative to a paid subscription, you can make a one-time contribution to support Beauty of Belonging at any amount, from $1 and up. Your contribution helps fund independent immigrant-led storytelling, cultural commentary, and fuller stories about identity, dignity, and belonging.

Make a one-time contribution

And I get it. If you’ve never been, it probably sounds like another environmental issue. Important, maybe. But distant.

For me, it’s not distant at all.

I’ve lived in Minnesota for almost six years. I’ve done five Boundary Waters trips. The only reason it’s not six is because there was a fire the first year we moved here and our permit was canceled. I’m still annoyed about that one.

Every year, my husband and I plan a 5–7 day trip. Sometimes it’s just us. Sometimes my stepdaughter comes. Sometimes one of the dogs comes too — he’s in the canoe most of the day, so we make sure to stop and let him swim and run on portages.

This is our thing. This is what we do.

My husband grew up going to the Boundary Waters. He had all these stories, these memories he’d been carrying around since childhood. And when we moved to Minnesota, one of the first things he wanted to do was take me there.

We met on a hike. We got together over backpacking. Adventure and the outdoors are woven into the actual fabric of our relationship. So this place didn’t just become a vacation spot.

It became part of our story.

What it’s actually like

If you haven’t been, here’s the simplest way I can describe it: you don’t hike. You paddle.

Through a chain of lakes that stretch farther than you expect. When two lakes don’t connect, you portage — which means you carry everything, including the canoe itself, over land to the next water. And “everything” really means everything. Your food, your gear, your tent, your canoe. All of it.

You filter your drinking water directly from the lake.

You cook every meal yourself.

You carry in what you need and carry out everything you bring.

The campsites are spaced apart so you get real privacy — just a fire grate, a latrine, and whatever you brought. No bathrooms. No showers. No signal. Usually no internet.

You navigate with a map and a compass.

At first that sounds hard. And it is, kind of. But something shifts pretty quickly.

Without all the usual noise, you start paying attention to different things. You read more. You actually talk. You sit in silence and don’t immediately reach for your phone because your phone is useless up there.

We’ve seen loons. Eagles. All kinds of wildlife. We’re still waiting on the moose.

It’s simple in a way that most of life isn’t anymore.

And that’s exactly why it matters.

Why this news broke something in me

The U.S. Senate voted to overturn the protections keeping sulfide-ore copper mining away from this watershed.

This isn’t some generic industrial project. Sulfide-ore copper mining has never been done without polluting nearby water. And this would be happening upstream from the Boundary Waters — which means contamination doesn’t stay put. It moves through the entire system.

We’re talking about risking something that has never been touched. Something that can’t be rebuilt if it’s destroyed. Not for us, and not for anyone who comes after us.

I’m angry. I’m heartbroken. I feel that specific kind of grief that comes when something you love is being threatened by people who will never have to live with the consequences.

What you can do right now

Minnesota has authority to act without waiting on Congress. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources can cancel Twin Metals’ state mineral lease.

Call and tell them to do it.

Commissioner Sarah Strommen: 651-259-5555 Main line: 651-296-6157

If you’re local, show up on Wednesday 4/22 at 10am — MN State Capitol (Earth Day)

If you can’t be there in person: donate, share, follow @savethebwca and @friendsbwcaw.

Keep talking about it. Keep making noise.

The Boundary Waters doesn't make calls or send emails.

It just exists — and waits to see what we do.

It has the people who have been there, who love it, who understand what it means to experience a place that still feels like it hasn’t been ruined yet.

That’s the only thing standing between it and permanent damage.

If you’ve ever been somewhere that made you feel something real — stillness, clarity, like you could finally exhale — you know exactly why this is worth protecting.

They are not posting polished announcements about leadership. But they are organizing, responding, helping, protecting, documenting, and amplifying what is happening in their communities.

If you look closely at the networks of care and resistance across Minnesota, you will notice something: women are everywhere.

Not for recognition. But because someone has to do it.

The Organizers

Some of them are organizers. They are the ones starting the group chats. Scheduling the meetings. Calling the volunteers. Tracking donations. Coordinating rides. Raising funds for mutual aid.

They are holding the spreadsheets, the logistics, the strategy.

Most people will never know their names, but entire movements depend on their ability to bring people together and keep things moving forward.

The Responders

Others are responders. They stand outside in the freezing cold with whistles in their hands and eyes on the street.

They show up when something happens and stay until it’s over.

They are the first people neighbors call when they need someone to witness what’s happening. They are on the scene after someone is abducted to help the family.

The Helpers

There are also the helpers. The ones checking license plates. Delivering groceries. Dropping off meals. Driving people where they need to go.

They are the quiet infrastructure of care.

Most of what they do will never be posted online to protect those they are helping.

The Artists

Some of the most powerful work is coming from artists. Women who are singing in resistance. Writing songs.

Painting murals. Designing posters. Making signs that carry both grief and hope.

Art has always been part of how communities survive moments like this. It tells the truth in ways statistics cannot.

The Teachers

Teachers are working longer hours to support students who are trying to learn while their families navigate uncertainty.

Teachers making classrooms feel safe even when the world outside feels unstable. They have to answer hard questions from the kids who are scared or are asking where their classmates are.

Their work rarely shows up in headlines, but it shapes the next generation.

The Parents

Parents are comforting their children while managing their own fear. Parents making sure other families feel safe. Parents checking on neighbors.

Sometimes, the most radical act is simply continuing to care for the people around you.

The Advocates

There are women walking into courtrooms every day.

Advocates who are fighting for rights, representing families, filing motions, pushing systems to uphold the law.

Courtrooms can feel intimidating and impersonal. But behind those legal arguments are women showing up day after day to advocate for people who need someone on their side.

The Documenters

Some women are documenting what is happening.

They are witnessing, recording, archiving, and processing information so that events cannot be erased or rewritten.

Documentation is not glamorous work. But without it, the truth disappears.

The Amplifiers

They are posting updates. Sharing resources. Reposting information so it reaches the people who need to see it.

They understand something simple but powerful: information can save lives.

Visibility matters.

Why This Matters

These women are not working alone. They are part of networks of neighbors, volunteers, families, organizers, and communities that stretch across Minnesota.

But again and again, when you look closely at the people holding these networks together, you see women doing the work. Because of them: People are safer.

Communities are supported. Millions of dollars have been raised for mutual aid. And the world knows what is happening in Minnesota.

The Women of Minnesota

You may never know many of their names.

They may never receive awards or recognition. But they are the reason communities continue to function in moments that test them.

They are the organizers, the responders, the helpers, the artists, the teachers, the parents, the lawyers, the documenters, and the amplifiers.

And Minnesota is stronger because they show up.

Want to help Minnesota? Click here for more ways to help.

I’ve worked in advertising and marketing for more than 15 years. I started blogging in 2015. For the last 8 years, I’ve helped creators and brands grow as a growth marketing and revenue strategist.

I know how fragile platforms can feel.

I know what it’s like to watch engagement dip. To worry about brand deals. To calculate whether a post will cost you.

And I know what it’s like to lose followers because you decided to speak up.

When I Spoke Up, I Paid for It

When George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, I didn’t stay quiet.

I posted. I protested. I called out racism directly. I supported Black Lives Matter publicly. I used my platform to share resources, amplify Black voices, and speak about systemic injustice.

And I lost followers.

Not quietly.

I was called names.

I received nasty comments.

I was told to “stick to marketing.”

I was told I was being divisive.

I was unfollowed.

Screenshotted.

Canceled in small, petty ways.

Some people who had supported me for years disappeared overnight.

It hurt.

Not because I regretted speaking up — but because it confirmed what I already knew: many people are comfortable with you as long as you don’t disrupt anything.

Silence Feels Safer — Until It Doesn’t

Since then, I’ve watched other creators face similar crossroads.

I’ve seen bold personalities suddenly become neutral when human rights, immigration, housing, or racism enter the conversation.

Not because they don’t care.

But because they remember what happened to someone like me.

They remember the comments.

The unfollows.

The backlash.

And they think: I can’t afford that.

I get it.

When your income depends on visibility, speaking up feels like lighting a match near your livelihood.

But silence is still a strategy.

And strategies have consequences.

Minnesota Made It Personal Again

I’m an immigrant.

Lately, I’ve carried my passport with me every time I leave the house. I’ve hesitated in parking lots. I’ve watched immigrant families in my community shelter in place for months. I’ve seen eviction numbers rise while mutual aid donations slow down.

When you see excessive violence, when families are afraid to go to work, when neighbors gather to demand justice and peace — content feels different.

Silence feels heavier.

It’s no longer about “politics.”

It’s about safety.

It’s about dignity.

It’s about people I know.

Your platform is not neutral in moments like this.

Influence Is Not a Follower Count

One of the biggest excuses I hear is: “I don’t have enough followers for it to matter.”

That’s not true.

If 10 people are listening, you have influence. Teachers shape classrooms of 15 students every day. Parents influence households. Coaches influence teams.

Influence is impact — not scale.

You don’t need a million followers to say, “This matters.”

How to Speak Up Without Burning Everything Down

Here’s what I’ve learned:

You don’t have to scream.

You don’t have to become an activist account overnight.

You don’t have to speak on every issue.

You can:

• Share resources that could help your community.

• Make it clear what your values and beliefs are.

• Amplify others instead of centering yourself.

• Show how you are personally helping and getting involved.

• Be a collaborator on posts and be willing to share.

You can build a platform rooted in clarity, not chaos.

And if some people leave because you believe in human rights — let them.

I promise you this: the right people stay.

Being a Good Creator Means Being Brave

Whenever I lost followers for speaking out, I thought it might permanently damage my business.

It didn’t.

What it did was clarify my community.

It clarified who trusted me.

Who aligned with me.

Who respected me.

You might lose followers.

You might gain something more important.

Community > virality.

Impact > aesthetics.

Integrity > algorithm.

It’s Okay to Be Afraid, Speak Up Anyway

If you’re afraid to speak up, I understand.

But ask yourself this:

What is your platform for?

Is it only for growth?

Or is it also for moments that test who you are?

You don’t have to be fearless.

You just have to decide what matters more: comfort or clarity.

Use your influence for something that matters.

The world needs more people willing to do that.

That sentence is easy to scroll past. It’s harder to sit with.

Behind it are parents who haven’t worked in months. Families who have been sheltering in place. Children who don’t understand why their parents whisper about rent after they go to bed.

And immigrant families are among the most affected.

Families who are already navigating fear.

Families who may not qualify for certain forms of relief.

Families who are weighing impossible decisions — pay rent, buy groceries, send money to relatives, stay home for safety, or go out and risk everything.

Housing insecurity doesn’t happen in isolation. It compounds existing vulnerability. It amplifies fear. It narrows options.

On Tuesday, February 24, 2026, Singing Resistance Twin Cities organized an action at Minneapolis City Hall to demand something simple and urgent: keep Minnesota housed.

They called on city and state leaders to enact:

• A rent and eviction moratorium

• A rent strike pledge with Twin Cities Tenants

• Immediate protections for families at risk

People gathered outside City Hall not because it was convenient — but because it was necessary.

There were songs.

There were signs.

There were neighbors standing shoulder to shoulder.

Not out of anger alone, but out of responsibility.

Because when thousands of families are at risk of losing their homes, it becomes a collective crisis.

Thousands of Minnesota families are in urgent need of rent relief. Mutual aid funds that once saw donations from around the world have slowed. And without a moratorium in place, eviction proceedings move forward — quietly, bureaucratically, relentlessly.

Small businesses are struggling too. Entire neighborhoods feel the strain.

But the heaviest weight is carried by families who are already living with uncertainty.

For immigrant families especially, eviction isn’t just about housing. It can mean exposure. It can mean instability that stretches across immigration status, employment, and safety.

This is why organizers are pushing so hard.

Housing is not political theater. It’s survival.

Here’s How You Can Help

1. Donate

Visit Stand With Minnesota for ways to contribute. Some organizations are matching donations up to $1.5 million, and direct mutual aid funds are still supporting families in urgent need.

2. Join the Rent Strike Pledge

Head to Twin Cities Tenants to sign the pledge, volunteer for phone banking, or join the tenants union.

3. Spread the Word

Amplify awareness. Like. Comment. Repost. Share to your stories. Every interaction increases visibility and helps more people understand what’s at stake.

Follow me @heygwenlane on Threads & Instagram for more updates!

Lately, I’ve avoided going anywhere alone.

I’m scared to get pulled over.

I’m scared to be in a parking lot.

I’m afraid someone will see me, target me, and take me.

I’ve watched white people — citizens, even people born here — get detained. It doesn’t feel like anyone is safe.

I used to go to the gym alone. The coffee shop. The grocery store. Yoga class.

Part of working for myself meant freedom — being able to work from anywhere.

Now I’m afraid to walk my dogs by myself.

When I’m driving, my breath catches when I see an SUV or a car with out-of-state plates.

When I’m walking, everyone looks suspicious — even home services vans.

After watching Renee Good and Alex Pretti get murdered in broad daylight, the fear feels closer. I know it’s not rational to assume it will happen to me. But that’s how my body reacts.

After seeing protestors pepper sprayed, tear gassed, and arrested, I’m afraid to protest — but somehow I still go. There are weekly protests in my suburban neighborhood, and I show up when I can.

I’ve attended rapid response trainings.

Joined Signal chats.

Singing Resistance groups.

Because even though a part of me is afraid, my whole being needs to help.

Before I leave the house, I make sure my passport is with me — even though I’m not convinced it would matter. I haven’t seen many people successfully present documents before being taken.

I stopped wearing my wedding rings outside the house.

I don’t wear jewelry anymore. This one thing that was such a small, joyful part of my normal day — it no longer exists.

People have advised me to turn off location sharing on my phone. But if something happens to me, how will my husband know where I was?

Every day, I read the news.

I scroll social media.

I engage and amplify content from Minnesota because posts from here are being suppressed.

Since the announcement of the drawdown, national attention has shifted. But they’re still here.

Tactics have changed. Expansion into the suburbs. Plain clothes. Anti-ICE stickers on cars. Stories of deception.

Meanwhile, the community is suffering.

Many immigrants and people of color are still sheltering at home, unable to work.

Mutual aid donations have dropped sharply. Before, people from around the world were contributing. Now support has slowed down significantly.

With no rent or eviction moratorium in place, more than 76,000 people need urgent rent relief.

Small businesses have been hit hard too. State officials estimate roughly $200 million in losses in just one month.

And that’s just the financial cost.

We haven’t even begun to measure the mental and emotional toll — on the people detained, the children watching, the families waiting, the neighbors witnessing.

I don’t know if we will ever return to “normal.”

What I do know is this:

People are still helping.

Still organizing.

Still protesting.

Still making art.

Still raising kids.

Still going to work.

Still cooking dinner.

Still showing up.

And I’m not sure where we go from here.

But I know we’re not done.

What You Can Do

If you’re reading this and wondering how to help, start small and start local.

Pay attention.

Check in on people.

Support mutual aid.

Show up to community events.

Donate if you can. Share information responsibly. Know your rights. Offer rides. Offer meals. Offer childcare. Offer your voice.

If you’re an immigrant and you’re afraid, you are not irrational. You are responding to what your body and community have experienced. You deserve safety. You deserve dignity. You deserve to move through your day without fear.

If you’re not directly impacted, this is still your moment to decide who you are in it.

Go this post where I share resources, mutual aid efforts and ways to get involved.

Source: https://www.minneapolismn.gov/news/2026/february/oms-impact/

“What can we do to help?”

You’ve reached out after seeing coverage of the ICE presence, the protests, and the killing of Renee Good. Another person shot just last night, families and children are getting hurt through the increased violence.

That alone tells me something important: you care.

And caring is the beginning of action.

So I want this post to be a practical guide to ways you can support Minnesotans right now, whether you live here, want to help from afar, or just don’t know where to start.

How support looks in the middle of crisis

This moment in Minnesota isn’t abstract. It’s deeply real: neighbors worrying about safety, families afraid to leave their homes, mutual aid networks stretched thin, and countless people asking how to be of help.

And while headlines may focus on politics or protest footage, the work that matters most happens in daily, consistent acts of support such as legal information, mutual aid, food access and sharing reliable information.

Support takes many forms — and you don’t have to do all of them. But choosing one is what moves us from overwhelm to action.

Legal rights and resources

If you or someone you know is dealing with immigration enforcement, accurate legal information can protect lives.

Here are trusted resources you can save, share, and bookmark:

• Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee: Fights for legalization for all, an end to immigration raids and deportations, an end to all anti-immigrant laws, and full equality in all areas of life.

• Immigrant Defense Network: is a network of over 90 community organizations dedicated to protecting and advancing the constitutional rights of immigrant communities across Minnesota.

• Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota: Provides free and low-cost immigration legal services and rights information.

• Mid‑Minnesota Legal Aid: Offers direct legal assistance including immigration law projects.

• ACLU of Minnesota: Know-Your-Rights materials for encounters with ICE and civil liberties education.

• Online Detainee Locator System - To find someone who has been detained by ICE

Good legal information isn’t just for people on the ground. It’s something you can share far and wide with your networks, group chats, and communities.

Know Your Rights:

There are certain rights guaranteed to all people in the United States, regardless of immigration status.

• You have the right to remain silent. If you wish to exercise that right, say so out loud.

• You have the right to refuse to consent to a search of yourself, your car or your home.

• Regardless of your citizenship status, you have constitutional rights.

• You have the right to a lawyer if you are arrested. Ask for one immediately.

• You have the right to record police actions as long as you do not interfere with their activities and are not breaking any other law.

When documenting, practice including information using S.A.L.U.T.E.:

• S – Size: How many people and/or vehicles are present?

• A – Activity: What specifically are they doing?

• L – Location: Address, nearby cross streets, or landmarks

• U – Uniform: What are they wearing or what identification do they have?

• T – Time: Date and time observed

• E – Equipment: What weapons or devices are they carrying?

Mutual aid and direct community support

Mutual aid organizations provide immediate, on-the-ground support — food, transportation, emergency funds, accompaniment, and care.

• Monarca Rapid Response Line - Monarca is a coalition of thousands of workers, students, people of faith, parents, clergy, business owners, teachers, caregivers, and young people that has trained over 20,000 everyday Minnesotans as neighborhood observers to help protect people’s rights where it matters most—on the ground, in our communities.

• UNIDOS MN - A grassroots organization that builds power with Minnesota's working families to advance social, racial, and economic justice for all.

• Community Aid Network - A grassroots volunteer-led organization located in the Bancroft neighborhood of Minneapolis, MN that works to build solidarity with our neighbors, organize volunteers and redistribute resources to ensure everyone has the means for dignified survival.

• Neighbors Helping Neighbors - A community fund for our neighbors impacted by recent ICE enforcement in South Minneapolis and beyond, due to detention, separation, and displacement.

• Latino Voices of Minnesota - A grassroots nonprofit dedicated to uplifting the local Latino community providing essential resources to amplifying the voices of those often unheard, breaking down barriers, ensuring cultural representation, and building a welcoming community for all.

• Stand with Minnesota - A directory of places to donate to which comes from activists on the ground, plugged into the situation. Everything is vetted, with the exception of individual GoFundMe’s (not everyone is in our networks, and we don’t want to pick and choose who is worthy of help.)

These organizations often need more than money — volunteers, translators, drivers, organizers, and people willing to help spread the word.

I’ll be adding more to the list here as I find them, DM me on @heygwenlane on Instagram, Threads or Facebook if you’d like to be added.

Food access and basic needs

Fear can keep families inside. That makes food access, delivery, and community support even more important. Here are some local food shelves and drives:

• Rent Relief: Singing Resistance Twin Cities is raising funds for rent relief for neighborhoods in Powderhorn Park, Phillips, Bryant and Burnsville

• Neighborhood House: Run food shelves and provide family services

• Joyce Uptown Food Shelf: Providing food for families who aren’t able to leave their homes

• Bethel's Little Free Pantry: All items purchased from this list will be put into our Little Free Pantry at Bethel Lutheran Church, 4120 17th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55407. The pantry is outside our 17th Ave door (by the green flag) as long as weather permits. Colder months it's moved inside and only open when the building is open.

• Twin Cities Food Justice: Partner with grocers, co-ops, bakeries, farmers, orchards, and farmers markets in the Twin Cities to take extra or unsalable food and deliver it directly to hunger relief locations.

• Today’s Harvest by Open Cupboard: Located in Maplewood, open 6 days a week with no appointment or documentation needed, no income requirement, open to delivery requests.

• La Vina Burnsville - They are sending out food to over 1,000 families a day who are trapped in their homes fearing ICE as well as providing rent assistance.

If you’re part of a neighborhood group, faith community, or local business, consider asking how your network can help — even in small ways.

ICE OUT Minnesota

I know a lot of you are looking for ways to show your stance and support Minnesota. I launched my ICE OUT Minnesota designs as a way to raise funds for local organizations helping immigrants affected by ICE.

Click here to show support with 100% of proceeds going to local Minnesota organizations helping immigrants affected by ICE.

If you can’t donate money, here’s what you can do

Not everyone has extra money right now. That doesn’t mean you’re powerless.

Here are ways to support Minnesota that don’t require financial donation:

1. Amplify Minnesotan voices doing the work

One of the most impactful things you can do is share accurate, on-the-ground reporting and community voices — especially those closest to what’s happening.

Here are Minnesotan journalists, publications, and community voices covering this moment with care and credibility:

• Sahan Journal – A nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering immigrants and communities of color in Minnesota

• Minnesota Reformer – An independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell

• MPR News - Covering news that matters to Minnesotans since 1973

• RacketMN - A writer-owned, reader-funded, alt-weekly-style publication featuring Minnesota news, politics, music, arts, culture, civic oddities, food and drink, and theater, plus local angles galore

• Mercado Media - An independent news platform based in Minnesota, founded by U.S. Army veteran Andrew Mercado. It focuses on live coverage of breaking news and current events, both locally and internationally.

• Unicorn Riot - A decentralized, educational non-profit media organization reporting underrepresented stories and sheds light on alternative perspectives and systems.

• There are local creators and businesses who are sharing information, mobilizing, and helping the community whose voices you can amplify: Smitten Kitten, Wrecktangle Pizza,

You can:

• Share their articles and videos

• Quote directly from their reporting

• Point people to verified information instead of speculation

Visibility matters especially when misinformation spreads faster than facts.

2. Contact your local officials.

First find their contact information:

• Click here to contact your Representatives

• Click here to contact your Senators

Here’s an example script for you to use:

Hi, my name is [your name] and I’m a constituent from [your city/state].

I’m calling because I’m deeply concerned about the current federal immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota — especially following the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Community members and local leaders have raised serious concerns about federal tactics, transparency, and the safety of our neighbors, including immigrant families and observers.

I believe we need leadership from our elected officials to protect basic safety, transparency, and accountability for everyone in our communities.

I’m asking you to support and call for the following:

1. End the current deployment of ICE and federal enforcement operations in Minnesota so that local law enforcement and state officials can ensure community safety and accountability. Many local leaders, including the Minneapolis mayor and officials, have called for federal agents to leave our city and state.

2. Demand full transparency and a fair investigation that includes state and local law enforcement, not just a federal investigation controlled solely by federal agencies, and that Minnesota has access to evidence and oversight.

3. Support federal action that investigates ICE enforcement practices nationwide, including any patterns of force, use of data against community members, and federal cooperation with local authorities so that communities can trust the process and accountability can be fairly determined.

I hope you will join many Minnesota leaders — elected and community advocates — in demanding accountability, transparency, and the protection of basic safety for all residents. Thank you!

3. Offer skills instead of money

If you have the capacity to volunteer your time and skills, consider:

• Translation or interpretation

• Childcare support through community networks

• Transportation or delivery help

• Admin, organizing, or digital support for nonprofits

• Simply checking in on neighbors who may be affected

Care doesn’t have to be loud to be meaningful.

A reminder before you close this tab

You don’t need to do everything.

You don’t need the perfect words.

You don’t even need to be in Minnesota to make a difference.

And you don’t need permission to care.

Supporting Minnesota right now is about choosing presence over paralysis. It’s about letting clarity replace overwhelm. It’s about remembering that community care is a form of leadership — and leadership doesn’t only belong to people with platforms or power.

If this list helps you, share it.

If one link stands out, save it.

If you know someone who needs to be added to the list, let me know.

Check in with your Minnesota friends, families, and followers.

If one action feels doable, start there.

That’s how support becomes real.

If you would like your organization, business, channel, mutual aid fund or fundraiser to be added to the list, direct message me on @heygwenlane on Instagram, Threads or Facebook or email me at hey@gwenlane.com

My husband and I moved here from LA (where I’m originally from) in 2020 during COVID to be closer to my stepdaughter. Though the freezing winters, icy streets and lack of vegetarian options still sometimes gets to me, I’ve created community here - and I’ve found that it’s been feeling more and more like home.

And right now, what’s happening here isn’t abstract to me. It’s not a headline I can scroll past. It’s my community. My neighbors. Families trying to get their kids to school. People doing their best to live ordinary lives in a moment that feels anything but safe.

A woman was killed. A mother. A member of this community.

And countless other immigrants, people of color, and US citizens are being targeted, assaulted, and detained.

And around that loss, grief and anger — there is fear. And a growing sense that some lives are being treated as collateral, justified away with language meant to make it easier to look elsewhere.

I can’t do that.

I’m not willing to look away.

Why silence no longer feels neutral

I don’t want to pretend this is business as usual.

I don’t want to stay quiet because it might make some people uncomfortable.

And I don’t care if speaking up costs me subscribers (I have 20 here on Substack now, yey!) or followers on social media.

For a long time, many of us were taught that “professionalism” meant restraint.

Don’t be political. Don’t be polarizing. Don’t risk your image.

Especially as women. Especially if you want to be taken seriously.

But here’s what I understand now: silence is not neutral when harm is happening in your community. It’s not a pause. It’s a position.

When people are being targeted.

When families are living in fear.

When violence is explained away instead of interrogated.

Choosing comfort over clarity becomes a form of participation.

And I’m no longer willing to participate that way.

What growth has actually required of me

I’ve built my platforms around growth — but not the version that’s obsessed with optics or applause.

Real growth has asked me to get honest about what I’m willing to protect.

For years, I treated growth as something external: reach, momentum, approval, numbers going up and to the right. But that version of growth came with a cost I didn’t name for a long time.

It required me to stay palatable.

To soften my values.

To edit my voice before I ever opened my mouth.

Eventually, I realized that wasn’t growth at all.

Why I don’t care if this costs me subscribers or followers

I know this kind of post won’t be for everyone.

Some people will unfollow. Some will disagree. Some will decide this isn’t what they came here for.

That’s okay.

I’m not interested in building an audience that only works if I stay quiet when it matters. I’m not interested in protecting a brand that requires me to look away from suffering — especially suffering happening where I live.

If growth demands silence, it’s not aligned with me anymore.

I would rather build something smaller, steadier, and grounded in integrity than something large that asks me to betray my own values.

What support looks like beyond words

If you’re reading this and feeling overwhelmed, unsure what to say, or afraid of saying the wrong thing — you’re not alone.

Silence doesn’t always come from apathy. Often, it comes from fear.

So here are ways to show up that don’t require perfect language:

• Support organizations providing legal aid and emergency resources to immigrant families

• Donate to mutual aid funds helping with housing, food, and legal costs

• Share accurate information and challenge dehumanizing narratives when you hear them

• Check in on people in your community who may be directly impacted

You don’t need a polished statement. You don’t need a large platform.

You just need to decide that caring is worth being visible.

The question I keep coming back to

This moment has forced a quieter, harder question for me:

Who do I want to be when staying silent would be easier?

Leadership isn’t about being liked. Growth isn’t about staying comfortable. And integrity isn’t something you practice only when it’s convenient.

If this post makes some people leave, I can live with that.

What I couldn’t live with is knowing I looked away.

If you’re unsure where you stand right now, that’s okay. Reflection is part of becoming.

But if you’ve felt that quiet pull to speak, to act, to stop editing yourself for the sake of ease — consider this your permission.

Not to be perfect.

Just to be honest.

And to remember that the point of having a voice is using it — especially when it would be easier not to.

Links to resources & ways you can help the people of Minnesota:

UNIDOS - Know Your Rights : Learn how you can protect yourself if something happens to you or a loved one.

Immigrant Defense Network: 612-255-3112 Monarca Rapid Response Line: 612-441-2881

Online Detainee Locator System - To find someone who has been detained by ICE

Organizations you can donate to or volunteer for:

Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee: Fights for legalization for all, an end to immigration raids and deportations, an end to all anti-immigrant laws, and full equality in all areas of life.

Neighborhood House: Run food shelves and provide family services

Joyce Uptown Food Shelf: Providing food for families who aren’t able to leave their homes

Stand with Minnesota Resource Hub: Places to donate in Minnesota to help our communities defend themselves from ICE

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I’m not my usual self this year

I know this because by this time last year, I had already ordered my planner months ago. I had 2026 mapped out. My year in review was done. My word of the year chosen. My goals set.

Everything looked thoughtful and intentional — especially on Instagram.

But this year, I’m moving differently.

Not because I don’t care.

Because I finally know better.

Why urgency no longer feels right

For years, that kind of early planning felt productive. Responsible, even. But by the end of Q1, I was usually exhausted. And most of the things I spent weeks carefully building would quietly fall apart.

Not because I failed.

Because I never planned for rest.

I planned to be productive nonstop — going and going until spring. No margin. No pause. Just momentum. After doing that for nearly a decade, I realized something hard to admit: doing it again would mean choosing burnout again.

And I’m no longer willing to do that.

What slowing down has taught me

It’s uncomfortable to move differently when you’ve been rewarded your whole life for overworking.

I was raised this way. And I’ve spent the last twenty years in therapy, mindfulness, and self-reflection trying to unlearn the belief that my worth is tied to output.

That I am only valuable when I’m producing.

That I need to “do” something to “be” someone worthy of love.

Slowing down has shown me how deeply ingrained that belief still is — and how much patience it takes to loosen its grip.

Healing, I’ve learned, doesn’t respond to deadlines.

The identity I’m learning to release

I’m the eldest daughter and granddaughter of first-generation immigrants.

Which means overachievement wasn’t just encouraged — it was expected. It became my identity. My protection. My proof.

Now, I’m learning to soften that identity.

I remind myself it’s okay to read books purely for enjoyment — not to learn or optimize.

It’s okay to spend hours bullet journaling, adding stickers and doodles simply because it brings me joy.

It’s okay that pickleball is my happy place — that I get to move, compete, and play without it needing to result in medals or money.

These things don’t need to be productive to be meaningful.

And neither do I.

What “not rushing” looks like this year

Not rushing into 2026 doesn’t mean I’m unprepared.

It means I’m listening more closely.

It looks like leaving space in the first quarter instead of filling it.

Setting intentions without locking myself into timelines.

Allowing clarity to arrive slowly.

Building systems that support my life instead of consuming it.

It looks like trusting that consistency doesn’t have to be frantic to be real.

What I’m choosing to carry forward

I’m carrying forward what’s actually worked: self-awareness, movement, steadier rhythms, creative play, and the belief that growth can be quiet.

And I’m leaving behind the pressure to arrive early.

The performance of having everything figured out.

The belief that faster is better.

The idea that rest must be earned.

This is the year I choose not to burn out by the end of the first quarter.

Not because I’m doing less — but because I’m doing things differently.

Maybe 2026 doesn’t need to be rushed into.

Maybe clarity doesn’t need a deadline.

Maybe becoming happens when we finally give ourselves room.