News & Commentary

The fifth of six children, John Alvin Henderson was born in Indianapolis, raised in Tuskegee, Alabama, and Silver Spring, Maryland, and traveled far before finding home with his wife and children in Baltimore. Of the city, John says, “there is a sense of community with the place that called to me.” Living his earliest years in Tuskegee, a hyper-segregated city, John has always been aware of the importance of civil rights and community. In fact, what first drew John to the ACLU of Maryland was our commitment to intentionally further racial justice. 

On Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017, at around 4:36 PM, Baltimore Police Department homicide Detective Sean Suiter suffered a fatal gunshot wound to his head, from his own service weapon, in a vacant lot in the Harlem Park neighborhood in Baltimore. 

On Tuesday Nov. 12, crowds gathered in front of the U.S. Supreme Court for the “Here is Home” rally, holding signs that read “Defend DACA” and “Let Dreamers Dream.” In the cold pouring rain, protestors cried, “Ni la llueva, ni el ventó, detiene el movimiento,” which translates to neither the rain nor the wind stops the movement.

By Marion Gray-Hopkins, president of the Coalition of Concerned Mothers

Latinidad is complicated for me. It’s the transgenerational trauma passing through our bloodlines. It’s the constant reminders of the horrors our ancestors suffered and the atrocities some of our other ancestors likely committed. Latinidad is being hurt, learning from our abusers, and subjecting our very own to that same persecution. Latinidad is a violent term in itself: A monolith that erases Black and Indigenous people, it works to silence the experiences of non-white/mestizo people both in the United States and abroad. 

While some may see my family’s history as solely an immigrant story, I know my family’s story is as American as any other immigrant’s story in our country. My mother came to the United States back in 1984, during the Guatemalan civil war. My dad crossed over the border to be with her in Los Angeles. They had two children, me and my brother. My parents worked hard to provide for us and our extended family, despite facing years of minimum wage jobs and discrimination. 

With their lives at stake, my family had to move quickly and didn’t even have time to say goodbye to their home, for fear that the military would soon arrive to their village. They left everything they knew behind to stay alive, to be together.  To the comunidad latina, family means everything. And we’d do anything for our family.  The Trump administration’s inhumane immigration policies, from denying asylum claims to Central American migrants to kids in cages to separating families, has unfairly targeted Latinx people. These policies not only psychologically and physically damage individuals, but they aim to dismantle the idea of unity and family. Something that is so central to our Latinx identity.