The year of the snake evokes metamorphosis and strategy. Listening to vibrations of the earth and tasting the air, the snake is adept at both transformation and determined action.
Dear RCS Friends,
As the Lunar New Year marks a shift of ancient constellations, fear and anxiety descends door-to-door on our communities. Aunties are telling us that they are afraid of leaving their homes and unable to gather for our traditional celebrations. We have shifted this year’s LNY priorities to visiting workers in private.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric and mass deportations are a dehumanizing form of “social cleansing,” dividing migrant people between “dirty” and “good,” evoking outdated morality notions of purity. We cannot save our anger for rallies and marches. At the Lunar New Year dinner table, please talk to your friends, your family. How do these threats affect us and our neighbors? What is your immigrant experience? How do your stories differ from those who are targeted by governing powers today?
At the holiday family table, we may not agree with our auntie or brother who sits next to us. Even at the RCS dim sum table, each of us has different experiences, opinions, and lifestyles. Our collective values are based on abolition and community care but each of us practices those values differently.
When we posted a social media that proclaimed “No Cop Presidents,” we lost support from avid followers and funders after that post. RCS core member talked about the struggle with the voting choices. One member lives in a red state and had voted blue, in hopes of purple. It’s not complicated though. We care about the system enough to show up for civic duty, but it’s also important to protest a system that only offers two options—one more harmful than the other.
We have to dream beyond the failed systems and work in the imagination of radical care. Radical care is a strategy of listening to the ground, tasting the air, and determined action.
Share Know Your Rights information.
Print KYR cards at home in different languages to give to friends and neighbors.
Find Local Legal Immigration Advocates.
NAKASEK’s app can be downloaded and does NOT gather data of the user. Languages include Chinese, Urdu, Vietnamese, Thai, Nepali, Hindi, Bangla, Farsi, Mongolian, Spanish, Hatian Creole, Tagalog, Russian, Burmese, and Korean.
Please consider joining our RCS Giving Circle/ Grapevine or make a one time donation so that we may give out more hong bao/ red envelopes to those in need this new moon.
Wishing you all a sound and safe Lunar New Year,
Red Canary Song