We Keep Us Safe: Cincinnati Edition
Nancy Sullivan with Transformations CDC protests ICE; helps immigrants and their families solve life problems; passes out whistles; passes out food; and never stops serving her community.
Vincent Wilson at Queen City Bike donates bikes so immigrants can get around without cars, and teaches them how to repair them. He also helps people find jobs and legal aid, and file tax returns. "We're in a very difficult time with ICE right now," he said.
The Cincinnati Party for Socialism and Liberation held a tail-light repair clinic to reduce the risk of people being stopped by the police, and helps organize neighborhood-based ICE watch and mutual aid groups.
Sheryl Rajbhandari at Heartfelt Tidbits minds the gaps. People who have had a loved one detained or deported go to them for help putting their lives back together. They serve all types of immigrants and refugees.
These are some of the heroes profiled in the Cincinnati Enquirer story “Beyond the protests, ICE resisters work to protect local immigrants” (read behind paywall). The Ohio Immigrant Alliance is also featured.
Dexter Komakaru’s Back Tattoo
Enquirer: “Komakaru said his own tattoo celebrates his Native American and Mexican heritage. It also acknowledges the loss of a father to deportation and mother to incarceration.
“‘I can neither live with you or without you,’ Latin characters across his back say.”
The article plugs the “Brave of US Immigrant Solidarity Tattoo Design Contest,” which Dexter Komakaru is leading for OIA. From the Enquirer: “With the Trump administration criminalizing some immigrants with tattoos, Komakaru said his own tattoo celebrates his Native American and Mexican heritage. It also acknowledges the loss of a father to deportation and mother to incarceration.”
The contest invites tattoo artists and apprentices to submit tattoo designs that show solidarity with immigrants, for cash prizes and use in permanent tattoos as well as a temporary tattoo booklet. The charge is "to express what it looks like to be in solidarity with immigrants at this moment."
Citlali Elena of the Bird’s Nest tattoo shop in Cincinnati is planning to enter. Her design “incorporates a brown-skinned woman wearing a rebozo (a traditional Mexican shawl used to carry children or supplies) with a milpa (a garden that includes corn, beans and squash).” The theme is "we are stronger together.”
The article closes with mention of “Connecting Ohio: The Ohio Immigrant Hotline’s First Year in Action.”
“It’s so inspiring to see what people in Ohio are doing to help their communities at this scary time,” said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. “The saying is true: ‘We Keep Us Safe.’ No one is coming to save us; we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. The people in this article are contributing to community safety and family unity in ways that suit their skills, talents, and capacities. There are many other heroes across Ohio doing the very same thing. That is why Ohio, with all of its challenges, is still a beautiful place.”
