Thoughts as we enter a new year

2025 was a devastating year. I don’t even have the words to express the turmoil so many of us have felt as the daily news and our lived realities carried a barrage of threats and tragedies. Only a few days into 2026, it’s following the same trajectory as Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and Medicare cuts take effect and the U.S. invades Venezuela. It’s hard to feel any level of hopefulness the new year often brings as the onslaught on our communities escalates.

I used to feel a naïve sense of gratitude about the times I was living in. The world seemed to get a little better every day. Sometimes I still sit in a busy restaurant, look around at all the smiling people, and feel a sense of privilege that a bunch of strangers can peacefully dine together. The way our lives briefly touch and disconnect so innocently. At the community level, there has been some level of peace until recently. Now, my Latino and immigrant community is rightfully afraid to shop for groceries or go to work because they may not see their families again.

We shouldn’t be surprised at the large-scale terror our government has unleashed on us. It was bound to happen. What’s happening today has been done across the globe for decades, centuries. It’s our founding story. The difference is the overtness. This administration has revealed how vulnerable the illusion of social “progress” is as we watch our rights so easily stripped away. 

I’ve always disliked the word “progress.” The way it’s so carelessly tossed around. As if plans to colonize space reflects the overall health of our society. The richest people in the world can take a day trip to space while millions of people starve or die from preventable diseases and illnesses. These false ideas of progress only serve to mask and distract like celebrity culture, social media trends, and endless others. 

In this first world, there was some level of comfort folks, especially the middle class, were able to achieve. Decent jobs, reasonable healthcare, a home, some savings, a vacation or two each year. That’s something my mom (a boomer) has always said, “I just want to be comfortable.” Now within a few years of retirement, she’s not sure the comfort she envisioned is attainable after refinancing our family home three times and feeling the weight of heavy debt thanks to a series of unfortunate events over the years.

Living in a first world, the harm we cause directly and indirectly will never net zero. I started writing this blog before the bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of their President. And even though I oppose these actions, my tax dollars fund this and so many other atrocities. From the backbreaking labor from the people who harvest our produce to the terrible conditions the people who mine the cobalt that powers our devices face to our government instigating wars, capitalism requires exploitation and violence. Because profits are always over people, over community. Peace is unprofitable. 

I worry about my friends and family. The possibility they will be taken. And we won’t know where they are. I worry about not being able to afford life-saving medication like the diabetes medication that has helped my partner’s dad finally control his blood sugar. It’s no longer covered by Medicaid and will cost $3,500 for a three-month supply. That’s $14,000 per year just for one medication. I worry about people going hungry. The lines at the food distribution site in my neighborhood keep getting longer and longer. Housing costs are rising. Inflation is wreaking havoc on prices. Wages stagnate. Jobs are hard to find. The list feels endless. And to what end?

I cannot do justice to the pain and trauma that is being unleashed so calculated and inhumanly on us at this moment. There are really no words to capture the atrocities that are happening in our communities and around the world. Even though I still have hope for a better future, moving past all the trauma that has occurred just this past year alone and the continued trauma is going to take years. 

After watching people being taken, people being endlessly bombed, people being assaulted with animals, it’s hard not to feel powerless, hopeless, numb. It’s hard not to resent the carelessness of powerful people who decide who lives and who dies on a whim. And every time we shy away from calling it like it is, exploitation, kidnap, genocide, author Yiyun Li says, “Not calling a fact by its name can be the beginning of cruelty and injustice.” We’re beyond that point. This country is literally sanctioning people for reporting facts. As Li also says, “…I know not to make any statement of finality,” and I also won't pretend to know how all this will end.