Leticia’s Creative Obsessions: We are Interconnected

I am holding many different emotions post-election in the United States: fear, anger, anxiety, and a well of grief that opened up inside me several years ago and never dried up. It has simply grown deeper, holding close those I have loved and lost, and all those I didn’t know personally but who I grieve as well; those lost to climate disasters that will become more frequent and will continue to affect all of us; those taken by genocide and ethnic cleansing, whole families killed and taken from this earth in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, and many other regions; those who continue to die from Covid-19 in an ongoing and unacknowledged pandemic as the world mimics “normal” and our “public health” officials continue to dismantle protections for those most vulnerable in our communities; those who have died due to the violence of incarceration, displacement, ableism and medical neglect, transphobia, addiction, poverty, sexual violence, lack of access to reproductive healthcare, and many who have chosen not to keep living in such an uncaring world.

Many people in the US specifically are enraged that we are staring down another Trump presidency and living with the very real fear for those who did not survive the last one, and who may not survive this one. As author and organizer Sarah Jaffe describes in her interview on the Death Panel Podcast (if you aren’t listening to or engaging with this podcast I strongly urge you to do so, especially now), US Capitalism and fascist politics, under both Democrats and Republicans, decides who is “ungrievable” in this world, namely those most vulnerable who our society has been made to believe deserve death in the name of preserving the death machine of Capitalism: elders, marginalized communities, disabled people, people in the global South (especially in Latin America, African countries, and the Middle East), houseless and displaced peoples. We are convinced to vote for a “lesser of two evils,” and maintain trust in a system and politicians that fundamentally don’t care about us because their allegiance is to capital and maintaining power above everything else.

I have been thinking lately about times when I have been convinced to accept mass death as something that had nothing to do with me, or that it was tragic, but outside of my control. Seemingly, it didn’t affect me. But mass death, and how governments and leaders convince us to accept it in the name of “normal,” affects all of us. It may not seem that it is affecting you directly right now, but as history has shown, this kind of dehumanization comes for all of us. Since I was very little, I’ve been accused and praised in equal measure for being too sensitive, for feeling too much. It’s true, I become attached to people, even fictional characters. I cry at the drop of a hat, when I’m grieving, and even when I am enraged. But lately, I have gotten questions, even from people I love and respect, about why I care so much about Palestinians fighting to recover their loved ones or babies being pulled from the rubble of their apartment building, a genocide carried out by an Israeli regime who received 70% of their funding from our US tax dollars. Why do I care about all of the people I will never meet dying from preventable disease and infections? Why do I care about migrants drowning in the Rio Grande river or at sea trying to reach refuge?

My answer would be, why do you not care?

This is not an accusation. It is a genuine invitation. Being a writer and a teaching artist means that doing community work is inherently political for me. Living in a country committing untold atrocities here and abroad is inherently political. We are all complicit in the death machine we may temporarily benefit from, and only we can choose to take steps, every day, to resist it, divest from it, and choose to care for one another instead. I am not a longtime organizer and have made many mistakes and fallen short when it comes to creating inclusive spaces or being engaged in solidarity movements. Building and maintaining a community takes constant work, and when many of us are struggling day to day, it can feel like an insurmountable hurdle. The US culture of idolizing heroes and individual achievement convinces us that we have to take charge, become leaders, and create new movements, but sometimes the best actions we can take towards solidarity and care is to connect with folks who are and have been doing the work and who have the practical knowledge to inform us on where our efforts are most needed.

Here are some actions I have taken in the past few years and will continue to take as things will inevitably become harder, and our interconnectedness and interdependence become more clear. These are just ideas and resources, not an exhaustive list. Maybe you’ve already been doing a lot of community work and if so, I’d love for you to share in the comments.

1. If you stopped masking, it is never too late to start wearing a high-quality mask again. We have been led to believe that the pandemic is over, but all that ended was the CDC and the Biden administration’s ending of the pandemic emergency response, ending uninsured and underinsured people’s access to free vaccinations, ending free at-home test kits, making it infinitely more difficult to access anti-viral medications like Paxlovid and making mask-wearing even less socially acceptable, leading to the cascading effect of regional and city-wide mask bans being introduced and often implemented across the country. Since September of this year, over 1,000 people have died from COVID-19 and many thousands more are becoming disabled or risking long-term disability and death with every infection. Under the Trump administration and the likelihood that RFK Jr will be the US Secretary of Health, we need to take serious measures to protect one another. Here’s what you can do: Invest in high-quality KN95 or 3M Aura respirators (these are reusable) to protect yourself and others. Start by masking in places where folks are most vulnerable and disabled people especially need to access, such as hospitals, doctor’s offices, grocery stores, airports, or public transportation. Get involved with local Mask Blocs in your area (and you can get free masks if you need them!) and support organizations like Clear the Air ATX in your area to advocate for accessible respirators and masks for community members and clean air for all, especially as Covid-19 infections run rampant and other airborne pathogens like a sharp increase in Mycoplasma pneumoniae in young children that is spread through respiratory droplets, Turbucolisis, Measles and the unchecked rise of infections like H5N1 continue to threaten people, especially disabled people, immunocompromised people, elders and children.
2. Use this Pod Mapping exercise created by disabled writer and activist Mia Mingus for the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective. Doing this exercise helped me to understand who in my life I can trust and count on and who I can support in times of crisis or when we each need help. If, like me, this pod may have changed a lot over the last few years, consider ways to engage with new people (see other tips below) to grow this pod map by even one or two people so that we can work against the isolation and exploitation of late-stage capitalism that fears collective power. Start a secure group chat with folks like on Whats App or Signal. Share what skills you have (electronic repair, sewing and knitting, gardening and foraging, cooking and baking, first-aid and CPR, etc). As we see more collapse of societal programs and economy we may have relied on before, this skill sharing will become even more vital.
3. Connect with local mutual aid groups or efforts in your area; Facebook has a lot of these groups, and you can create Discords as well. If you’re not sure where to find these groups or aren’t online as much, look for book clubs at your local library that are reading more politically engaged books or at local independent bookstores. Get involved with efforts to protect and provide resources for incarcerated people and people who are houseless, especially as police budgets around the country have gone up and we are witnessing the criminalization of houseless people even in “liberal” cities. For instance, if you have extra food or can give some canned or nonperishable items to your local food bank or free fridge/mutual aid group like ATX Free Fridge Project. These are also spaces where you can access groceries as you need. We should shift our perspectives to understand that mutual aid is just that, it is mutual. Take what you need and give what you can.
4. Volunteer at your local library. This is something I plan to do this year, especially considering how widespread book banning and attempts to defund and attack libraries, which are truly the last free community spaces in our country. You can also organize book clubs or silent reading activities for books around collective care and organizing!
5. Support movements for solidarity with oppressed groups, even if that is not a part of your identity. I especially think that protest, divestment, and labor organizing movements led by Palestinians, by Black activists, by disabled and queer and trans and youth-led or by student groups are often the most effective because these are people who are most vulnerable to state harm. Movement building is also most effective when there is coalition building between oppressed groups, especially at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability. Reach out to one of these activist groups, attend meetings (masked!) in your area, and offer a skill you might have that is needed in this work. Protesting is valid, but organizing a sustainable movement for liberation and justice requires many more actions year-round.
6. As we come up on the holidays, consider how you can begin to divest as much as possible from the endless and harmful consumerism that our late-stage capitalism uses to keep us exploited, complacent and exhausted. We know that overconsumption is contributing to rapid climate change and climate disasters. We know that inflation and corporate greed they make record-high profits while more people are facing food insecurity and losing their homes. If this election didn’t teach us how little our “elected” officials care about us, we should understand this more clearly now. What they are afraid of is our organizing power and our ability to affect the domestic and global economy. There are many movements, like the Palestinian-led BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement that have done work for decades to educate and activate people into divesting from and resisting companies and government entities who profit from the displacement and suffering of Palestinian people. In addition, Congolese activists and journalists are shouting from the rooftops to divest from buying a new iPhone every year and other devices that use conflict minerals fueling the displacement and genocide of Congolese people. If you need a new device consider buying a refurbished device from Back Market. If you need something for your home or for your family, create a BuyNothing account and make a request to see what is available in your area for free, or post something you would like to give away! If you are gift-giving, consider making something meaningful for your loved ones or buying from only local stores or smaller creators whose values and politics align with your own. There are lots of regional arts bazaars and farmer’s markets where you can support those folks!

The other action I want to highlight is moving through the world with curiosity and reading or engaging with media that can challenge us to break out of preconceived ideas and change our frameworks around what kind of lives we all deserve to live as co-inhabitants on this planet, as well as our connection to all life on Earth. I’m tired of having conversations around representation in electoral politics; I am not interested in “girl bossing,” genocide as we saw so many people do towards the end of Kamala Harris’ campaign. So many environmental activists who consider themselves liberals were attempting to obfuscate the attention on the genocide of Palestinians because climate disasters are supposedly more pressing concerns, but we share a planet! The amount of CO2 created by the missiles being dropped on families in Gaza doesn’t just hang over one country.

What I am interested in is engaging in the long-term work of imagining a better, more accessible, and peaceful world that decenters states, global “leaders” and lethal militaries but rather centers real communal care.

Here are some books and media that have helped me to alter my thinking and understanding of interdependence and how our collective liberation is just that, collective.

1. The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Warning Songs by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. I am savoring this book, working through it slowly with attention and care. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a writer and disabled cultural worker, and this collection of essays is a reminder to all that disabled people are and must be at the forefront of liberation and care work because disability intersects with all other identities. Their essays here honor the collectives they have worked with in the past and the work they have done and draw on past organizing experiences while she also makes space to reflect on and imagine what work is needed to make a more caring and accessible future that must include disabled people.
2. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne marie brown. This is a book I started reading in January 2024 and have been working my way through slowly and thoughtfully. According to a description from the author, this book is “a guidebook for getting in right relationship with change, using our own nature and that of creatures beyond human as our teachers.” I have followed adrienne marie brown’s work for a while and I appreciate her welcoming and loving frameworks across her writing, advocacy work, and the content she shares. Their poem/spell entitled “full moon spell/ for getting through the night” illustrates this work. If you are struggling to learn more how to engage in community building and solidarity work, this is a good place to start.
3. The Book of Delights (1 and 2) by Ross Gay, one of my favorite poets. Gay is also an educator, a gardener and he seems to be a superb human being, and in these two books, he documents “delights” from his everyday life. This could be a persimmon that his neighbor shares with him to something interesting a friend tells him about the birds he witnesses when he is outside gardening. I think these books highlight how delight and joy do not exist outside of hardship and struggle, but because of them, and to be alive is to acknowledge how interconnected we all are.
4. The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven Thrasher. I can’t begin to say how important I think this book is, and I made a whole video about it on my Tik Tok. Check it out and read this book! The audiobook narrated by the author is available through your local library on Hoopla.
5. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This seminal book has been on my to-be-read list for years and I finally took the initiative to read it this year. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a Potawatomi botanist, educator, and author and engages in a lot of educational experiences to help many in the US understand and shift our relationship with the natural world from one of extraction and consumption to one of interdependence and care. I have loved reading the physical book and listening to the audiobook that she narrates, as she has such a beautiful poetic voice and grounds each chapter into her own personal experiences and ancestral knowledge.
6. Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey. Before I started reading this book, I followed Tricia Hersey’s Nap Ministry on Instagram and heard her discuss her work on a podcast and from then on I was hooked. Her work as an author and spacemaker feels vital in actively resisting the exploitative capitalist framework of labor we live in, specifically framing this exploitation within racial capitalism and its history of exploiting and oppressing Black people, especially Black women, from slavery to the present. Her assertions in this book are that real rest allows for clarity and the space to dream and imagine, which is where real liberation work begins. A strong mantra she emphasizes in this book is, “You are enough right now simply because you are alive!”
7. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) by Dean Spade. I just started listening to the audiobook on Hoopla but I know I will most likely also be saving a copy of the ebook to return to and make additional notes on. This is a fairly straightforward and easily digestible guide that explains what mutual aid is, its history in the United States, and how we can incorporate mutual aid into our organizing lives to support one another in meaningful ways.
8. Seed Libraries: And Other Means of Keeping Seeds in the Hands of the People by Cindy Conner. I became interested in reading this book after listening to the Texas Folklife Podcast episode, “Seed Saving and Texas Native Plants,” which highlights the work of the Central Texas Seed Savers. This podcast introduced the history and nature of seed saving and seed libraries as a communal practice to make gardening and growing accessible for all. This is something that enslaved African women did when they braided rice seeds into their hair and Indigenous peoples of the Americas engaging in seed saving to preserve biodiversity and food sovereignty. In this book, Cindy Conner, a permaculture educator and writer, discusses seed saving in the US to protect the food supply, engage in meaningful access to a diverse variety of seeds, and resist the corporate monopoly of industrial farming and seed catalogs. I also learned about and used the seed library at my local public library. See if your local library or community has one!

There are other books on my list to read and engage with such as Black Disability Politics, Health Communism, and We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transformative Justice. These books are often available at your local libraries (if not, request that your library orders them) or on Libby or Hoopla. Haymarket Books, one of my favorite publishers, is currently offering free ebooks, all of which I have on my TBR list, as well as a Free Palestine list of free ebooks, and Verso Books, another great press, has a list of free ebooks towards transformative justice and liberation work.

Creative Prompts

If you aren’t reading or following the poet and cultural organizer Rasha Abdulhadi, you need to be! Their work as both poet and advocate is vital, and they have really challenged our thinking about what role poets and writers have in a country committing genocide and what our relationships and allegiances should be to outside of allegiance to nation-states. I wanted to share these writing prompts, “Prompting us toward resistance & refusal, toward honesty & action,” which I have found useful when considering what my role is as a writer and creator in community with others and how this work takes shape in resistance to injustice and working towards a better world. I don’t have that figured out yet, but it feels like important ongoing work!

In addition, there is a wonderful initiative called Workshops 4 Gaza where different writers and teaching artists are offering a variety of organizing and creative workshops. All of the funds collected go towards supporting mutual aid organizations in Gaza that are supporting besieged Palestinian families. There are so many I want to sign up for!

What’s Happening with Leticia?

My heart is full after a busy 29th annual Texas Book Festival. We supported our Austin Bat Cave students at the Fresh Ink Youth Reading and I got to moderate the Middle-Grade Horror Panel and am loving the books by the authors I will be in conversation with, Adrianna Cuevas and Mark Oshiro.

I am also offering my virtual class, What Happens Inside: A Body Horror Workshop, in partnership with Gemini Ink in November. The second session is happening tomorrow, and you can still sign up! Next week I will be sharing another newsletter (2 in one month!) with the reading list from this workshop and some of the activities from this workshop for you to try out!

I will be reading some of my poetry from my chapbook I am currently submitting at the Garden Party Collective’s 2024 Online Reading on December 18th at 7pm CST. You can register here to attend this virtual reading and hear some of my work!

Sending you care, rest and creative energy until next time!