Living in a time where history is repeating itself feels like watching a wound reopen while being told it never existed. The deportation of Hispanics today carries an echo that’s too familiar of the past eras when fear was weaponized, identities were criminalized, and entire communities were reduced to headlines and statistics.

Men, women, and children are blamed for crimes they did not commit, labeled as threats without evidence, and expelled from the only homes they’ve ever known. Too often, the accusations are fabricated or exaggerated by others who face no consequence for the harm they used. My cousin was a perfect example of this, along with thousands of others I’ve seen on social media. At first, I didn’t entirely believe it. But when it happened to my own, I realized just how far politics would go.

Consider the all-too-common story of a man detained after a traffic stop because a neighbor falsely reported him as “suspicious.” No criminal record. Years of work, taxes paid, kids in school. A clerical error or a malicious tip spirals into a months-long detention and, eventually, deportation. The accusations sticks longer than the truth ever gets a chance to. The system moves fast when it wants to punish, and painfully slow when it needs to correct itself.

What’s especially jarring is the chorus of responses that follow. “Get over it,” some say. Others insist, “If you don’t like it, do something about it.” And when people do exactly that, when thousands take to the streets, raise their voices, and exercise their First Amendment rights, those same voices suddenly condemn protest itself. Isn’t that ironic? We’re told to speak up, then punished for speaking. Since when did dissent become disloyalty?

It makes you wonder when the rules changed, or whether they only ever applied to some of us. In moments like these, the language of democracy starts to feel hollow, especially when leadership flirts with authoritarian impulses and labels accountability as chaos. You don’t have to call it a dictatorship to recognize the symptoms: the silencing of critics, the criminalization of protest, the scapegoating of the vulnerable.

And yet, I’m glad I was born in this era. Not because its easy but because its revealing. It’s showing us, in real time, how quickly rights can be narrowed and how urgently they must be defended. It’s also showing us something else: solidarity. When one person, regardless of ethnicity, stands up against a wrongful deportation, they’re standing up for humanity. When millions listen, share, march, and refuse to look away, a platform emerges where none existed before.

There’s a spiritual tension in the air, a fight between right and wrong. The wrong is being outed, often by its own contradictions, while the right is finally finding the microphone. This moment isn’t about color as much as it’s about social class: where you were born, how much you earn, how easily your life can be disrupted by a lie. Power draws lines, and those lines rarely protect the poor, if not at all.

We are relearning history. Not the sanitized version, but the one that explains how land was lost, how laws were bent, and how greed, murder, or trickery were dressed up as progress. Who can be PROUD of that?! What honor is there in winning by deception? What pride comes from screwing someone over and calling it destiny?

If history is in fact repeating itself, then so is resistance. And maybe that’s the point. To recognize the pattern, refuse the lie, and choose – again – to stand on the side of dignity.