Editor’s Note: This story by Luis J. Rodriguez was first published on his Substack Blog and is republished here with permission. Please visit his blog and subscribe.
The fires of division in the United States are being stoked.
Mostly, it’s about “Right” and “Left.” Red and Blue (like gang colors). White and Black (and all shades of brown). I can go on and on. Yes, these are divides we can recognize. But they are the wrong divides.
The worst aspect is that Trump and his administration, much of Congress, and the ideological echo chambers on social media and the Internet keep the flames going. Talk about “hate speech”! The worse hate speech is being issued by Trump himself. Cronies in mass media have gotten Steven Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel pulled off the air (or about to be). Even Elon Musk, who uses X (formerly Twitter) as his personal pressure cooker, is adding fuel to the fire.
Reacting to this is understandable. Often justified. It’s also pulling us into false dichotomies.
Let’s unpack this. I live in a culturally and politically diverse working-class section of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles known as the Northeast Valley. It’s an area born of U.S. history, politics, laws, struggles, migrations, industry, and more.
“The good, bad, and ugly.”
Some half-a-million people live here, similar in size to the City of Miami. It is around 80 percent Mexican and Central American. There’s a significant Black population, almost 10 percent, with the rest consisting of Asians, Whites, and Native Americans (many “nations” but mostly Tataviam). The Northeast Valley includes L.A. city communities like Pacoima, Sylmar, Panorama City, Van Nuys, North Hollywood and one separate city: San Fernando.
While most of this area is modest and clean, it also has poverty, including with housing projects, street gangs, and homelessness. There are homeless encampments in ravines, gulleys, and streets; there are roads lined with RV’s and cars where people live. One elementary school in Pacoima has more unhoused students, over 25 percent, than any other elementary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
It’s important to note there used to be a GM auto plant (now it’s a shopping mall called “The Plant”), a brass foundry, garment shops, and aerospace manufacturing in the Northeast Valley. The big factories, mines, and mills disappeared with the massive deindustrialization the country underwent in the 1970s to the 1990s. Once relatively stable communities became unstable, resulting in high crime rates. For a time, the Northeast Valley had the highest number of homicides in the whole San Fernando Valley.
Nonetheless, things have improved over the years. Crime has drastically decreased. There has been gang intervention, urban peace efforts, resources for youth and families. Various nonprofits assisted, including El Nido (The Nest), Champions in Service, Pacoima Beautiful, Pueblo y Salud (People and Health), as well as collective learning & action groups like Alliance United. Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore in Sylmar, the cultural arts center my wife Trini and I created in 2001, also played a key role. Our center now has the only art gallery, performance space, arts/music/theater/writing workshop center, movie space, and bookstore in the area. We also hold the only annual outdoor arts & literacy festival called “Celebrating Words” with book giveaways, poetry, music, community and service vendors, workshops, and more. Some 3,000 to 5,000 people attended our most recent festivals (this year we celebrated twenty years of “Celebrating Words”) without friction or violence.
They’re antidotes to the times we’re in.
The Northeast Valley today is relatively safe and peaceful. Many of the residents are undocumented, which results in lower crime rates. They work hard, pay taxes (without obtaining government benefits), and contribute to the betterment of all.
I’ve resided in the Northeast Valley for twenty-five years. I love it here. It’s as “American” as burritos, teriyaki, kimchi, chitlins, and apple pie.
While Northeast Valley is a unique and special place, it’s also like many U.S. communities: It’s trying to survive in a postindustrial capitalist world based on maximum profits for major corporations and financial institutions while driving increasingly more people out of the economy. There has been a growing informal economy of street peddlers, landscapers, and even in the drug trade (weed, heroin, meth, fentanyl, Trang… you name it). I’ve seen communities like this in Chicago, Detroit, New York, New Jersey, Appalachia, the Deep South, the Northeast, and the Southwest. In both Red and Blue states.
My community consists of U.S. born and naturalized citizens, differently registered migrants, and the undocumented. They are our neighbors and our family. They all belong. We have heterosexuals, cisgendered, gender non-conforming, Queer, and Trans. They are our neighbors, our family. They belong. Even troubled youth. We provide guidance and healthy means to any of them whenever possible.
During COVID, there was a gang war that took the form of Blacks versus Mexicans. Within a few weeks, five young people were killed. With others in the community, Tia Chucha’s helped create a weekly food giveaway near the largest housing projects (an area with the most Black and brown residents). It was called “Breaking Bread.” This and other efforts stemmed the violence. Tia Chucha’s also has a Trauma to Transformation Program that sends artists, poets, and theater people to prisons, juvenile lockups, and parolee housing, including to Nidorf Juvenile Hall, five minutes from our space, once the largest juvenile lockup in North America.
Because of this work we are not being “terrorized” by gangs or crime. However, since Trump returned to office, he’s declared war against other “Americans”—even using National Guard troops and, in the case of Los Angeles, Marines.
We never asked for any of this. Now we’re being terrorized by federal agents and encroaching Christian Nationalist ideology with ICE raids and anti-Trans politics. Again, what a distraction these divides are from the real issues!
As working-class people, regardless of immigrant status or ethnicity, we have more in common with MAGA people (and anyone else across the ideological spectrum) who suffer the same calamities. This is not about politics but reality—we all endure inflation and jobs loss. The economy, like a natural disaster, doesn’t distinguish between what party you belong to or what news source you listen to. When the economy goes down, it takes most of us down with it.
On the material side, we need shared well-being. I don’t care what “side of the aisle” you relate to—we should all be taken care of as the real divide widens between those who have and those who don’t. That’s what government should do—it’s not “entitlements”—instead of catering to the wealthier and more powerful as it does now regardless of who’s in office (this includes Democrats and Republicans).
Government should free up abundance, instead of manufacturing scarcity.
On the spiritual side, human beings should never be divided into warring factions. Mature spirituality understands that God, Creator, or the Great Mystery, whatever you call the Divine, doesn’t care what color your skin is, or if you’re “Right” or “Left,” or what border you crossed. Earth still holds us; the Sun still shines. Spirit doesn’t care about sex, gender, or who you love (only certain humans do). National identities or party affiliations don’t hold sway. Spirit is not loyal to any nation or any flag. To be clear: It doesn’t care what religion you abide by—do you really think spirit cares who you pray to, how you pray, or what ritual you follow?
That may be good for you and perhaps your faith community. But mature spirituality cares about truth, beauty (art, song, dance, poetry, etc.), and decency. In the latter, are you good to your neighbors, the poor, the stranger? To those most in need. Just like Christ taught in the Gospels! Ultimately, we are all sacred, and even if you have no religion, the Divine, which is everywhere, holds us.
The earth, oceans, and sky are there for everyone (although there are real dangers of climate change). We all breathe the same air. We all walk the same ground. Only certain humans, under certain conditions, have declared some places and people are better or more worthy than others. If anyone claims a religion for this, they are enshrining their own shallowness and arrogance.
Nature has limitations and laws; society has chains.
Yes, have your faith. They’re valid to anyone adhering to a belief-system. But like borders, they are not universal for everyone. Don’t make “faith” a dividing line that forces us to hate and hurt one another.
We must stop falling for the divides that don’t matter. This requires growth in body, mind, and spirit beyond where our government, institutions, and too often our families have taken us. In that spirit, with that kind of governance (they don’t have to be in contradiction), we should declare: It’s time for shared well-being because everyone is sacred.
