The Unbreakable Crack

Session 1: Miriam (Palestinian American, graphic designer, pessimoptimist)

Dear crack,

Today I realized I check my news feed before I check my own pulse. That's backwards, right? Pulse first. Then chaos. But the chaos is faster.

My lawyer called. Jad's bond hearing got postponed. Again. The judge has a "heavy docket." That means: too many brown people, not enough hours. I've started calculating my life in legal fees. Each "continuance" costs $500. Each $500 is two weeks of groceries. Each two weeks of groceries is one panic attack.

But here's the funny part—I've stopped panicking. I just sit on my floor and stare at you, crack. You've grown, by the way. Two inches since November. Are you a metaphor? Or just bad plumbing?

Both, probably.

I used to hope for good news. Now I hope for the least bad news. That's pessimoptimism. That's survival.

Jad called from the detention center last night. He said the guards took his glasses. He said the food tastes like nothing. He said "Tell Mango I'll be home soon." Mango is his cat. I don't have the heart to tell him Mango ran away three months ago.

Some days I think the crack is the only thing that believes me. Not the courts. Not the headlines. Just you.

— M.

Session 2: Kwame (Liberian American, Uber driver, father of three)

Hello, crack. I don't believe you, but I'm tired of talking to God. He stopped answering after the travel ban.

I drive sixteen hours a day. Not because I want to. Because a 2015 Corolla and a prayer are all I have left. My passengers ask me where I'm from. I say "Brooklyn." They ask again. I say "Brooklyn again." They laugh, but the white ones tip less when they sense an accent.

My son came home from school crying. Another kid called him "deportable." He's eight. He was born in Maimonides Hospital. His favorite food is pizza with pineapple, which I think is a crime, but that's America for you.

Here's what I learned: "Due process" is a word they teach in civics class. In real life, it's a waiting room with no chairs. I have a work permit. I have a tax ID. I have a lease. None of that stops my chest from tightening when I see a black SUV.

My wife says I'm paranoid. I say paranoia is just pattern recognition.

Last week, a passenger left a copy of the Constitution in my backseat. Page 14 was underlined. "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." I laughed so hard I almost crashed.

Crack, tell me: does a shadow ever get tired of being a shadow?

— K.

Session 3: Elena (Mexican American, DACA recipient, nursing student)

Dear crack, 

I'm supposed to be studying for my NCLEX. Instead, I'm whispering to a crack in the ceiling. This is fine. Everything is fine.

The Supreme Court is deciding if I get to keep my life. Again. That's the third time since 2017. I've stopped counting the number of times I've renewed my DACA. Each time, I send $495, two passport photos (smiling, as if my smile matters), and a prayer folded into the envelope. The prayer never gets approved. But the check clears.

My mother calls me every night. She doesn't say "I love you" anymore. She says "Don't get pulled over." That's how we say it now.

I work nights at a diner. The customers call me "Maria." That's not my name. But I answer to it because correcting them takes three seconds, and three seconds is enough time for someone to notice I'm not supposed to be here. Except I am supposed to be here. I've been here since I was two. I dream in English. I cry in Spanish. That's the bilingual experience, crack.

One time, a patient at my clinical rotation thanked me. He said, "You'll make a great nurse someday." I almost cried into his IV bag.

I want to save lives. But first, I have to save my own. And the government keeps moving the goalposts.

My lawyer says I have a 60% chance. I asked him: "Sixty percent of what?" He didn't answer.

— E.

Session 4: Sunita (Indian American, H-1B visa holder, software engineer)

Crack, I don't have time for this. I have a sprint planning meeting in twenty minutes. 

I make $140,000 a year. I have a Master's from Carnegie Mellon. I optimize supply chain algorithms for a company that starts with "A" and ends with "zon." And I am exactly one layoff away from being on a plane to Mumbai.

The new rule says H-1B spouses can't work anymore. My husband is a photographer. He hasn't slept in three days. He's been documenting ICE raids. That's his art now. The galleries don't want it. Too real. Too many brown faces.

My coworkers ask me if I'm "worried about the visa situation." I smile and say "It'll work out." That's a lie. I've been in line for a green card for eight years. The line moves one inch per administration. Under Trump, the line moved backward.

My lawyer sent me a spreadsheet. It predicts my green card approval date: 2047. I'll be 68. By then, the ceiling crack will have swallowed the whole building.

But here's the secret, crack: I'm lucky. I have money. I have a lawyer. I have a job that buys me distance from the worst of it. And that knowledge—that I am the privileged one—keeps me up at night.

Because if I'm drowning, what about everyone else?

Last night I dreamed I was back in Mumbai. My mother was making chai. She said "Why did you leave?" I didn't have an answer.

— S.

Session 5: Alejandro (Undocumented, construction worker, father of a U.S. citizen)

Recorded February 2020

I don't write good English.

I came here in 2005. I built this city. I built the condos where the lawyers live. I painted the walls that the art hangs on. I never took a single dollar from the government. I paid taxes with an ITIN. I never even got a speeding ticket.

Then 2017 came. And suddenly, I am a "criminal." For what? For working. For feeding my daughter. For staying alive.

My daughter is nine. She has an American passport. She asked me last week: "Papi, are you going to disappear?" I told her no. That was another lie.

I live in a basement now. No windows. No crack in the ceiling—just concrete. But I come to Miriam's apartment sometimes to talk to you, crack. Because you are the only thing that has seen us all. The Palestinian. The Liberian. The Mexican. The Indian. The Mexican again, but this time without papers.

We are different. But we share the same fear: the knock. The van. The headline that doesn't name us correctly.

My friend José was deported in 2018. He had been here twenty years. Two kids. A mortgage. They sent him to Guerrero, a place he left when he was three. He calls me every Sunday from a payphone. He says: "Don't send money. Send news."

What news, crack? That the administration is still angry? That eggs cost more than hope? That my daughter cries into her homework?

Some news is just noise. Some news is a knife.

— A.

Session 6: Nadia (Somali American, political organizer, surveillance target)

Recorded July 2018

Dear crack,

Don't judge. Because I'm about to tell you things that would get me put on a list. Another list. There are so many lists now, I think I'm on a list of lists.

I organize. That's what I do. I register voters in Minneapolis. I knock on doors in suburbs where the curtains twitch. I teach people their rights when ICE shows up at 5 AM. I am, according to the administration, a "threat to public safety." My crime? Telling brown people they can vote.

Three months ago, a friend sent me a link. A dark web marketplace. Under "Domestic Intel" was a file. My file. Someone had scraped my entire digital life. My texts. My Venmo. A photo of me at a protest with "ANTIFA LIAISON" written in red over my face. Price: 0.8 Bitcoin. Current bids: 12.

I called the FBI. They said they'd "look into it." That was ninety days ago.

I stopped using my phone. I started meeting people in parks, like spies. My therapist says I'm experiencing "hypervigilance." That's the clinical term for "being right." Because the fear isn't irrational. Someone out there has my address. My routines. The name of my mother's cat.

Last week, a car idled outside my apartment for three hours. No plates. I called the police. They never came.

I have a go-bag now. Passport (expired), cash ($200), burner phone, granola bars. I don't know where I'd go. But the bag makes me feel like I'm doing something.

My volunteers think I'm paranoid. I tell them: paranoia is just trauma with a calendar.

But here's what they don't understand. I'm still here. I still send one message every morning: "We keep going." That's not bravery. That's stubbornness. That's the Pessoptimist in me saying: "They want me to stop. So I won't."

Crack, you're the only one who knows all this. Crumple. Burn. Deny.

— N.

Session 7: Hassan (Egyptian American, small business owner, father of a transgender daughter)

Recorded October 2019

Crack, I don't know why I'm here. My imam says Allah listens. But Allah seems to be santioned, and He hasn't called back.

I own a deli in the Bronx. I've owned it since 2005. I know every customer's name. I know which ones are lonely. I am, according to the Small Business Administration, a "success story." According to the Trump administration, a "national security concern" because my cousin's friend's brother once donated $20 to a mosque in Cairo.

But that's not why I'm here. I'm here because of Layla.

My daughter. Seventeen. She came out as transgender last year. I did not understand. I am an old man from Alexandria. But Layla is my heart. She changed her name from Ahmed. She started wearing her mother's old scarves. She smiled for the first time in years.

Then the administration rolled back protections for transgender people. Then the courts said it was legal to fire someone for being who they are. Now Layla is afraid to leave the apartment.

My fears: Someone will hurt her. ICE will come for me. Inflation will eat my deli. I will fail the only person who calls me Baba.

But Layla said to me last week: "Baba, you're the only safe place left." And I thought: Then I will be a fortress.

I don't have a gun. I don't have a lawyer. I have a deli, a daughter, and a ceiling crack. But that is enough. It has to be.

So I keep opening the store at 6 AM. I keep making sandwiches for lonely people. I keep telling Layla she is beautiful.

— H.

Session 8: Mei (Chinese American, journalist, target of a reverse warrant)

Recorded January 2020

Dear crack,

I am a journalist. I cover family separation at the border. I have interviewed mothers who haven't seen their children in two years. I have written stories that made people cry and then close their browser.

Then the government noticed me.

Last November, my phone started acting strange. Battery draining. Random restarts. A friend said: "You've been Pegasus-ed." Spyware. Then the reverse warrant came. The government demanded data on everyone who searched for my name. They didn't come after me. They came after my audience.

My fear is not for myself. It's for my source. A former ICE employee who gave me documents. If they find her, we both go to prison.

I stopped calling her. I started using encrypted notes passed through library books. I started writing on a typewriter. A literal typewriter. Twelve pounds. I carry it in a backpack like a ghost.

My editor thinks I'm being dramatic. My mother thinks I'm having a breakdown.

They don't understand. The surveillance is not paranoia. The surveillance is real.

But I keep writing. Not because I'm brave. Because someone has to describe the sound of a door closing on a toddler. If they want to silence me, they'll have to do it publicly. And if they do it publicly, maybe someone will care.

That's not a strategy. That's a prayer.

I keep carrying my typewriter. I keep talking to you, crack. You're the only witness without a subpoena.

— M.

Session 9: Kevin (White, male, 34, warehouse supervisor, average in everything)

Recorded February 2020

Yeah. Hi. Whatever.

My name's Kevin. I'm nobody. 5'9". 185 pounds. A beard like every other beard. A 2014 Ford F-150 that will probably outlive me. I move boxes in a warehouse. Then I move them back. I am, by every metric, average. Average height. Average income. Average divorce. Average disappointment.

Here's what nobody tells you about being average: it's loud. The kind of loud that hums at 2 AM when you're wondering where it all went. You had plans. Nothing big. Just enough. Enough to buy the good ground beef. Enough to look your ex-wife in the eye and not see pity.

But enough never comes. And the news says you're the problem.

I watch the headlines. Inflation up. Rent up. My health insurance deductible is a joke. I pulled my own tooth last year. With pliers. And every time I swipe my card and it gets declined, the news tells me who to blame. Immigrants. Socialists. The deep state.

And I want to believe it. Because if it's not their fault, then it's mine.

But I work with a guy from Honduras. Jose. He taught me how to fix my truck for forty bucks. Jose asked if I was okay after my divorce. Jose is not my enemy.

I let the propagandists speak for me. Because they sound sure. And I am not sure of anything except that my back hurts.

I don't want to be angry anymore. Anger is a fire that burns its own house.

I want to be proud. Not of a flag. Of me. Proud that I showed up for my kids. Proud that I didn't become the person the propagandists wanted me to be.

I hope that someone remembers my name. Not because I was famous. Because I was good.

I'm Kevin. I'm average. I'm scared. And I'm still here.

— K.

 

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