The face of a tired but determined educator.

I think a lot about my students, especially these days. I think a lot about their well-being, their safety, if they ate enough that day, if they got enough sleep. I think about their jobs, and their cars, and their families, their responsibilities. I try to remember being a student myself, with the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I think about their safety a lot more these days.

When I started teaching, I made it an unconscious habit, a terrible game if you will, to figure out escape routes from each of my classrooms. I still play occasionally, more often than occasionally. I know the best ways to keep doors sealed, or ways to hide or run without being seen on my side of campus. I've thought about these things a hundred million times.

I'm a teacher in the USA. This is life.

But now, I have additional concerns. I work at a HSI, a Hispanic Serving Institute. We are in the heart of Southern California, where the presence of agents has only increased as the weeks go on. LA has been fighting back for months, and pockets of resistance continue to pop up around LA and OC and the IE.

Last year, our department chair told us what to do if agents DO show up to our classrooms. No other information was given by the school. No trainings, no certificates, not even an active conversation. And now, a year later, I no longer think that procedure is even sufficient.

I wonder what I would do if I see them. I wonder what I WILL do when I see them. Because it's no longer a matter of IF but WHEN.

Two days ago, a fellow instructor revealed they had a student who witnessed their father being taken that morning.

I am terrified. I am determined. I am enraged.

I will cancel classes. I will alert my department. I will help my students get home safely.

And because of that, I will have a target on my back. I may get in trouble. I may lose my job.

I may lose my life.

But at the end of the day, this is my community. I put my students before myself. I shouldn't have to. I shouldn't need to think of escape routes. I shouldn't need to think that if a student vanishes, that they've been agented away. I shouldn't need to think about how I'd put myself on the line to protect them.

But here we are.

I am not complaining. But I am calling into question the way in which this country operates. It is a system of fear, of anxiety, of always looking over your shoulder.

It doesn't have to be.

And when it comes down to it, if I can teach my students that idea, that concept, that TRUTH, then one day hopefully soon, it won't have to be.