In Face of Violence, Racist Rhetoric, and Mass ICE Raids, Latinx Community Leaders Publish Letter Declaring, 'We Will Not Be Silenced'

Banding together after a number of attacks on immigrants and Latinx people in the U.S., more than 200 Latinx entertainers, artists, and rights advocates published a letter in several major newspapers on Friday, which pledges solidarity with people of Latin American descent across the United States.

The letter affirmed that Latinx public figures “will demand dignity and justice” in the face of repeated attacks by President Donald Trump and the Republican Party and called on all Americans to stand with Latinx communities and defend human rights.

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“May we turn this time of despair into a time of action. May our love for one another be the guiding light in these dark times.”
—Open letter to U.S. Latinx community

“If you are feeling terried, heartbroken, and defeated by the barrage of attacks on our community, you are not alone,” the letter reads. “We won’t stop organizing for ourselves, our children, and for the soul of this nation. We call on [our allies] to speak out loudly against hate, to contribute your resources to organizations that support our community, and to hold our leaders accountable.”

The document was printed in the New York Times as well as several Spanish-language newspapers, including El Nuevo Herald, La Opinión, and El Diario. Actors Eva Longoria, America Ferrera, and Diane Guerrero were among the organizers of the effort, gathering signatures from labor rights activist Dolores Huerta, United We Dream co-founder Cristina Jimenez, and entertainers Edward James Olmos and Lin-Manuel Miranda, both outspoken social justice advocates.

Ferrera appeared on MSNBC on Friday to discuss the letter, saying she and her fellow organizers were driven to fight back against the daily barrage of Trump’s attacks on marginalized communities.

“It is so easy to be overwhelmed with the bad news, to be so heartbroken, so devastated, and even numbed to what is happening to human beings in our country at this moment, that it paralyzes us,” Ferrera said. “And we can’t be paralyzed. We have to fight through that, and we have to continue to show up because it matters when we show up.”

The letter was printed two weeks after a gunman drove nine hours from Dallas to El Paso, Texas to target the largely-Latinx city in the deadliest attack on Latin American people in the U.S. in recent history.