Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

2/20/2025

Surviving the trump administration, A Daily Thread. Episode 29: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Trigger warning: suicide, bullying.

Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, an 11-year-old girl from Texas, ended her life on February 8 after months of bullying from her sixth grade classmates about her family’s immigration status, with some of them threatening to report her to ICE or saying she was going to be an orphan after her family was deported.

Holy shit. I don’t know how to process this.

A big part of me wants to jump to rage and blame. Like, OF COURSE the hateful policies being implemented by the trump administration – ramping up ICE raids, rounding people up and herding them into camps to deport them, spewing vitriol about the “illegals” “stealing all our jobs” or even “eating the dogs, eating the cats” – OF COURSE this is having a ripple effect of hate that is filtering all the way down to 11-year-olds.

But my God. It’s unconscionable that we as a nation are taking hate to these magnitudes. It should not matter if we “disagree” on whether/how immigrants are “allowed” to be here. Never mind that except for Native Americans, we’re ALL IMMIGRANTS.

That’s right. I’m descended from immigrants from Germany, England, and Scotland primarily. The things that separate me are 1) my family is white; 2) the countries my ancestors immigrated from were never on the list of “disallowed” countries; and 3) my family’s immigration happened as long ago as pre-Revolutionary War for some of my ancestors, or several generations ago for the more recent arrivals. We’ve never been at risk of being labeled “illegal” for immigrating here.

Another part of me is SO SAD. Jocelynn was 11 years old. A sixth grader. I remember being in sixth grade. That’s a tough age, even without the extreme bullying she faced. No one deserves to have to deal with so much hate and ostracization. No one deserves to feel so hopeless that there is no other choice than to end it all. At 11 years old.

I’d like to conclude with an action step, but honestly, nothing I can suggest feels like enough. Hearing people say “thoughts and prayers” makes me want to scream – because what we need is action and change. It seems to me that we have to start where we are – and so, one thing I know is that we need to advocate for love, inclusion, and human connection in every way possible in our personal circles, and push to find ways to make those circles of influence bigger as we contribute to our collective fight for “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” For EVERYONE.

#survivingthetrumpadministration #fightfascism #notmypresident #standupspeakout #strongertogether