I recently took up sourdough breadmaking. I’m obviously late to the sourdough craze, which took hold during the Covid pandemic, but I’m no stranger to cooking and baking. I’ve been known to throw some extravagant dinner parties. I spend some weekends challenging myself with new recipes, and I’ve baked plenty of loaves with dry yeast. But I was intimidated by the process of making my own sourdough starter, and the thought of having to wait days before finally enjoying the fruits of my labor was unappealing. Yet that was exactly what my nervous system needed. Daily images of the violence and physiological trauma imposed on Latinos and immigrants have burned me out. Time is distorted: sometimes fleeting, sometimes stuck. I needed a project that would help me reconcile with the fact that change takes time, a project that would give me a sense of control and focus on the linear passage of the hours and days. I wanted to feel normal again. 

First, I had to convince myself that I had all the skills and intuition to be successful. Confidence is half the battle. (I suppose that’s true about most things in life.) I fed the starter flour and water for eight days, but something wasn’t right. Controlling the temperature in my old Los Angeles apartment is tricky in the winter. I did some research and decided to scrap it, but instead of letting it discourage me, I immediately started the process again, having made a new game plan and learned some important lessons. The second time around, things seemed to be progressing, albeit slowly. I took daily notes on feeding times, smells, and adjustments to temperature and feeding quantities. My sourdough starter rose and doubled in size on the seventh day. “She’s alive!” my husband cheered. I had successfully fermented water and flour into active yeast and bacteria, ready to leaven dough. I was actually overcome with relief, a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. I cried, not from joy but from sadness at noting how I’d missed that feeling, all because of everything we’ve witnessed in the last year. It was good to do something normal and to be caught up in the joy of it—to feel, yes, alive.    

Moments of simple happiness like that are welcome when all around we see immigrants being demonized and dehumanized and people targeted and detained just for being (or looking) Latino. I can’t help but worry that one day it will be my turn, or that a friend or family member will be snatched by federal agents and sent off to one of our country’s inhumane detention centers. This is a real possibility after last September’s 6-3 Supreme Court decision in Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem, which cleared the way for racial profiling during immigration raids and sweeps. Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in her dissent: “We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.” Indeed, we shouldn’t have to, but we do. 

Every Latino is a suspect in this country, regardless of immigration status, citizenship, or criminal record. The fear is heightened because detainees face potential violence and abuse. My colleague Regina Munch detailed this in a recent piece for Commonweal. “Detainees are subject to physical and sexual abuse; deprived of medical care, food, water, and sleep; and denied access to legal representation.” She cites  Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-Ga.) January report “detailing over one thousand credible reports of abuse in the immigration system since Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025.”

In the days following Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show, people took to social media posting videos of their families reacting to the performance, many tearful. My sisters and I watched in tears too. It may seem silly to cry over a pop star’s performance, but its depiction of everyday day life in Puerto Rico (familiar to Latinos from so many countries and communities) was that evocative. The performance included street vendors, domino-playing, young women getting manicures, weddings parties, children and the elderly joyfully enmeshed in the social fabric—all a reminder of difficult realities met with great resilience. For those thirteen minutes we remembered how beautiful Puerto Ricans are and how beautiful all people from the Americas are. We celebrated Latinos and the Spanish language, feeling a sense of relief and excitement amid the Trump administration’s campaign against us. (I couldn’t help but recall the October 27, 2024, Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, where speaker Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”)

This weekend’s first Lenten Sunday readings call us to a season of discernment and a commitment to choose what is good, beautiful, and true—to be fully human. The simple things—music, my community, my rising sourdough—will keep me hopeful in the Easter promise, reminding me that I am indeed alive and that this life is beautiful.