Selena Gomez, Jennifer Lopez, America Ferrera, And 200 Other Celebrities Signed A Letter To The Latinx Community

By Lauren Rearick


More than 200 Latinx activists, artists, and civil rights leaders are taking a stand for their community, and so they want Hollywood — and the rest of the world — to take action.


On Friday, August 16, 2019, a letter to the Latinx community appeared in the New York Times, El Nuevo Herald, La Opinión, and El Diari, CNN reported. The piece was written by actors America Ferrera, Eva Longoria, Olga Segura, and Diane Guerrero, and also writer Alex Martinez Kondracke and activist Mónica Ramírez and signed by nearly 200 supporters, including Selena Gomez, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The letter begins by providing support to Latinx community members that might feel “terrified, heartbroken, or alone,” and goes on to pledge a continued denouncement of hate crimes, and acknowledged the “targeted” attacks against Latinx people.


“We have been smeared by political rhetoric and murdered in violent hate crimes,” the letter reads. “We have been separated from our families and watched our children caged. We have been targeted with mass shootings and mass ICE raids meant to terrify us, squash our hopes, and break our spirits.”


The letter goes on to issue support from the undersigned to any Latinx people: “We will not be silenced,” the letter reads. “We will continue to denounce any hateful and inhumane treatment of our community. We plan to demand dignity and justice. Though real pain and fear are sweeping through our communities, we remain powerful.”


In its closing remarks, the supporters of the letter call for action, and ask for allies to speak up, expressing, “We need you. We cannot make change without your voices and action. We call on you to speak out loudly against hate, to contribute your resources to corporations that support our community, and to hold our leaders accountable.”


In a public statement, Longoria explained that a “moral crisis in our country” had spurred the letter’s creation. “Integrity begins with looking in the resemble and this letter calls on each person, not just our community, to pick humanity and decency over hate and violence,” she explained.


The letter arrived following a recent ICE raid in Mississippi wherein 680 undocumented workers were taken into custody, and some children were separated from their parents. Those raids happened the same day President Donald Trump visited El Paso in the wake of a mass shooting by a white supremacist who killed 22 people, many of those Latinx; per authorities, he had allegedly posted a hate screed ahead of the attack, and blamed Mexicans and other immigrants for a so-called “Hispanic invasion” of Texas, which was once segment of Mexico. Crucially, Trump and his supporters have also echoed such language any time talking about several immigrants, and especially Black and brown people.


“As a Latina, my heart breaks with every attack on our dignity, humanity and lives,” Ferrera mentioned in a statement. “And as a American, I fear for the future of my nation once our culture and policies lack a generic decency and respect for human life. We all have a responsibility to show up in this moment and demand decency for one another and for our country.”


in case if you've the monetary means, a collection of organizations are taking donations for children and families affected by separation. As Zenén Jaimes Pérez, the advocacy director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, previously told MTV News, you could studies local community businesses or keep an eye out for protest or events being contained in support of the Latinx community. You could also contact your local or national politicians and ask what they’re doing to help, and educate yourself on potential presidential candidates and vote in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.


And Guerrero touched on the repercussions of continued inaction. “We don’t have look far to be able to see what family member separation and hateful rhetoric is doing to the people in our country,” she mentioned. “If don't act, we plan to be complicit in one of history’s greatest tragedies.”