Lady Liberties Use Flash Mobs to Inspire Resistance
The horrors of this administration just keep multiplying. Pick one of them and go after it with all you got.
As the grandchild of people whose lives, and thus their legacy, was preserved because they could migrate to the United States, I have always felt a connection to those seeking this same possibility. That is a theme, but when 3 landscapers were kidnapped from my friend’s company, three blocks from my home, it became personal. All you need to do is an internet search for ICE ARRESTS to start pulling your hair out. How could I use my old lady white skin to counter this misery? You will recall what the late/great Mother Jones said: “You pray for the dead. You fight like hell for the living.” So I started The Lady Liberty Flash Mob.
We are an ad hoc group of American citizens who want to defend the core freedoms that define our democracy and though our past may not sanction this hope, our goal is to make America welcoming. The epitome of that welcome is inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
I thought to use this poem in a way that would garner attention and then distribute information on how to keep yourself and immigrant neighbors as safe as possible in these dark times.
Dark Times for Immigrants are Omnipresent Throughout Our History
For as long as immigration has existed, there has been anti-immigrant sentiment.
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: U.S. President John Adams, a member of the Federalist party, passed the four laws as a reaction to American fear of the impending war with France. The laws increased the residency requirement for American citizenship from five to fourteen years. The second law allowed the deportation of immigrants that were deemed to be “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” The third law allowed the deportation of citizens from an enemy nation during war. The final law limited freedom of speech and banned the publication of “any false, scandalous and malicious writing.” Not at all unlike today, these laws demonstrate that the Federalist government considered immigrants a threat.
In the 1800’s the Irish came to escape The Great Hunger, which we refer to as the Irish Potato Famine. Their labor was heavily exploited. Manual labor, such as building canals, railroad lines, and working in coal mines was the only work they were allowed, and “NO IRISH NEED APPLY” signs were rife. The Irish women sometimes refused to marry as they would be left with many children and no breadwinner when their husbands died at these jobs. In addition, they were Catholics. This county’s first missionaries were sent to convert the Catholics of Canada to Protestantism! As Christopher Klein reports, “In 1849, a clandestine fraternal society of native-born Protestant men called the Order of the Star Spangled Banner formed in New York. Bound by sacred oaths and secret passwords, its members wanted a return to the America they once knew, a land of ‘Temperance, Liberty and Protestantism.’ Similar secret societies with menacing names like the Black Snakes and Rough and Readies sprouted across the country.”
Then, a political party was established, the Know-Nothing Party, based on their belief that Protestantism defined America. They won elections throughout the nation, including eight governorships, 100 Congressmen, and mayors of major cities. Under their watch, Catholic Churches were burnt to the ground. In August 1855 in Louisville, Kentucky, armed Know-Nothing members guarding polling stations on an election day launched street fights against German and Irish Catholics. Homes were burnt down, many German and Irish were attacked, and a priest was killed. In our era, it is Mosques, not Catholic churches, that are being burnt, Democratic campaign offices fired into, and politicians and their families threatened. Irrational fear seems to always need an outlet. As Lincoln ascended, and he was deeply at odds with this movement, the party sunk into oblivion; but not Nativism.
Modern Immigration
I have learned that there are no general categories that all immigrants fit into, but the only truth is that happy people do not leave their home.
In the 70’s a family from Vietnam came to live with me. They had survived an overcrowded fishing boat with no food or water for three long days in the beating sun. A U.S. tanker had initially, despite the exiles waving and calls for help, passed them by. When the captain saw that a storm was coming and knew that the little boat and all its passengers would certainly meet their end, he turned around, threw down a rope ladder, and with every last ounce of strength, 47 people were offered life. The Unitarian Universalist church where I served as religious education director asked the congregation who might have space for a relocated Vietnamese family. I had been a vociferous opponent of this war, and knew that our country was only aiding those who had been tied to the South Vietnamese military. But, I was keeping house for friends who were away for a few years, and did have room. My hand slowly rose. That is how Loan, Lap, and four-year-old Phu Nyguen came to live with me. Irony is the driving force of the universe.
They arrived in the midst of a New England winter with no coats and sandals on their feet, and we began. As time passed and their English improved, I came to understand many things that a vociferous protester would never have had ears for. I heard the stories of how Loan learned to negotiate the black market so she could save money to bribe a guard to visit Lap in the POW camp he was imprisoned in. This distinctly middle class woman learned how to function in an underground marketplace. Once, Loan had walked for many miles after the bus's last stop in the North, constantly fearful of being caught and imprisoned herself, growing thick calluses, just so she could visit her young husband. She eventually paid for Lap’s release from the POW camp. Finally I grew brave enough to ask Lap about his service with the South Vietnamese Air Force. He was able to express that he joined the military because it offered the best pay he could find, and, also, that is what everyone around him was doing.
“North, South,” he shrugged as if it didn’t matter, and pantomimed how he spent his time on the helicopters tasked with seeking out the “enemy.” They played poker and waved to their kinsmen below! This was never really their war. They had simply been caught up in it. This entire experience exploded my ideas about good and bad, right and wrong. We all deserve a safe harbor.
I had a conversation with a Honduran immigrant a couple years ago that brought the Dry Corridor into a very human context. The Dry Corridor are the areas of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras profoundly affected by the climate crisis and endless drought.
Ramon explained to me that in 2010 he used to grow 400 pounds of grain and produce a year. This was enough to both feed his family and sell the extra for needed household and farm items. Each year, that number diminished because of climate issues. Finally in 2022 he said “We left, I had no choice. I could barely grow 50 lbs of food a year. My family was starving.”
The United States, more than any other nation, has generated this life-threatening crisis by how we live. We burn endless amounts of fossil fuels to keep our oversized vehicles on endless highways. We require more of it to heat and cool our oversized homes. Energy from the burning of fossil fuels is required for our exponentially growing demand for consumer goods and AI. On top of this we are destroying the carbon sinks that nature provides by eating up virgin lands, wetlands, and forests for our homes, pipelines, industries, and data centers. All of these have profoundly affected weather patterns that motivated my friend from Honduras, and many others, to find a new home. You might assume that, minimally, we owe them this.
I have been left in a state of utter horror as this present government, through its own form of the SS, known as ICE, has arrested and deported people. One could go on and on about our cruel immigration history and its resonance in today’s politics, but this sets the stage for our present horrors. The Know-Nothing Party never won a presidency. We now have a federal government carrying out policies so dehumanizing and extreme that this nation might just have reached a new nadir. This time around, it is not just inherent racism that weaves through our national culture motivating citizens to act against immigrants. It is sanctioned governmental policy. Unlike The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, we now have a federally sponsored secret police (ICE) that can kidnap people off of the streets, hold them incognito at various prisons and detention centers across the country, and deport them with no due process. And, Homeland Security continues to grow exponentially. One of the signature provisions of the giant spending bill that congressional Republicans passed back in July was an astounding increase in the budget for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The bill allocated $170 billion over four years to the Department of Homeland Security, with $30 billion earmarked for ICE, making it the most well-funded of all the federal law enforcement agencies. The surge in funding was intended in no small part to help ICE hire 10,000 more enforcement officers by the end of 2025, doubling their numbers. Recruitment has reached its own low point of standards. That workforce expansion has included eliminating requirements around Spanish-language proficiency, expanding in both directions the age limits that initially restricted the applicant pool to ages 21 to 40, weakening background checks and other vetting standards including some trainees that have “failed drug testing,” have “disqualifying criminal backgrounds” or simply “don’t meet the physical or academic requirements” to serve. In addition, they are offering “substantial signing bonuses” as part of its hiring process, said Salon. All of this while SNAP benefits and Medicaid are written out of our policies.
Afghani interpreters, who risked their and their family’s lives to aid the U.S. military, to students, workers, children, and many other innocents, whose origins rest in other nations, have been kidnapped off of streets, from their cars, places of employment, and stepping out of voluntary court hearing about their immigration status. This is not my nation; or is it?
Lady Liberty
Emma Lazarus’s poem was the exact right message, but I needed a vehicle to carry it. Did you know that music travels through different neural pathways than the spoken word? That’s why you can sing a commercial jingle from 30 years ago, but not recall one bit from your calculus class! After fitting many tunes around it, I discovered that “America” from West Side Story, with slight editing, offered the cadence, energy, and thematic resonance that we needed. Now, to add some simple movements, make a training video, and beg every friend, every organizational comrade, everyone I ran into at stand-outs to join me.
Lessons Learned: Prior to our first mobbing six months ago, I went down to the Lynn Police Station to let them know that we would be at the Federal Court House the next day. Not only were they friendly and welcoming, it was clear that there was no love lost between city cops and ICE agents. A number of the officers showed up for our maiden mobbing and actually applauded. This was unlike the hostile interactions of my youth when police goaded, gassed, and arrested us Vietnam War protesters. This was a wake up call that our movement might find allies among law enforcement in this fight for justice.
A mailing list of about 70 people doesn’t cut it. If more than seven people are available for an event, it is a miracle equal to Moses parting the Red Sea. We are all busy, but the more Lady Liberties (all gender presentations are welcomed), the more impactful the mobbings. (The term flashing can be misinterpreted!) Please consider becoming a Lady Liberty; join us by filling out this form.
We have staged flash mobs at courthouses and busy intersections like Government Center in Boston, but few of the busy shoppers, commuters, and workers were interested in the hand-outs. We mobbed at the ICE field office in Burlington, at rallies, and stand-outs. These too felt unsatisfying. We were addressing the already aware. Then we hit gold.
We held our first subway action on Dec 10, 2025. As an old preschool teacher, I knew that volume is usually the only variable that can ensure listening. I acquired a portable sound system to be heard over the din.
We arrived on a subway platform at rush hour to find commuters engrossed in their cell phones. I stepped out, lifted the torch and began with the chorus: “I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door.” The reactions? Assuming yet another crazy lady was on the platform they became even more engrossed with their phones. However, once the other Lady Liberties lifted their torches, and added their voices to the song, the commuters understood that this was not a single crazy but a planned action. As soon as the singing ended we announced who we were, why we were there (“We are commemorating International Human Rights Day by trying to make America welcoming again.”) and offered information about how they could keep themselves and their immigrant neighbors a little safer through these dark times. Almost no one came up and asked for the information sheet. So, we each began circulating through the crowds and offered the flyers. People accepted them, but often circuitously. Some would nod shyly. Others made no eye contact, but held their hands out. Some whispered “thank-you.” We live in a fear driven place and time.
Those of us with our pale skin and citizenship have the freedom to speak out, educate, and protect, and drive some of that fear away. We will continue to do so until justice finds us again.
Other Ways to Take Action
There are ongoing protests and stand-outs all around the nation. It is always a boon to join together and express your outrage with this administration and support for the immigrants community. Your local INDIVISIBLE chapter and Mass 50501 a good source for finding these. Creative protests are happening everywhere.
There are organizations in the greater Boston area, like everywhere around the country, that are organizing early warning networks, and supporting immigrants that have been arrested:
LUCE: Sign up at LUCEmass.org to start the onboarding process.
Do initial training, alignment call, additional training, and be plugged into high priority local action
Boston Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN): Sign up at beyondbondboston.org/join to get registration links for trainings. Do initial training, learn about high priority needs, get plugged into buckets of the work statewide
Print and pass out red cards (in multiple languages)
There is ongoing fundraising for the kidnapped. Where to donate and fundraise for top efficacy:
BIJAN: beyondbondboston.org/donate
Top Priority destination for Legal Aid / Legal Fee donations is PAIR: PAIRproject.org/SupportUs
+ Get Vetted lists of GoFundMe and other donor opportunities with Operation Milkweed, LUCE, and BIJAN.
There are national resource hubs such as this one about how to defend against ICE raids.
We can up the ante with humble acts of civil disobedience. After the accounts shared by those held at the Burlington, MA ICE Field Office, a rented building in an office park with no overnight, bathing, or cooking facilities, three activists decided to take action, Nathan Phillips, 58, of Newton, Nastasia Lawton-Sticklor, 42, of Leominster, and Eleanor Reid, 33, of Hanover, New Hampshire. For Nathan Phillips it was a no brainer. He said that they kept hearing of detainees being held for long periods, hungry, cold, and uncared for. When people are hungry, you offer them food was Phillips logic.
Reporting from WBUR on this action includes the following quotes: "We've heard some pretty compelling evidence that people are not being given enough food, not being given sanitary supplies, blankets," said Eleanor Reid of Hanover, N.H., before the arrests. "And since our government is not doing that, we are here to do it ourselves.” They went to the Field Office, said they were there with food and sanitary items for the detainees. When told to go away, they would not. All three face misdemeanor trespassing charges.
This is something we all could do.
If we cease to speak and sing out, we will cease to be heard.
Enjoyed this article? Get updates on the movement, volunteer opportunities, and more by clicking below.