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[Para ver la versión en español visite aquí).
Dear Neighbors,
This weekend as fireworks brighten our skies, we must ask ourselves: What does freedom truly mean in today's America?
What does it mean in a nation where rights are rolled back with the stroke of a pen, where families are torn apart in the dead of night, and where billionaires rig the game while everyday people are left to foot the bill?
This Fourth of July, I’m not writing to you with fireworks in my eyes—but with clarity in my heart. Because while the flags wave and the anthems play, millions of Americans are left asking: Who is this celebration really for?
Laws are being passed behind closed doors—without consent, without conscience—aimed not at justice, but to consolidate control. Immigrant families are being hunted and deported like fugitives. Black and brown communities face relentless dehumanization. Women’s bodies are being legislated. Tenants across our city just saw another rent hike—3% for one-year leases, 4.5% for two-year leases—while their buildings crumble, calls for repairs go unanswered, and the landlords cash in.
Across the country, too many are targeted simply for how they look, or where they come from—a grim reminder of how hate festers when fear is left unchecked, and how too often, our deepest wounds are politicized instead of healed.
Meanwhile, the ultra-wealthy have hijacked our system, rewriting the rules to serve themselves and undoing generations of hard-won progress.
This is not freedom. It is a mirage—built atop someone else’s suffering.
In moments like this, I am reminded of Frederick Douglass’s searing Fourth of July address, in which he asked a divided nation: “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” It was not a question meant to provoke—it was meant to reveal the distance between the promise of liberty and the lived reality of oppression.
His words still resonate, still challenge us to confront the deep contradictions and injustices of our time.
So today, we echo that call. Because what, to the working class, to immigrants, to women and all marginalized people—is this holiday, if not a reminder of freedoms denied and dreams deferred?
But still—we gather. Still—we love. Still—we hope. That, too, is resistance. That is our quiet revolution.
So this weekend, I urge you: Spend time with those you cherish. Break bread. Share joy. And in those moments of pause, ask yourself: What kind of country do we want to live in? What kind of freedom are we willing to fight for?
Because real freedom is not handed down by the powerful—it must be built by the people. For the people.
In the sections that follow, you’ll find legislative updates, community highlights, and vital resources. Because democracy is not something we inherit—it’s something we build. Together.
In Unity,
RJ
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