Story and photos by Pete Shaw
FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME BE HERE!
I recently saw those words on a sign at a rally demanding that Legacy Emanuel Medical Center’s management cease its collaboration with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). At pretty much any time those words are pertinent, but they feel especially so at this moment when so often the what, where, when, and why do not matter much. With so much awfulness going around, the sign fits most contexts.
But people are rising up and resisting. Some resistance makes the news, but as usual the smaller acts are glossed over, ignored, or just rendered part of a scrapbook that years down the road may be seen as one of many actions that galvanized people into the most important force for resisting fascism: community.
Shortly after the rally, I made my way toward the Lents neighborhood. Friend Daisy had organized a “Whistle Kit Meetup” at the Shami Café on Southeast 72nd Avenue. I am always happy seeing Daisy, and I am always up for seeing these smaller acts of resistance that in fact are never small. In this case, that smaller but still huge act was to bring together people to make whistle kits for alerting people when ICE agents have been spotted. I carry one with me at all times, and I have spares in my car and in my knapsack.
I have a poor sense of smell, but when I crossed the café’s threshold I discerned some of the aroma I associate with Iraqi food. And I feel pretty good about that when I see that in one respect I am only off by a border imposed by France and Britain in the early 1920s. Syrian food on the menu here.
So is solidarity. I spot Daisy at a table across from where the food is prepared. She is with four other people. On the table are some small plastic bags, many pieces of yarn cut to about the same length, informational pamphlets, and of course, whistles. As a firm believer in the dictum that any turnout with one or more people is a great turnout, I smile under my N95 mask. A good job by Daisy who greets me, as she often does, with a blast of exuberance.
“This is fantastic,” I tell her.
She smiles, takes me aside to thank me for coming, and then leads me to the back dining area. It is packed with people, children and adults, sitting around tables with more bags, yarn, pamphlets, and whistles. Around the room are also boxes with completed kits. When I leave, 1,300 of these kits will have been put together, ready for distribution. And judging by the plates of food people are noshing from, both their appetites for justice and food will, at least for a time, be sated.
Kimberléa’s salad looks lovely. They highly recommend it. When I asked why they are here, Kimberléa replies, “I saw my friend who is helping to organize this post about it, and I am hoping to coordinate something like this with a group I organize with. This seemed like a good opportunity to come and see how it was set up, and also just to support making these so they can be distributed to the community.”
Tack, who sits next to Kimberléa, tells me she found out about the event from a Signal chat for the Lents neighborhood and other nearby neighborhood communities. One of her friends has a 3D printer and made the whistles being put into the kits. “So I kind of knew that cotton yarn was a need,” she tells me, “and so I brought some yarn with me. I just wanted to make myself useful. And I also do some mutual aid organizing, and I wanted to learn how these are put together, how they work, and I wanted to bring that back to my group.”
So how do these packets work? For starters, loudly. A few weeks earlier, I blew one in my house. If my brother had called and told me to knock off the racket, I would not have been entirely surprised. He lives in New Jersey. You blow on one of these whistles, and you will attract attention. And that is exactly the point. As the pamphlet notes, it is loud, recognizable, and impossible to ignore.
The pamphlet also provides codes for how to use the whistle. If a person sees ICE agents in the area, they should alert the community by blowing “in a broken rhythm: Pre-pre-pre-pre!” If ICE is detaining someone, then “blow in a continuous, steady rhythm.”
The whistles, and more importantly the crowd of people that they are supposed to bring out when ICE is kidnapping people, are an important and necessary line of defense against the deprivations of ICE and ostensibly the Republican Party and Republican President Donald Trump whom it serves. In December of last year, the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC) received reports of 251 ICE detentions in Oregon, most of them in Marion, Multnomah, and Washington Counties. Between July and December 2025, the PIRC received reports of 1,066 detentions. According to the PIRC, “the number of detentions statewide reported by DHS and other organizations are higher.” For comparison, in 2024, federal immigration agents arrested 113 people in Oregon–still too many, but also significantly less than since Trump took office a year ago.
“They are kidnapping people, spreading fear,” Sam, who identified themself as a person of color, told me earlier in the day at the rally regarding Legacy Emanuel management’s collusion with ICE. “They are using force without having an actual explanation. They are killing people on the streets illegally. But most of all, they are kidnapping people from my community.”
When I asked Sam how they viewed the resistance to ICE in Portland, they replied, “I see it forming very, very strongly. And I’m very happy to be in such a safe and inviting community–communities–here in Portland that have gathered around like today to show support for people who have been marginalized like us, people in my community. It really makes me feel like I’m not alone in this.”
That feeling and understanding of community is palpable in Shami. This is an act of caring not grounded in charity, but one embracing the slogan, An injury to one is an injury to all. More than a whiff of “fuck you for making me be here is in the air,” but so is a much stronger scent of thankfulness and resolve for being among friends and neighbors doing this vital work.
Speaking of scents, it is getting late, and I will be getting home later than intended. I put in a request for some food. As it is being prepared, I talk with Nico, one of the owners of Shami. I tell them how much I always enjoy seeing stuff like this, these cracks of light penetrating the darkness.
“Solidarity as a verb,” I say.
Nico agrees. “We all know to do solidarity as an antidote to fascism. We’ve already got that strength to say, Bring your neighbors, bring in the people you know. Let’s make this bigger. One step broader. One step wider. It’s a beautiful thing. If you don’t know how to get involved, turn to your neighbor and ask.”
For more information on getting involved with making migra whistle packets, go to: Migra Whistle PDX.
For more information on the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition, please go to: https://pircoregon.org/.
