I cannot stop thinking about the people who lost everything in the LA fires. Every day that I go about a normal routine, I feel grateful that life goes on like this for me, but also sadness for those who lost friends and loved ones, and those who are having to start over — people with young children who have nowhere to go; the elderly who lost not only homes but a lifetime of memories; musicians who lost their instruments; artists who lost their art; workers who lost their workplaces; business owners who lost their livelihoods.
Disasters bring great bravery alongside great loss, and, in a place like LA, generosity: mutual aid, fundraisers, neighbors helping neighbors. It is reassuring to see this side of humanity, people who spring into action, driven by selflessness and the desire to help — all the donors, volunteers, organizers. Some of those affected by the fires will have an easier time than others; some have significantly more means and strength, along with the wherewithal to wrestle with insurance companies and FEMA. The scale of loss is difficult to fathom: Over 12,000 homes and businesses destroyed by the Eaton and Palisades fires, and more than 150,000 people displaced.
Let’s be honest and call them climate refugees, like those displaced by flooding, desertification and rising sea levels. They join the ranks of people fleeing war, oppression, hunger and humanitarian crises elsewhere. When your basic human rights are denied — when your mere existence is seen as a threat to the powerful and you fear for your life — you flee, often with nothing more than the clothes on your back. Yet the same country that is obsessed with the celebrities who lost lavish homes in the fires treats its own immigrants with disdain, whether they’re multigenerational Americans or recent arrivals, here legally or not. What will become, under President Trump, of the more than 1 million immigrants with Temporary Protected Status? Or the 2.6 million seeking asylum and waiting for their hearings?
What happens to the generosity and mutual aid when the suffering is farther from home? When there are differences in skin color, language, sexual preference, religion? There are many ways in which a once-friendly place can become hostile. The LA firestorm reinforces the fact that the West is increasingly vulnerable to the forces that can uproot masses of human beings. It reminds us that there is more than one kind of refugee — and that at some point in the future, some of them might be your neighbors, or you.
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