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Partisan identity can shape which facts we accept, even when we believe we are judging fairly.

A neighborhood's reputation cannot tell us whether the children living there feel safe or supported.

Delano farmworkers and the Panthers paired resistance with practical care for their communities.

Forgiveness takes different forms; healing can also change what the next generation experiences.

I grew up in a valley that fed this country while children nearby went hungry. My grandparents worked in the fields, then walked into stores where people judged them for not speaking English. They helped put food on people’s tables, yet still had to prove they belonged in the very place they called home.

By fourteen, I was homeless. I learned survival before I finished being a child. Police harassed me and others in my neighborhood. At school, adults saw how I looked and reacted, then asked what I was carrying. I grew up feeling that strangers knew my story better than I did.

I wasn’t in a gang. Many children around me weren’t either. Some avoided violence; others sought protection or belonging in gangs, despite the dangers. Families deserved safe streets. So did children growing up on them.

Sanger, a farming town near Fresno, obtained gang injunctions in 2003 and 2012. Prosecutors credited the first with fewer calls for service. Families feared gang violence; children like me also feared being mistaken for it. The numbers couldn’t tell us who had a safe place to go or an adult willing to listen.

A neighborhood could be called dangerous while the children living there were themselves in danger. We saw the label before we saw the child.

What Pain Can Teach Us to See

I know anger. It can stay with you long after the moment that caused it. When you’ve felt unseen, someone who stands up for your people can feel like the first person who sees you. That loyalty carries love. It can also make us reluctant to question what happens in our name.

A confrontation appears on a phone. Before hearing the whole story, we know whom to praise. Psychologists Jay Van Bavel and Andrea Pereira describe how political party identity can shape which information we accept. Their model........

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