Liam Conejo Ramos’s cheeks are chubby still. He is 5. His brow is knit in the slightest furrow, mouth turned ever so subtly down. His bunny (or is it an elephant?) hat with the long furry ears, the manga eyes, the long strings with bunny paws hanging from them. A beloved child – who looks awful, awful scared.
May the hat keep him toasty, I pray, wherever he is right now in ICE detention.
Someone who loves Liam must have bought this hat for him. They might have imagined his giggle as he tried it on, squealing at the droopy ears. They might have debated between a bunny hat, a cat hat, a puppy hat. Or maybe they took Liam with them to the store, and this is the one he picked out. Bunnies might be his favorite animals; he might have begged for a real one.
One day, when Liam is 9, 10, he will slick back his hair and try out a swagger (though secretly, at night, he will still sneak into mom and dad’s bed). One day he will throw the hat under his bed and let the dust bunnies play with their cousin.
But not yet.
The hat hugs him close.
A man standing behind Liam keeps a grip on his Spiderman backpack. The photographer didn’t care to include him in the picture. Liam can probably feel the weight of his hand. A black SUV stands in front of Liam. The boy is sandwiched between these two mountains, snow recently having fallen from above, collecting below.
His face is awash in fear, dread, a silent pleading. Had he been older, it might have registered outrage, frustration, disappointment, horror. It might read devastation at a dream destroyed.
I wonder: What did the man holding Liam by his backpack feel? Was this the apex of masculinity for him? The essence of patriotism? Of humanity? Or did he go home and tuck his own child into bed – and say sorry, secretly, under his breath, after the child had fallen asleep?
When people talk about the lottery of birth, this is what they speak of.
And maybe there was misfortune on both sides. Maybe the ICE officer was taught to hate when he was a child. Maybe something or someone taught him to hide from his own conscience, the better to justify the horrors he would later perpetuate.
And now Liam has been taught some ugliness. How will these lessons play out for him – for all of us – when he grows up?
